Sunday

Last post about our new houseplants, I promise. I already mentioned that we got corn plants, some tropical green things, and a miniature rubber type tree. Well, there was also a large pot of white and purple orchids. Orchids? Aren't these notoriously difficult to manage? I looked it all up online. Turns out orchid husbandry isn't quite as notorious over here where orchids live. The difficulty is in keeping them warm enough, with enough light, for them to feel comfortably at home. They shouldn't be over- or under-watered either, thanks. Thus armed with valuable information, I set out to grow prize-winning flowers. Actually, I left town for a long weekend. By the time I returned, many of the flowers had fallen right off that plant. Its spongy little leaves were laying morosely along the level of the dirt, a smoggy green. Crap! I think it was because the building staff turned on the dining room AC while we were away, chilling the poor dear. So then Sunshine looked up how to save an orchid. We put it into the fluorescently lit bathroom, where steam from the shower kept its dirt moist and where it was sitting right there on the windowsill for brightness. I cut the deceased flowering runners off right at their nodes and wired them loosely up above the leafy mass in the pot. Three days later the leaves were the right green again, somewhat perkier, and the remaining flowers were staying put on their stems. I think that plant is going to live--but then the woman who'd been promised the other half of our friend's jungle came and took the orchids away (along with the mini rubber type tree). Oh well. I'm not sure I needed potted flora of such an action-packed variety, anyway. [Cavin]