What orchid food to choose? Allow me to help...

Orchid food is readily available in your local nursery or right here on this page. You will help your orchids to grow faster and bloom sooner by feeding it the right kind of fertilizers.

Orchids must have a sufficient supply of continuously available mineral nutrients.
Many old-timers of orchid culture have only one comment to make on feeding orchids:

"When elephants can climb trees," they say, "then we'll feed orchids!"

Of course, this attitude doesn't refer to terrestrial orchids. For over a hundred years guano, fish meal, and barnyard manure have been added beneficially to the composts in which terrestrial orchids were grown. The quibbling about feeding orchids is now confined to (those which grow on trees).

Orchid are smart and they warn you when the orchid food you are feeding them is not correct.

The symptoms of malnutrition in orchids are not completely understood. These symptoms seem to follow the same general pattern in orchids as in other garden plants. A lack of nitrogen stunts growth and causes leaves to become yellow at the tip. Excess nitrogen produces rapid, soft, and flabby growth.

Insufficient phosphorus frequently causes a brownish-purple discoloration which must not be confused with the slight purplish cast in some orchid foliage. Insufficient potash turns the tips of the leaves yellow and the edges scorch and die. The difficulty in diagnosis is the slowness with which these symptoms may appear, if they appear at all. The pseudobulbs of orchids are extraordinarily efficient storehouses of reserve orchid food.

Most orchids require orchid food that is definitely on the acid side although one terrestrial, Cypripedium bellatulum, has been grown very successfully in the alkaline type of osmunda. As osmunda, or even leaf mold composts, decay they become increasingly alkaline and less suitable for most orchids. Two to three years is the longest orchids should be left in pots without renewing the composts.

For the beginner in orchid culture it is the better part of wisdom to accept without question the orchid food commonly used. It is inadvisable to leave the tried way and set out on exploratory paths until you thoroughly understand the standard methods. Many growers and amateurs have worked out elaborate compost formulas, which they consider to be superior. This easily may be true. When you become an expert try them, but not before.

In the meantime, oak leafmold and gravel for terrestrial orchids and osmunda for epiphytes remain the safest, most workable, and easiest combination. The only permissible variation is to do away with leafmold, growing all orchids in osmunda.

At any rate, osmunda reduces their composting materials to a single substance. The difficulty is, of course, that osmunda is not always readily available—and is some¬times quite expensive. Then, too, osmunda is nearly sterile. Terrestrial orchids grown in it must be fed supplemental liquid fertilizers. Yet, for the gardener who dislikes fuss and muss, osmunda fiber is the cleanest of all composts, the simplest to use, the easiest to keep on hand. Click here for all your orchid food and supplies

There is a third material and method you can use in growing orchids. It is not a compost, nor does it supply orchids with food. The material is gravel. The method is called gravel culture. Although it is a new technique, requiring further experimentation to perfect, its use is increasing.

Directions for growing in gravel found below.

An orchid is knocked out of its pot and its roots thoroughly cleaned of osmunda or leafmold.

A soft toothbrush and a pair of tweezers help in cleaning.

All old, decayed roots are cut off.

A clean garden clay pot, of the correct size, is half filled with three-fourth-inch rock.

The orchid is inserted into the pot and the "rhizome," the base of the plant, held at rim level with the roots spread out.

The balance of the pot is filled to the rim with one-fourth-inch rock (pea gravel or roofing gravel), the roots carefully and well covered.

The rock may be tamped firmly with a small stick, or the pot gently bounced several times to settle it.

Never use fine crushed rock, Haydite, or cinders; they aborb too much water, hold it too long, and keep orchid roots too continuously wet.

The beauty of gravel culture is that it permits rapid drying of orchid roots.

Naturally, in such an inert medium as gravel, orchid food is a must. The best feeding solution you can use is one of the nutrient solutions provided by your local gardening store; nearly any one of them will do.

A nutrient solution (or orchid food) must be applied regularly, depending in part on the water requirements of orchids. Two to three times a week in summer and once or twice a week in winter is sufficient for most orchids. Liquid fertilizer concentrates are not desirable because they leave deposits of crystallized salts on orchid roots which soon are killed by the toxic residues.

The fundamentals of orchid culture are — humidity, air, light, protection, and food. The corollaries of composting and watering depend upon them and are manual processes which may be suited to your convenience. But don't try to change the rules governing the basic needs of orchids. Orchids are tolerant, but they have certain minimum growth requirements which must always be taken into account.

A word of final warning for gravel culture of orchids. To my knowledge, it has been used successfully on only five kinds of orchids — all of them epiphytes; it has failed or given mediocre results on terrestrials. It is not something to play with unless you resign yourself to losing a few orchids at first and unless you make a study of gravel techniques.