ORCHIDS : HOW TO GROW THEM SUCCESSFULLY. 39 



POTS AND BASKETS YERSUS BLOCKS. 

 Do not be persuaded to attempt growing Orchids on blocks of 

 wood, thinking that by so doing their natural habit will be more 

 closely imitated, for it invariably ends in failure, and there are but few 

 exceptions to this rule. They cannot in our artificially heated glass 

 houses be grown successfully for any length of time on blocks of wood 

 or lumps of stone, as they are known to do in their native habitats, 

 where they nourish in full vigour and beauty. This may appear to be 

 a strange dogma to the inexperienced in growing Orchids, but it is 

 nevertheless a fact. I grant that a newly imported healthy plant of 

 Cattleya or Dendrobium, if wired to a block of wood or cork, will grow 

 well for a year, or perhaps two, but after that the plant is found to 

 dwindle away and become less by degrees. The reason why Orchids 

 fail with us, when trying to grow them in the manner in which they 

 luxuriate in their native countries, is obvious, when we take into 

 consideration how utterly impossible it is for us, even in the largest 

 and most* perfectly regulated establishments, to create in an enclosed 

 space of a few square yards, which has to be heated artificially for 

 more or less of nine months of the year, that admirable, fresh, 

 buoyant, and uniform atmosphere which exists amongst their native 

 mountains and in their forests and dells. We may sometimes, during 

 favourable weather and proper management, partly succeed in doing 

 this, but perhaps in the next hour, with lax attention and a totally 

 different temperature, there will be a greatly altered state of affairs. 

 This varying and ever changing artificial atmosphere sometimes laden 

 with moisture, at others dry and harsh, with the temperature changing 

 quickly from hot to cold undoubtedly occurs in a larger or smaller 

 degree in every establishment, and this is the chief reason why an 

 Orchid does not grow satisfactorily if all its roots are exposed to these 

 sudden and recurring changeable conditions, although it is natural for 

 them to perform their proper functions when exposed in their native 

 habitats. It is, therefore, necessary, when under culture, that the 

 roots should have protection from these sudden changes of temperature, 

 and this is best done by growing them in pots or baskets, in a suitable 

 compost, as they thus escape the ill effects of root exposure and can be 

 kept in a more regular condition of moisture, not saturated one day 

 and extremely dry the next, as is the case when they are fastened to 

 blocks of wood. There is also another reason, which I have no doubt 

 has much to do with this failure on blocks, which is, that with us the 

 blocks of wood have no life in them and contain no moisture whatever, 

 whilst in their native countries many of the Orchids grow on living 

 trees. I think it is a very rare experience with collectors abroad to 

 find them growing and in good health on trees which have been 

 dead any considerable time. 



