The orchids...

By now they are more than I'd thougth they'd ever be here at home. This is an addiction, which started in 2004, that is not easy to get ridd of once it's in your system, just like the Maine Coons. In the beginning there was only one and it was a hybrid, now they are ... more and most of them are pure species.

Orchids do happen to be like cats are for a new breeder - they easily add upp to a number in a short period of time. And once you have a lot of them on a limited area you often tend to get problems with infections etc, just like the cats may get...

I rather soon noticed that I had a lot of Phalaenopsis hybrides at home. Sure, they are nice, but still, really most people can culture them and get them to thrive - where's the challenge in that? So, I soon started to get more and more pure species at home, since those require some extra thinking when it comes to temperature, light and humidity in order to thrive. And as I said, once you have a lot of plants you really could get in to some problem if you start to get infections of your plants - which I did. So today I'm kind of restarting my collection of plants, since most (not all but many) had to be thrown away some months back due to fungus and virus infections moving back and forth in the appartment. Today I make an effort in to NOT buing new plants as soon as I see one I like, now I prioritice which species I buy and I keep them seperated from the rest when they arrive (untill I can say they didn't bring any infections with them).

My favourite species today are from Africa. They are perhaps not known for their colourfull display, since many of them are simple white. But they are really nice to look at, easy to culture (if you get their environment right) and there are not that many people as interested in the African species as the South American or Asian. ;-)