Death of an Orchid Lover (40 page)

“‘Dance card of life’?”

“All I’m saying is, don’t make everything harder because of some artistic sensibility you’ve suddenly developed in your mid-forties.”

“I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”

“Probably.” She untangled her legs from mine, slid over, put her arm around me. “Just let all this stuff soak in, baby.
Just get yourself through it, and don’t make any earth-shattering decisions until your head is back to normal.”

I nodded, reached out, barely touched the bandage on her temple. “Tell me something.”

“What?”

“How come, when Sharon asked if we were lovers, you said we were?”

She grinned. “I thought it might get her pissed off, so she would do something dumb.” A small pause, and the smile was gone. “And, maybe, it was a bit of wishful thinking.”

I considered what she’d told me. Then I said, “It’s time for bed.”

She looked at me, nodded, popped up off the couch. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Remember whose place were at. Don’t get in on my side.”

She went off to the bathroom. After a bit I got up, turned off the lights, stood in the dark until I heard her in the bedroom. I went in the bathroom, washed, brushed, got undressed. When I came out, Gina was in the bed, on the proper side, beautiful by the light of the gardening-Asian-lady lamp. Her bare arms and shoulders were outside the bedclothes. She looked me over in a way she hadn’t in seventeen years, then patted my side of the bed. I got under the covers and slid over to her. I looked in her eyes.

I said, “Remember what you told me about not making any earth-shattering decisions?”

“Yes.”

“I’m about to make one.”

“I was hoping you would.”

She turned toward me. I took her in my arms and found her lips with mine.

W
HAT’S AN ORCHID?
T
O MOST PEOPLE, IT’S A PRETTY CUT
flower decorating their teenage daughter’s wrist on prom night, or a nifty blooming plant for sale at the local flower shop, Home Depot, or upscale supermarket. To a botanist, it’s a member of the Orchidaceae, the largest family of flowering plants. All orchid flowers include three sepals and three petals, with one of the latter modified into a structure known as the lip, whose shape and color are often the key to figuring out just which orchid species or hybrid you have. The male and female reproductive parts are united into a structure called a column, and the flowers are zygomorphic, meaning if you want to cut them into two equal, mirror-image parts, there’s only one way to do it. Compare this to a rose. If you intend to whack a rose in half, you can start your cut anywhere along the edge. I don’t know why you’d want to cut a flower in half, but if you’re so inclined it’s good to know the ground rules.

Another common orchid feature is the pseudobulb, a thickened section at the bottom of the stem, which stores water and food as a hedge against drought. Some are so thick
and weird that theyre attractive to succulent plant collectors like me. Sympodial orchids, or ones whose stems have just a couple of leaves each and in which new growth pops out of the base of the old, often have pseudobulbs. Monopodial plants, which grow a succession of leaves on each stem, don’t.

In nature, some orchids are terrestrials, growing at ground level like most plants. Others, usually the more tropical species, are epiphytes, which means they live on trees, wrapping their thick roots around them to stay in place. Theyre not parasites, though, as they take nothing from the tree theyre attached to, picking up nutrients from tiny patches of decaying plant matter.

Orchids grow all over the world. There are hundreds of genera, which is the plural of genus, which is a group of plants in a family with more in common with each other than with other members of the family. (If families and genera seem like Greek, I suggest a session with “The Joe Portugal Guide to Botanical Nomenclature” included in
The Cactus Club Killings
, the story of my first brush with homicide. If you haven’t read it, you should. If you have, buy it for all your friends.)

Not content with the tens of thousands of species nature has provided, orchid fanciers have produced over 100,000 hybrids, trying to combine the best characteristics of two parents into that one fabulous plant that will bring them fame and fortune. A look through any issue of
Orchids
, the American Orchid Society’s monthly magazine, will show an amazing range of plants painstakingly bred for specific colors, shapes, and textures. The prices are pretty amazing too. Orchid collecting is not a poor person’s hobby.

Orchids have a reputation for being tough to grow, supposedly requiring conditions far beyond what a typical person
can provide in order to thrive and bloom. They conjure up pictures of stuffy hothouses with foglike humidity and drop-dead temperatures. These perceptions are false. Though some orchids require specialized care, many don’t, and can be grown by anyone, inside or out, if just a few basics are kept in mind. Growing them, as with most other plants, is primarily a matter of watching them, seeing what they’re up to, and applying a little common sense.

In general, orchids like the kinds of temperatures typically found in our homes. If you get into them, you’ll discover that they’re classified as warm-growing, intermediate, and cool-growing. The differences aren’t huge, but accomplished growers with greenhouses and the like can make them grow and flower better by strict temperature control. Humidity is also an important factor; orchids generally like a lot of it. You can keep a spray bottle handy, or increase the moisture level around your plants by growing them on a tray filled with water and gravel. But make sure the water doesn’t rise above the bottom of the pot. This encourages root rot.

