Late winter is a pretty dull time in the garden, with the only real highlight being my miniature Cymbidium orchids blooming for the first time. I struggled with Cymbidiums in Mandurah (where I grew them under shade cloth along the western side of the house), and ended up binning or rehome them all except for two Golden Elf crosses with sentimental value. These two little battlers thrived under the hard plastic roof alongside the other miniatures I had picked up from Big W. Surprisingly, these plants are seemingly unaffected by voracious bush snails. After seeing how well the Cyms have coped, I have been inspired to expand my collection; and rearrange my growing area to better suit them.
When we moved to Joondalup, I had originally planned on focusing on Oncidium alliance hybrids; thinking they would grow happily outdoors in our Californian climate and be better suited to the available growing space at the southern end of the patio.
What I wasn’t prepared for was how badly these plants are impacted by bush snails. These minute molluscs had been slowing killing my collection one root tip at a time. I had initially placed the Oncidiums outside, planted in drilled Italian terracotta pots sitting in polystyrene vegetables boxes to maintain humidity. They were planted in a coconut husk and charcoal mix, which was perfectly fine for these plants, but they just failed to thrive or went into gradual decline. The issue was the tiny bush snails that had arrived from somewhere (probably straight from hell), and decimated their delicate roots. Conventional snail pellets don’t attract these pests, and espresso drenches did absolutely nothing to stop them. For a while I was going out nightly with tweezers and methylated spirits to kill them individually. But they breed like rats, and there were always new babies ready to attack the recovering root tips. The only way to vanquish these pests is to bare root your orchids, spray the roots thoroughly with a 3 % Hydrogen peroxide solution, pot them into a clean pot using sterile mix, and move them somewhere the snails can’t find them. (If you want to learn more about fighting these snails, check out Miss Orchid Girl’s videos on YouTube).
A few weeks ago I finally snapped, pulled all my Oncidium hybrids out of their clay pots, have them the peroxide treatment, potted them into transparent plastic pots and evacuated them into the house. I had already moved a couple of precious Oncidiums indoors after giving them this same treatment, and they have been thriving. An extra twenty orchids inside the house has been a bit of a continuous issue, but the matter has been resolved by rehoming some overgrown foliage plants, gifting some Phalaenopsis to a friend, and buying another set of plant shelves to sit them on.
The mix I use for these fine rooted orchids is a blend of coarse perlite, fine coconut husk chunks (I sieve and grade my own) and fine hardwood charcoal pieces. I’m not sure what ratios I use, I just add ingredients until it looks right to me.
After repotting, I sat the Oncidiums in a storage crate in front of the laundry door, where it is nice and bright and cool. After a few weeks, I noticed that some were starting to push out new roots, and so they were then shifted into their permanent positions on the stands in the “fish room”. Since moving them safely indoors, two have come into bloom, and I just found a fresh spike on my favorite Aliceara.
I always try an double-pot my indoor orchids, sitting the plastic pot on a layer of moist LECA inside a decorative ceramic pot. The LECA helps keep the humidity up around the plant, whilst preventing the roots from sitting in water and rotting. To water, I put them all in a plastic mesh basket and take them outside and soak thoroughly with a watering can. This way the foliage gets rinsed and the potting media is evenly saturated. At the moment I only need to water once a week, with dilute liquid fertiliser. In the summer months I will also have to water mid-week with plain water to keep them damp enough. Oncidiums do not like to dry out completely between watering.
After saving the Oncidiums, I cleared out the foam boxes, and swept and hosed down the pavers before reorganised my remaining plants. I have since purchased a few (read 10) new miniature Cymbidiums to fill up the space. I think this corner will be a nice little area in time; rather than the unsightly plant dumping ground it was previously.
