What's your least favorite job associated with the plants?

I hate cleaning fans. Doing it now. It's a terrible job. I hate it! Especially just after pine pollen season. Blech!!! :Yuck:

my most unfavorite chore is moving or relocating to a different room or outside :(

:lol: I just finished cleaning fans too.

Cutting dead/finished spikes.

Cutting dead/finished spikes.

Oh yeah, that's such a sad one! :cry:

Watering! Well I really don't hate any part really, just time consuming.

Ummm,
Don't laugh too hard please. :lol:
I've lived here 6 years (yep, 6!) and I just figured out casement windows! WOW what a coolio invention!!!!
:shock:

My windows are SO clean! :whoo:

Looks like I've got to replace a bunch of membrane on the GH. Also bleaching the algae off the walls and shelves is not my favorite.

cleaning my basement after taking the plants outside for the summer

Sterilizing all the pots!

BOOOOO!!! :cry:

I would think that it would be ORGANIZING, keeping records, and figuring out how to set up an access database or excel spreadsheet to keep track of what I have, when I bought it, what I paid for it, and what I did to it. I'm figuring out whether I'm a lumper or a splitter, so I can create the fields that I need, so I don't have to keep going back to revise. Just thinking about it, makes my brain feel like mush!!!:help: :help: Organizing information is not my forte.

I plan to set up SOME sort of system when I repot and move everything in for the Fall. Actually, I did see someone (on ebay, of course) selling a program that does keep track of your orchids. It also has reference photos. I just might take the easy way out and buy it, rather than to set up my own. Less mental convolutions.

Jeeeessshhh! Being involved in the accounting field, you would think I could figure out how to keep track of inventory!!! No, I hate it with a passion!!!! :Yuck: :Yuck: :Yuck: Is what I think about inventory!!!!!

I hate sterilizing used pots as well. I don't like it but I do it because it must be done. :whip:

Susan, I'm so unorganized I don't even try to keep records of my plants.

Park Bear,

Great Minds, think alike!!! :whoo:

Then again, you probably have many more plants than I do!

The worst chore for me is deciding when a plant is too sick or genetically inferior to make it any longer. It really hurts to give up on a plant.

Hmmmm....interesting choice of unfavorite chores, and difficult decision to make about trashing a plant. Perhaps we could start a rescue board??

Heather & Pete, are you listening???? I would take some plants, just to learn.

Hate to see them thrown out. But when you have so many plants and not enough room, it makes sense.

Just a thought. I do not have that many plants and could never throw one out. I could take a few in and hope I don't kill them.

I'm sure Tadd will poke me :poke: and say to throw it out, but we thrifty Yanks save everything!!! :o

The worst chore for me is deciding when a plant is too sick or genetically inferior to make it any longer. It really hurts to give up on a plant.

I'm with you there - There's always that niggling thought in the back of my head that maaaaayyybbeeee if I do this or that it'll spring in to its glory :-). Although, frankly I still have quite a few plants I should have gotten rid of a while ago.

Uhm, guys - humour me as an Australian please - Pine Pollen?????? Does it get THAT thick?

(I've been in a unit near a main road where leaving the window open meant a diesel film on everything - is it like that?)

Stephan

Stephan - yeah, kind of like that I imagine. Think lime green dust everywhere! The plants, the fans, the tables, the windows, the windowsills? It's gross! What a mess! Ahhhchooo!!!


About throwing plants out, yeah....you know the other day when I found red spider mites (I think?) on my most troubled Paph I almost, finally, tossed it. No more mites now, but still, my rootless wonder is in such struggle. Sometimes I want to put it out of misery!


But I couldn't!

Well Susan I only threw out two of my own paphs yesterday. One of them was a Paph Iona((bellatulum x fairrieanum)One of my favorites:( ) and the other was a belatulum. They had what looked like a rust spot, I know it isn't rust(the virus or fungus). Just not taking any chance with my collection. Yeah I am out $50 or so, but better safe than sorry.

I dunno, I'm like Susan I guess and won't throw anything away until it's really hopeless (brittle and brown). I think you've been surrounded by too many orchids in that greenhouse too long Tadd.

My worst chore is pruning. I do bonsai so I'm not cut shy but with orchids I have the devil of a time knowing when to clip off a damaged leaf. If it's green, it's still productive, right? But, if it's got cat scratches (my cats are jealous) or a bug bite hole, when is it reasonable to cut the ugly thing off? The silly cat jumped up on a particularly succulent dendrobium and cracked a few new leaves as well as broke the leading leaf halfway across. Since there was still a centimeter of leaf attached to the main stem I let it flop in the breeze for a month before I finally clipped it off yesterday. It's tough for me to decide what's best for the plant or best for me and appearance sake.

Ernie,
I have the same problem!
I finally clipped one yesterday and agonized over another, and finally let it be. Now it is back in it's home and the poor thing is out of my dangerous reach for a while!

Going to my real job to pay for my orchid hobby...

Everything else about orchids is just peachy.

Ummhmm, remember rule 3: 3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more orchids, obtain more credit. Which means you're more likely off to earn money to pay the credit companies back for buying all those orchids. :poke:

Hahahahaha Rick Funny!


Mine is being unemployed for the summer which = NO ORCHID PURCHASES (per my wife).

I'm in the opposite situation as Tadd. I have a summer job, so I am buying up stuff while I can afford it for another month or so. My paph collection will have gone from 1 in May to somewhere in the double digits by the end of this week. :notlooking:

I'm in the opposite situation as Tadd. I have a summer job, so I am buying up stuff while I can afford it for another month or so. My paph collection will have gone from 1 in May to somewhere in the double digits by the end of this week. :notlooking:

thats what we like to see couscous74!! :Party:

Hahahahaha Rick Funny!

