Orchid-shoes: planting and care. Advice of experienced.

I really love traveling, I travel around the world and often visit orchid gardens, especially in tropical countries. And of course, I am completely delighted with the variety, beauty and form of these wonderful flowers.

Many times I tried to have orchids in my garden in the open ground (of course, not all, but there are several genera, for example Pleione, which theoretically can hibernate in our climate), but unfortunately, attempts to acclimatize them have not yet been crowned with success, although the dream has remained.

True, orchids from our forest near Moscow (dactylorises) at my site grew well and even were sown, but I felt that the opportunities for them do not end there.

During one of the meetings in 2004, my friend Sergey told me that he had seen in the Far East tsipripedium (Venus shoe) quite an incredible yellow color in one of his entomological hikes many years ago.

I did not believe him very much, because such cyprindiomas (namely, Cypripedium macranhum of yellow color) grow only on the Japanese island of Rebun. This is a great rarity, which is very strictly guarded. It is impossible to get plants, only seeds can be obtained, and they are very expensive, and they do not grow very well, they require specific conditions, and before planting into the open ground, and even more so before flowering, an infinitely small number of plants is reached.

But the temptation was great, and in 2006 we went on the first "shoe" expedition to the Far East. The expedition was very successful. In 10 days we managed to find some interesting forms large-flower shoe (Cypripedium Macranthum) and its hybrid with (Cypripedium calceolus), known under the name inflatable slipper (Cypripedium ventncosum). Including yellow, though not large-flowered, but swollen.

After that, many years of testing began - the selection of illumination, substrates, humidity and many other factors. But now we can confidently say that these beautiful orchids have taken root in the garden, grow quietly, not requiring any shamanistic dances around them. So I think that these are ordinary garden plants that can grow in the middle lane and much more north (in the north-west) in the garden of each of us.

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See also: Flowers of the pafiheduleum or Veninina slippers - care and features of orchids

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The limitation is rather the southern border (approximately at the latitude of Voronezh), because these orchids require a fairly cold winter and in a warmer climate they grow, but not actively bloom. Although the experience of our European friends says that further advancement of these orchids to the south is possible.

What is the key to success, what should be done to make these beautiful plants settle in our gardens?

I would like to highlight a few points.

Cultivating Cyripediums - Care Tips

1. The first and most important - in no case do not buy plants that have been dug in nature. The fact is that these orchids have very specific habits, and it will be much more difficult to adapt savages to the conditions of your garden than plants grown in nurseries. The average acclimatization period of a wild plant is 3-4 years, and only then it becomes clear whether it will live with you or not. Even if you place them in the most suitable conditions, the attack will be very large. Moreover, now there is an opportunity to buy beautiful plants of German and Belgian breeders. Yes, they are quite expensive, but they are worth it. However, it is no more expensive than rare varieties of lilies, hellebores and other perennials.

2. The second is selection of substrate. It is clear that orchids are endless, but now I recommend a substrate for the most, in my opinion, interesting and adapted for our garden - large-flowered shoes, present, their hybrids and North American slipper royal (Cypripedium reginae).

For them, the substrate is simple enough. It is necessary to take in an equal ratio the composted fine pine bark

{it just means that she spent one season under the open sky, nothing more), dolomite crumbs the size of 1-3 mm (now she is usually fed chickens, it, by the way, can be replaced by shell rock, you do not need to just replace it with dolomite flour, it should be just a crumb) and crushed ordinary expanded clay. The result is a friable mixture into which you can easily drop your hands, its pH is of the order of 7. It is well air-and moisture-permeable.

Z. And the third secret of growing shoes in the suburbs is illumination. In no case should you allow the plants to be in the middle of the day in full sun, so on the south side of your pets should grow a tree or a bush or be a pritenochnaya design (fence, wall of the house), covering the midday sun. That is, in the morning the plants are lit, from 11 h to 15-16 h is in the shade, and with 16-18 h again falls under the direct sun.

IN THE NATURE OF ORCHIDS most often grow in oak forests.

Oak is beautiful in that. that it has a root root, a very long decaying foliage, which creates a good loose litter.

And the oak blossoms late - that is, in spring, when the sun is not very hard, shoes get it all, and later oak foliage protects orchids from excess light.

In our climate, plants can also provide such conditions, probably, only oak, since most other trees have a superficial root system. Not a bad option - grow orchids under the pines. But at the same time, additional attention will have to be paid to adjusting the acidity of the soil, as pine needles acidify the soil. If oaks and pines do not grow on your site, I propose to put shoes on an artificial shade or isolate the footprint from tree roots, and then you can plant them under any other tree.

To do this, it is enough to dig a planting pit 60 × 60 cm in size and about 30 cm deep, cover it with dense covering material, cover it with a substrate and plant orchids there. At the same time, you can be sure that your plants will not experience root competition from the side of the apple tree, Christmas tree or juniper.

FROM THE POINT OF VISION OF THE WATER tsipripijumy do not make special demands. In a drought, once in 2 weeks you can pour a watering can for each plant, and this is more than enough.

ONE SITE BASKMACHTS CAN LIVE ABOUT 11-15 YEARS.

CONTRACTING fertilizers these plants do not require. You do not even need to try to feed them something, they will get everything they need from the soil.

Undoubtedly, if you add fertilizers to irrigation water or scatter them around orchids, they immediately respond very actively to them. In the current season, a large vegetative mass will grow, perhaps, there will be larger flowers. But you have to understand that later it will be aroused by the fact that the plants will be very prone to diseases next year, because by feeding you have broken their cycle of development. Therefore, I do not use fertilizers on orchids.

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Reference by topic: Growing venereal shoes (orchid) at home and in the garden

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The only agrotechnical technique that I apply is to pour a fresh layer of substrate 2-3 cm thick every 1-2 years and plant or divide especially grown specimens. And here we must rather proceed from the degree of thickening of the bush. If there are a lot of flowers and they begin to “choke” each other, you can absolutely calmly either in early spring or in August carefully divide the plant.

I laid my first orchid in 2006 year. I experimented for several years, and after I was convinced that I was finally getting it, I began to acquire a lot of orchids in different nurseries in Europe and America. China.

Now I probably have hundreds of them. And I want to say that 2 types of shoes - tsipripedium royal and hybrid tsipripedium ventricosum really promising for our gardens, feel just fine. To date, I have plants that give from 20 to 30 peduncles, look just crazy, and this is my joy, my pride and my happiness.

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