A Story - "Escape to the Country" and Trying to save an Orchid

A Story

Escape to the Country

Here was John's chance to get out of the city.  His boss was making distance work permanent.  John's budget was limited but a rural area had very affordable house prices.  He bought a quaint older house and moved in.

All summer he fished in the nearby crystal-clear lake.  At night, the stars were spectacular.  Every day

he heard beautiful new bird songs.  He even once saw a bear.  He made new friends and hosted relaxing beer-infused barbecues.  It was fantastic.

On October 15th, winter began with ten inches of snow.  John sold his house and moved back to the city.

I've known for several weeks that this orchid was not well as it wasn't making any new growth. I almost threw it out a couple of times but it was so pretty when I got it with small delicate pink flowers that I wasn't ready to say goodbye to it.  Finally when the Christmas busy time was over, I pulled the inner pot out of the decorative pot and had a look.  Oh, my!  The roots were totally finished although it looked like it had lots of healthy roots at one time.  The photo shows the little bit of viable root that was left after I cleaned it up.

I looked at some "rescue orchid" videos and decided to try to save this one.  I dusted the lower part where it would send out new roots with some rooting hormone.  I have it resting in a jar where the root is in the water for part of the day, and then I leave it suspended just above the water so it will get some humidity.

My big take away from this is to always check the roots of any new orchid I buy, right away, so that I can deal with any rotting roots before the plant is destroyed. I'm careful about watering an orchid so I am guessing that the roots were already rotting when I got it and it kept blooming just on reserve energy.