That would be Rob....would you like me to edit for you? :poke:

Doh! You caught me Hawkeye! :poke:

Good luck Marcus! Tear it up for me! I will live vicariously through your purchases. :evil:

I'm in the opposite situation as Tadd. I have a summer job, so I am buying up stuff while I can afford it for another month or so. My paph collection will have gone from 1 in May to somewhere in the double digits by the end of this week. :notlooking:

Woohoo!
Go Marcus!! LOVE shopping! Love it! As long as it is for plants, hate it otherwise! :Yuck:

Back to the original question. I'm not being a brat or anything, but I really had a hard time thinking of an orchid chore I really hate. I guess I just kind of accept all the stuff I have to do to grow these as part of deal. (now I am sounding like a brat - sorry) :oops:

OK, a couple of thngs that cause mild panic attacks:

Bringing in all the plants after a summer outside. I always wait until the last minute and then rush when the nights are getting too cold. I end up with plants sitting all over the place. The grand piano is usually the place most end up 'cause it has the biggest surface area. Not good.

Mailing large plants like Phals or things in spike or bloom. I never have the right size box around and they are just so hard to wrap and pack. I really hate that.

I think that's about it.

Mine would have to be hauling all the plants outside and the sunroom every summer and then hauling them back in 2 months later, what a chore! :roll:

Soaking Vandas. I grow them in vases and im always afraid om going to drop them, smash the vase and break al the roots !

Soaking Vandas. I grow them in vases and im always afraid om going to drop them, smash the vase and break al the roots !

Interesting, do you have photos to post of the Vandas in vases?

Soaking Vandas. I grow them in vases and im always afraid om going to drop them, smash the vase and break al the roots !

Why I don't have Vadas! :wink:
I'd also be interested in seeing photos. Sounds interesting!

Telipogon, what is the Phrag. in your avatar picture? It is lovely!

Even I have more summer than that... I wouldn't even bother moving plants for only two months... Ick.

@ Paphgirl - its Phrag. Grande........just opened hence the short petals (they are about 4 inches longer now)

vanda in vase.........yes i have pics :-)

http://photos14.flickr.com/17821221_30bb8c36ea_m.jpg

http://photos12.flickr.com/17821154_30ee68ef4c_m.jpg

It now has a big flower spike on it and another just showing............seems to like vase culture !

Huh, Vase Vanda - tres cool!

Can you post a new pic of your Grande? At your convenience. It is very light in color, do you know if it was made w/ caudatum var. sanderae? Sorry, I've gone off topic, yet again!

Pretty neat, Vandas don't grow so well under my little lights. :)

the worst chore is to take the cool plants (cymbidiums, zygo and so on) to sleep with me and the AC in my bedroom e v e r y night and then taking them outside e v e r y morning.
can't wait till its winter.

That really does sound like a pain, Amber. My experience with Cymbidium when I lived in central California is they're extremely hardy and forgiving. My summer temps there ranged from 70s at night to 107 in days and all 50 or so bloomed three years in a row. In winter they can handle down to the low 30s but I wouldn't let them get frost and moved them into the house when it threatened. Here in Mississippi the temps are similar but I only have one Cymb currently and it's popping baby bulbs without A/C.

Perhaps it would lessen your burden if you left the Cymbs out a week or so and watch how they respond so you're comfortable with it. They're probably the biggest to move so life gets easier.

Hi Ernie,
night temps here are around 80 and day temps around 90.
you're right about the size problem - my two cymbidiums are quite large and heavy. I have a relatively small collection (50 plants or so) but some of them are realy time and energy consuming because of their special needs. I keep reminding my self every time I go to the nursery to shop only for hardy orchids that can easily grow in my house, but end up falling for the mistery and challange of unknowen plants. anyway, anough being a cymbidium slave! they're staying out tonight. I'll take my chances with these two - the worst that can happen is that they won't bloom this year.
Ernie, thanks for helping me make a decision I wanted to make long time ago.
Amber

Hi Ernie,
night temps here are around 80 and day temps around 90.
you're right about the size problem - my two cymbidiums are quite large and heavy. I have a relatively small collection (50 plants or so) but some of them are realy time and energy consuming because of their special needs. I keep reminding my self every time I go to the nursery to shop only for hardy orchids that can easily grow in my house, but end up falling for the mistery and challange of unknowen plants. anyway, anough being a cymbidium slave! they're staying out tonight. I'll take my chances with these two - the worst that can happen is that they won't bloom this year.
Ernie, thanks for helping me make a decision I wanted to make long time ago.
Amber

Hi Amber

80 at night and then 90 in the day is not very much temperature variation - The cymbids should be fine as long as they don't take much (if any) direct light (dappled is fine). I have four pots of the one hybrid cymbid I bought about 20 years ago outside the front of my place in the shade of a tree. It/they've been there for the 8 years I've lived here. Last Summer we had a series of days in excess of 42 degrees C with nights in the mid to high 20s. They survived and are in spike as I write. The most important thing with cymbids is that they need a fairly sharp temperature gradient coming in to winter to allow them to set their flower spikes. The spikes should also not be exposed to too much water or they tend to rot.


Cheers
Stephan

Exactly Stephan and Amber, it's the drop in winter temps that matter for spike setting and I've never met a Cymb that could handle full sun all day long, even in winter. They do best under something that sways in the breeze above them for intermittant sun like tree branches or the :wink: grape vines like I used to have.

A word of caution...I've found orchids to be critters of habit like human males are and dislike change. PLEASE watch them carefully if you leave them outside overnight and be sure they're still thriving from day to day over a few weeks.

I was chuckling Amber...you could always bring home a mayo stand or two for the remaining ones you have to move. You've got lots of neat stuff to use in your profession.