My Orchids

My friend Pradip Pal got me addicted to orchids. I had bought a couple of very small dendrobium orchids from Mukherjee Nursery in Shikharpur, when I went there with him in 2021 for the first time. I guess it was in the month of July or August. In the winter of 22-23, that is after about a year and a half, they finally flowered and I really fell in love with orchids. 

Now I wanted to have more orchids. What is there to not love orchids? They are not super difficult to grow and Pradip is there in any case to guide me. All they need is a little patience. Some of the varieties bloom in abundance and stay fresh for weeks on end.  My first big success had some 13 yellow and maroon flowers simultaneously in bloom for more than a month. And I had brought this plant home as a little baby.

The first bloom that hooked me

My first stop in my renewed enthusiasm was Click Orchid, again introduced by Pradip (or Pal Babu, as I call him). This is a very well organised orchid nursery in Siliguri with a very good website. I ordered for three dendrobium seedlings from them. I think this was in January 23. They have been repotted in earthen pots that Monisha and I bought from Behala and they have settled down just fine in this Calcutta weather. The names are written in small paper tags. They are Aridang Green (this is the most robust), Airway Blue and Juree Red.

Click Orchid is a very dependable nursery for orchids. They send the plants very well packed and are reasonably priced. Every packet comes with a starter kit of food and fungicide. They are also generally available for guidance on whatsapp or phone. I went for a repeat trip to Mukherjee in February looking for a pair of phalaenopsis. I ended up buying two phalaenopsis, another dendrobium and a vanda. But these were not seedlings. They were matured plants. The phals in fact had buds and flowered soon. Both the phals turned out to be of the same variety - purple. Mukherjee never told me the precise name. The vanda and the dendrobium are yet to bloom but they are anything but seedlings. I don't regret buying them because they are doing fine. But I wouldn't have bought them if I was buying online and alone.

Mukherjee's Phalaenopsis

So I remained on the lookout for seedlings because I was not satisfied and still didn't get what I was looking for. Orchid sellers generally push the grown up plants because they are more pricey. It is nice to have a few matured plants around the house, to be honest. That way you have some flowers blooming all the time. But I still wanted my seedlings, like the original first lot of dendrobiums were.

The challenge and satisfaction of growing a plant from its baby stage to flowering stage is something indescribable. I got lucky with my search a few weeks ago. 

First I found phalaenopsis seedlings with Click Orchid in early April. I ordered for three of them and they are right now on my bedroom window sill. I have kept them in their original transparent pots. They are on an old newspaper lest water seeps out. Since they are in sphagnum moss I am not watering them every day. They don't need it. In fact too much water might be harmful for them.

They have sent them to me in nice transparent pots, names clearly mentioned through code numbers (for decoding one has to refer to their invoice). The plants are in sphagnum moss. I am sure they can stay here for a year or so. Must check out with them for a clarification on this later.

The Click Orchid Phalaenopsis

Since I had a grown vanda hanging in the balcony I also kept looking for a few seedlings. I found them on a facebook group from a guy called Thampy Ap, who is from Kerala. I ordered for just two because this hobby is getting to be quite expensive for me now and I have to control the urge to spend. The Mukherjee trip cost me Rs 1700. Click Orchid so far is like two thousand rupees or so. Thampy charged Rs 250 for each vanda plus Rs 125 for courier. So I have already spent around Rs 4000 which is a lot of money. 

Thampy also seems to be a nice professional guy. A little non-responsive to messages but he packed quite well and labelled the plants nicely. I might buy a few more from him in future. His number is 7012657727. He is from Pathanamthitta, famous for Sabarimala temple. 

When Thampy advertised he just put a number against the flowers. From that I ordered for 2 and 7. One was blue and the other purple. Now I find the plants are labelled as Yano Blue and Pure Wax Blue. This Yano Blue is much larger with good rooting system. In fact it looks like two plants. They are in small baskets. 

I have kept them hanging off the bathroom's towel rod with galvanised wire. It was quite tricky getting them to stay erect. I also bought two larger baskets from Thampy for Rs 25 each. I intend to transfer the plants into them later. Before that I need to have hangers, which I ordered for from another Keralite called Sadanandan. His number is 9947520667. He is charging Rs 25 for each. I am getting ten of them plus courier of Rs 80.

Pure Wax Blue

Yano Blue

So that's my collection of orchids as of April 23. Two adult dendrobiums (from Mukherjee), three seedling stage dendrobiums (from Click Orchid), two adult phalaenopsis (from Mukherjee), three seedling phalaenopsis (from Click Orchid), two seedling vanda (from Thampy), one matured vanda (from Mukherjee) and one matured twisted dendrobium (from Mukherjee).