I'm grabbing your shoulders and looking deeply and homoerotically into your eyes. Listen to me. Listen. It Is Not Your Fault. They sell orchids in these shitty little plastic pots and fill them with water and stick them in heavier ceramic pots without ANY drainage holes. And then the fucking care sheet tells you to water these TROPICAL PLANTS with ICE CUBES. Of course they're going to die.
Orchids are a special type of plant called an epiphyte. You know those little air plants that are all the rage now?
I'm talking these babies. You can do cool things with them like this:
(link to the Etsy shop btw. These look cool. Though honestly you can probably find some art miniatures and do this yourself without much effort)
They don't have roots, so you can do whatever you want with them. You can put them in a globe or put them on a statue or just leave them on a table, they don't care. They're super low maintenance and easy to keep alive. All you have to do is dunk them in water once a week.
That's an orchid. An orchid is an air plant. In the wild, they grow on trees. Their roots are designed to anchor them to trees, not to dig into the soil. They NEED air. The moment they get waterlogged, which they will in those shitty little pots that you buy them in, they're going to rot, and eventually the whole plant will die. They can't have ANY sitting water. None. They need pots with drainage holes that are elevated so air can reach them from the top and bottom. This is what I mean by elevated btw:
Put something at the bottom of the pot that creates an air gap between it and the surface. Make sure it has gaps so air can flow through. Put a plate at the bottom to catch water when you water your orchid, every 2 weeks or whenever you remember. I have solved all your orchid woes.
And don't water them with fucking ice cubes. I'm going to find whoever invented the ice cube advice and fight them with my fists. These are tropical plants. They don't know what ice is. They're not evolved to deal with below freezing temperatures. If you water them with ice cubes you're just going to give your orchid frostbite, and it will die. No ice cubes.
ALSO if your orchid is in a pot, make sure you use orchid bark, not soil, as its potting medium. Though, honestly, you don't even need a pot. Like:
Look at them, just chilling. THIS is how they grow in the wild:
I think that's a different species of orchid than the phalaenopsis orchid we grow in cultivation, but the point still stands. That ^ is their natural habitat.
You can see the roots are just hanging out in the open. This is why air is so important to them. Air is more important than water. I'm like ?? 90% sure orchids can absorb ambient water through the air, but I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me on that. I did forget to water my orchids for 2 months once and they were fine, so. 🤷♀️ As long as they have enough air flow, they're more like succulents in terms of care. You water when you remember to, and just forget about them the rest of the time.
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