Episode 65: moth orchids aka Phalaenopsis
On The Ledge
Jane Perrone
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2018
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Phalaenopsis orchids are the most ubiquitous of flowering houseplants: love them or hate them, you can’t escape their good qualities, from their ability to survive in the home to the long-lasting flowers. In this episode I gather the best care tips for your moth orchids, decode all the Phalaenopsis jargon and find out whether you really do need to water these plants with ice cubes (spoiler alert: the answer is no).
See full show notes here: https://is.gd/1Debhs
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 65 of On the Ledge podcast. |
| 0:20.9 | This week we're looking at the foul-tastic world of moth orchids. |
| 0:31.0 | Kikis, epiphytes, velemann, nodes, bark. |
| 0:36.6 | We're going to get into all of the in-depth stuff that you need to know to make sure your moth orchids thrive. |
| 0:44.3 | Moth orchids thrive. Moth orchids love them or hate them. Well, I've always been a little bit of an agnostic when it comes to phalanopsis. I don't hate them, but I haven't been as passionate about them as I have about other plants. |
| 1:11.6 | But I can see the attraction. |
| 1:14.1 | They are, after all, a pretty easy house plant to grow, if you know a few simple tips, |
| 1:19.3 | which is where this episode of the podcast comes in. |
| 1:22.4 | And they do offer excellent value for money, flowering for absolutely months. And you also have to admire their |
| 1:30.8 | sheer gumption. These plants have managed to worm their way into so many of our homes. Even the person who |
| 1:37.3 | feels they have the blackest thumb will often have a moth orchid somewhere on the windowsill. |
| 1:42.3 | I wonder whether some of my feelings about moth |
| 1:45.8 | orchids have been influenced by reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. In this book, he has a scene |
| 1:52.7 | in an orchid greenhouse where he describes the orchids as having nasty, meaty petals that look |
| 1:59.4 | like human flesh and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. |
| 2:05.2 | I think that's a great description. To me, that just makes them even more cool. |
| 2:10.1 | I also love Anna Pavey Ford, the English garden writer's description of the flowers of the phalanopsis as being fat-cheeked doll-like faces. |
| 2:20.4 | Yeah, I can see that. |
| 2:21.7 | I really can. |
| 2:22.6 | They come in a vast array of different colours, patterns and even sizes. |
| 2:27.9 | And yes, we have now got scented phallinopsis. |
| 2:31.9 | More on that a bit later. |
... |
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