Most of the orchids you buy will be potted in a fine bark mix, and the size of the particles makes water run off relatively quickly, but it’s still fairly easy to water them too often. This is another fine way to induce root rot. When in doubt about watering, don’t. orchids are tougher than they look. Pseudobulbs and thick leaves help them retain moisture even if the mix dries out.

orchids like a lot of light and will bloom better if they get it. But a lot of light doesn’t mean a bunch of direct sunlight, which will burn many of the plants. You can grow them in filtered natural light, and many people suffering from orchid fever grow them under artificial lighting as well. Ventilation is important too. If your orchids end up somewhere where the air doesn’t move at all, it might be worthwhile to keep a
fan in the room. Your orchids will thank you. Okay, they won’t, but you can hang around and enjoy the flowers while you wait for them to say something.

Fertilizer is another cultural consideration. Many orchidists use one type during blooming season and another when vegetative growth is the goal. The subject of orchid fertilization could probably fill a book by itself.

Like most other plants, orchids suffer from pests. Mealybugs, scale, and aphids all like to suck on them; slugs and snails love chewing on them. Plant viruses are another difficulty. To avoid their spread, experienced orchidists never use the same tool on two plants without disinfecting it in between.

The important thing to remember with all these cultural factors is that dealing with them for orchids is little different from dealing with them for any other house or garden plant. Again, common sense is the key. If you want more details, check out the gardening section of your local bookstore. There are a lot of good orchid books out there.

And now, on to the orchids mentioned in this book. First, the more widely grown genera:

Cattleya
species and hybrids are the big frilly orchids popular in corsages. Some have one leaf per stem, some have two or three. They like lots of light. Related genera include
Brassavola
and Laelia.

Cymbidium
is a genus of terrestrial orchids. They tend to flower early—sometimes in the middle of winter—and the blooms can last for months. Their long leaves give them higher space requirements than most other orchids.

Dendrobium
generally has conelike stems, though some form clusters of small pseudobulbs that hug the ground. They like small pots and good air circulation. Theyre fairly common at nonspecialist nurseries and other places orchids are sold.

Epidendrum
is a genus of easy-to-grow plants with reedlike stems and leathery leaves. They often flower year-round.

Oncidium
generally has tall flowering spikes with many small blooms. They last well both on the plant and cut, and are often used by florists in arrangements.

Paphiopedilum
and
Phragmipedium
are known as slipper or lady’s-slipper orchids because of the semienclosed form the lip takes. They often have leathery petals, odd colors, and mottled leaves, making them the weirdest-looking of the popular groups.

Phalaenopsis
is a genus characterized by straplike leaves that hug the surface of the potting medium. They’re known as moth orchids, a reference to the shape of the flowers, and are the members of the family most likely to be found in places like food markets and hardware superstores. They thrive at typical indoor light and temperature levels.

Vanda
is related to
Phalaenopsis
, but forms long stems full of leaves rather than clutching the surface of the medium. They like more light and heat than most orchids mentioned here, and are often grown in slatted baskets with their roots dangling free.

Now, some less commonly seen orchids:

Angraecum
and the smaller, related
Aerangis
are from Africa, Madagascar, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. Their flowers tend to be star-shaped and to have long nectar spurs.

Catasetum
has a couple of unique characteristics. First, they are among the only orchids that produce male and female flowers rather than ones with both sets of gear. Second, the male flowers have a trigger mechanism that causes them to “spit” their pollen at visiting insects.

Eulophia
is a terrestrial orchid genus often characterized by fat, chunky pseudobulbs. Because of this, and because their cultural requirements are similar to those of the South African succulents they often grow with, they’re starting to become popular with the cactus crowd.

Ophrys
forms flowers that mimic the bees and wasps that pollinate them.

Schomburgkia
has columnar pseudobulbs which, in some species, are hollow and house ant colonies.

Stanhopea
produces fragrant, fleshy, bizarre flowers. The inflorescence grows downward, into the medium, so theyre grown in baskets that allow it to burrow through and escape back into the air.

The following are miniatures, characterized by diminutive individual heads, though an entire plant can sometimes reach a decent size:

Isabelia virginalis
comes from Brazil. Its tiny pseudobulbs are covered by something resembling a fishnet.

Maxillaria tenuifolia
is best known for its coconut-like fragrance.

Nanodes discolor
forms midget clumps of semisucculent leaves. It grows from Mexico all the way to Peru.

Pleurothallis
, with over a thousand species, is the centerpiece of an alliance—or group of related species—known as pleurothallids. Their flowers show an amazing range of colors, along with appendages, hairs, and other weirdness.