Garden Update: My Gorgeous Vandas 💜🧡

Luther Burbank: "Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food, and medicine to the mind."

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Good day, Hive gardeners!

I'm sharing my gorgeous orchids again.

Our flower garden is just small. There are around ten bamboo stands where different orchids cling. Each bamboo stand holds 2-3 plants. We also have potted plants on the porch, including roses, hibiscus, and more.

These are the _V_anda hybrids, they are called Papilionanda.

This first one in the photo is the very first Vanda we have. It has a mix of salmon, light orange, and pink colors. It consists of 3 sepals and 3 petals.

In other types of flowering plants, sepals are green parts below the flowers that look like small leaves to protect the flowers when they bloom. However, in orchids, the sepals are of the same color and structure as the petals.

👇 take a look at this flower.

The top vertical part is a sepal, the two horizontal parts with ruffled edges are petals. They look the same, right?

Then look at the 2 diagonal parts below the petals. They are sepals.

The center, which is called the lip, is another petal, making it 3 sepals and 3 petals. 😊

This is the orchid's way to attract more pollinators.

Lately, the newest vanda we have had has bloomed beautifully.

The sepals and petals are soft purple.

The lip is orange, and the long part is bright pink.

Such a gorgeous color combo.

These flowers love direct sunlight. If other plants dry out from too much heat, these vandas bloom more. They love the sun. The more sun there is, the more beautiful they grow.

Their leaves are solid and long. They look like green wands. That's where they keep water.

They have long, thick white roots that grow even on the side of the leaves.

To make them cling tightly to the bamboo stands, we wrap them with coconut husks and tie them with fabric strips. These fabrics will degrade over time just enough to give the roots time to sprout and cling to the bamboo stand. The coconut husks hold moisture. We also add agg shells. We water them with rice water or water that we use to clean the fish. Yes, we use that fishy water. This idea comes from my mom. She's been using these methods ever since, and we can see the positive effects on the orchids.

To avoid insects and harmful bugs, my mom cleans the leaves and the bamboo stand with soapy water after sunset and cleans them with clean water before sunrise to avoid the leaves getting burned.

🌸 Texts and Images by @vvodjiu 🌸

The lead photo was made using ChatGPT
🌺 All photos were edited on Lightroom for minimal enhancements 🌺