Orchids in Bloom Picture

Last month in the middle of the election insanity, I hadn't had a chance to go out into the yard.   I was just too busy.

There was one exception.  It was when I took these pictures.

When I was a Snowbird, there was a treat I would give myself.  I'd go to the KMart on Oakland Park Blvd and wander through the place looking for supplies and eventually gravitate to the little garden center.  There I would see the plants I couldn't hope to grow outdoors and among them would be a collection of Orchid seedlings.  I'd find the same plants back up north and bring them back to my house to try to grow the things.  They would hang on through the winter and into the summer I'd see some green but usually never anything else.  I just did not have the proper conditions.

These plants were from the same quality that I got at the KMart that is still at the same spot, within a long walk from my front door.  That store being a smaller KMart has slowly but surely dropped their garden shop back to being the bare essentials.  They still have a few of these seedlings so we got a couple of the Cattleya orchids that are the "Corsage" flowers we are all used to.  The smaller Phalaeonopsis also a plant I got there from seedling and it actually "died".  I was down to zero leaves and a flower spike at one point.  This particular plant grew the flower spike, put out a shock of pink veined blossoms, then started growing leaves.  It has been in constant bloom ever since.

Being outdoors, these flowers get exposed to the critters that live in the neighborhood.  If an Iguana spotted them they'd be gone in a salad.  Luckily the big iguanas have not yet returned to my neighborhood but they are in the adjacent areas.  It is only a matter of time.

All I had to do was hang these plants in the partial shade of my shed eave, add a drip waterer from my irrigation system and basically ignore the thing.

Give anything the right conditions and it will grow and prosper.  Sometimes the right condition is to ignore them.  Natural systems, plant or animal, just need to be left alone when they have the right conditions.  Man Made systems always require maintenance and adjustments after a while.  It is just up to the creator of the system to adjust things in a careful way.  With luck and care you end up with some beauty. Even when neglected or placed in a spot that is too hot, you sometimes end up with something that is going to survive despite the neglect or even abuse.  Get rid of the abuse and you may just have a beautiful blooming system.

Natural or Man Made.