Thinking Outside.... the Pot?

When I was in Norfolk the other weekend visiting the orchid grower's greenhouse, we got into a discussion about Keikis.  (Keikis are the baby orchid plant that grows from a mature orchid's flower stem or pseudobulb - I have a couple of posts under the topic of Keiki) I happily showed him photos of my Keikis and how some of them either were in full bloom or would be blooming soon.  One of the things he suggested to me was to take a small pot with orchid bark mix in it and set it on a shelf with the keiki roots in it, above the mother plant so that when it came time to cut the keiki from the mother, the keiki wouldn't go through "shock" as bad, since the keiki plant would already be used to the environment of its roots being nestled down in orchid bark.

A while back, I purchased panty hose and cut them down into strips.  I then rigged up the panty hose with sphagnum moss and wrapped that around the roots of the Keikis and would periodically run the hose/moss combo under water to moisten the roots of the Keikis.  Last night, as I was taking a shower, I had shower thoughts and thought of a way to improve the current method that I had in place to water the Keikis.  With the varying heights of the different orchid plants and their Keikis, I don't necessarily have shelves that would work to create the suggestion from the Orchid grower.  I knew I had some plastic cups in the kitchen from something and I thought of a way to help the keiki roots.

Working through the process, I started off with using a box cutter and cutting a hole in the bottom of the plastic cup.

Then I cut down the side of the cup to make the cup shorter.

Once the base was the height that I needed it, I cut the cup in half the other way

This gave me a portion of the cup that would work to hold the orchid bark mix around the roots.

I then cut down the side of the cup and to the opening in the bottom of the cup so that I could slide the cup onto the support stick and orchid stem.

Once the cup was at this stage, I slid it over the support stick and the stem of the orchid and placed an orchid clip underneath the cup to hold it up on the support stick.  I then closed the slit on the side using a hot glue gun (pretend the cup is already on the support stick.  I had done all of the steps over my lunch break today and I didn't think about process pictures until just a bit ago)

I then placed the orchid bark mix down into the cup, around the keiki roots and ran a little bit of water through it to moisten the bark mix.

Here is an image of the finished product.  While it's not exactly pretty, it is functional and will help the keiki roots better than just using the sphagnum moss wrapped in panty hose.  I found that the sphagnum moss dried out waaaay too quickly and I was having to run water over the roots to dampen the sphagnum moss every couple of days.

the finished project of the day

The weight of the cup with the orchid bark mix rests on those butterfly clips that come with orchids to hold the stem to the support stick.  Even when damp, the cup and contents isn't super heavy so it's not pushing down too hard on the clip.  I didn't think to put holes in the side of the cup but figured it wouldn't be that huge of a deal since the air flow will be decent enough inside the cabinet.  The cup is short enough and has a big enough hole in the bottom to allow for drainage and air flow.

While I was working through the process of putting these cups on all of my Keikis, I noticed that there are a couple of them that have sent out flower spikes and have buds developing on them as well.  I was chatting with a dear friend the other day when she shared with me that her "mystery orchids" had bloomed and I remarked that when we see the blooms, it's like opening presents on Christmas day.  I'll be sure to update you all when the blooms develop more and open up on the Keikis, along with when the roots get long enough to be able to cut the keiki from the main stem.

If you have any questions about the process above or any questions in general, drop me a comment below or use the contact form in the right column to let me know!