Orchids

Perennial plants, including 750 genera, around 25,000 species and more than 100,000 hybrids, orchids family is the biggest of all families from the plants world.

Their exotic blooms and strange habit still make them some of the most desirable plants for the indoor garden. Even if they are no longer as rare as once were, they are still a symbol of luxurious beauty.

The common peoples are still not ready to admit that orchids cannot only be easily obtain but also quite successfully grown in our homes without any specific technologies. Orchids are so special to us because of their infinity of colors and shapes, their long bloom period and their exotic look.

There are two types of orchids: terrestrial and epiphytic. Terrestrial orchids, as their name suggest, grow in the ground and the epiphytic orchids, the ones that are the most common of orchids type that we grow in our homes, grow in their natural habitat in the trees. They are nor parasites, as many of us might think, as they take their food and water from the debris accumulated around their roots. There are few orchids that live in a similar way on rocks and they are known as lithophytes.

If you are going to grow epiphytic orchids than you must provide them a special compost in order to make it suitable for this type of orchids. The perfect growing medium for epiphytic orchids is a mixture of the following components: 3 parts bark, 1 part peat or peat substitute to retain moisture, 1 part grit or perlite to aids drainage and 1 part charcoal pieces to prevent the compost from becoming too acid.

In the following articles in this section we will try to find the specific requirements for the most common orchids that we can grow in our homes.