Waiting on the Lord
SHARON ROCKWELL|CONTRIBUTOR Orchids have always intrigued me, and I have received many as gifts. In high school I wore a beautiful pale pink cymbidium wristlet to the prom. For my wedding bouquet, our florist mounted a pure white cattleya in the center of my bouquet that could be removed and worn as a corsage on my going-away dress. Over the years, my husband has splurged for orchid plants as gifts to celebrate special events. They never lasted long. Only in my retirement have I been able to join an orchid society to learn the intricacies of good orchid plant care. I am convinced that God did some of his best work with orchids. There are more than 35,000 species of orchids and an even greater number of hybrids. The amount of diversity is astonishing. So is the work involved in raising them. Where I live, we can grow a number of orchid species outdoors. I have a large collection now— cattleyas, cymbidiums, dendrobiums and oncidiums, all under shade cloth on my patio. I have learned from my many mistakes to carefully watch my watering, adjusting for temperature, for the amount of light they receive, and supplementing reverse osmosis water with nutrients that optimize growth. Then there are the things to watch for that work against a healthy plant— diseases, viruses, insects, fungi, bacterial infections, all of which plague the plant itself...