ORCHID CONFERENCE. 



55 



Watering Orchids. 



The watering of Orchids is a matter on which much depends. 

 It is now pretty generally understood that all evergreen Orchids, 

 either terrestrial or epiphytal, require plenty of water when 

 growing freely, and less when not growing ; that those which 

 lose their leaves, such as some dendrobes, invariably require a 

 period of rest, during which water is entirely witheld and a lower 

 temperature given, and that odontoglossums, masdevallias, and 

 the other cold-house things, want water summer and winter ; but 

 I find the resting or drying-off system is often overdone, and 

 plants injured accordingly, and that in some collections the plants 

 would be much better if watered all the year round than dried 

 as they are to such an extent that they cannot recover in the 

 growing season what they lose in the so-called resting period. 



My own opinion is that any drying-off which causes 

 shrivelling is wrong, and that cattleyas, lailias, and similar 

 plants, if properly potted, do best kept moist, even when not 

 actively growing ; but care must be taken to see that they are 

 not in bad peat. As a rule, it would be much better for the 

 plants we often see in small collections if they had one-half the 

 quantity of potting material about them and twice the quantity 

 of water they get given them. Syringing a house of Orchids 

 should never be done, and the syringes should be only used for 

 moistening the staging and back walls, or doing any other work 

 on which it can be certainly employed without harm. When 

 used on the plants the operator cannot tell what he is doing, 

 and in the hands of a thoughtless person the syringe is the 

 most mischievous instrument ever introduced. There can be 

 no rule for its use among Orchids as a means for distributing 

 water, and certainly no benefit that can be set against the loss 

 of young growths and decayed flower-spikes which must follow 

 an indiscriminate use of it. 



On Potting Orchids. 



And now it will be well to notice a few matters connected 

 with the potting and materials used. For growing the epiphytal 

 Orchids in the early days of Orchid culture, blocks or logs of 

 wood were largely used, with, in many cases, wire baskets for 

 the more spreading kinds. These baskets were first made of 

 iron wire, but this being found to be objectionable on account of 

 its rusting, copper wire was substituted. Soon it got found out 



