Meghan: Orchid plants can stay in bloom for a month or longer as long as you choose a healthy one. So today, we are going to learn the tips and secrets to how to choose healthy orchid and trust me, it is not that hard.
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My biggest question is when you go in and you are going to buy an orchid, how do you know it is a good one? What do you have to look for?
Dick: Well you will look for the health of the plant. You can see by looking at the sturdiness of the leaves on the Phalaenopsis and I might add that this is probably the easiest—
Meghan: Oh they are very stiff.
Dick: They are very stiff. The Phalaenopsis are without a doubt the easiest, biggest bang for the buy.
Meghan: It is easy to tell if an orchid leaf is sturdy. With just one touch, you will know.
Dick: But you will look for the sturdy leaf structure, how the leaves hold themselves up and how firm they are.
Meghan: So the leaves should be very sturdy.
Dick: Should be sturdy, notice like this.
Meghan: Should they be pointing up?
Dick: Not necessarily. Some of them just with the habit and the parents and the background are going to lay down such as this one.
Meghan: All right.
Dick: And such as this one.
Meghan: But just as long as they are firm.
Dick: As long as they are firm and they do not have a roadmap in them.
Meghan: What does that mean?
Dick: Well a roadmap and I do not know if I have one, here. This is an older leaf but you can feel how it—
Meghan: Oh yes it feels like it has little ridges in it.
Dick: Yes it does and that is—
Meghan: So ridges are bad?
Dick: You should not look for something like that.
Meghan: Besides firm, ridge-free leaves, you should also inspect the roots and give the flowers and buds a once over. Healthy roots look whitish or silvery, and like leaves, are firm to the touch.
Dick: To pick a healthy plant, you are looking for a strong root system, if you can see any of them. The health of the plant usually is a strong indicator plus how many flowers are on it and that is a strong indicator and all of these here have a good flower, count. This one has got three more buds.
Meghan: Is it better to buy one that has buds or one that is already all bloomed?
Dick: It is a personal taste. If you have a few buds left, obviously you got to take a moment and try to flower them but there is no guarantee that when you take them out of the store or out of the greenhouse or when you take them home, that the buds could in fact, with the change of environment, dry and last.
Meghan: Really?
Dick: But if that is the case, many times, the plant will say “I really have not finished my flowering and we will go down on the flower spike some place and break a branch.” And when it branches, it will go ahead and flower and it means the plant is getting used to the environment that you put it in. But more times or not, the buds go ahead and flower and we hear all the time that they just keep on blooming and blooming and blooming.
Meghan: So do not get sucked in by the beautiful blooms of an orchid. Be sure to also check out the rest of the plant because the healthier the plant, the longer you will get to enjoy those eye-catching orchid flowers.
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