I was thinking about this this morning as I was planning out my not so perfect weather day.
There are hobbies are interests that you may be good at or spend a lot of time at - for me that would include gardening, reading, fitness.
Then there are activities that you may not be great at but you pick up from time to time. You try it and you try it later again. You do on occasion but have plenty of room for growth.
I call that “dabbling”.
What do you dabble in?
I would say I dabble in:
Sourdough baking
Field Journaling (a newer try)
I wish I could “dabble” - I’m an all in person. If I try something (which might have been considered dabbling) and I like it, that’s it, I now “do it” - if I don’t like it, that’s it, I’m “done”
It’s raining today, so rather than my 25 mile bike ride as part of my training, I’ll pull out watercolors and put on the American Idols I haven’t watched (listened to) yet, and will probably paint all day, happy as a lark.
Orchids. I love having a house full of orchids as part of the decor. A couple years ago I started trying to mount them in my trees once they were finished blooming indoors instead of throwing them away. I don’t have any gardening abilities so was starting at the very beginning and had a bunch of failures before I found a couple methods that seemed to work. In the past few weeks my dabbling efforts have finally paid off and I have beautiful blooms lining my driveway. I just spent a couple hours mounting about 12 more plants and tending to the others. I’d guess I have more than 200 plants now on 7 trees. They are bringing me great joy.
Those are gorgeous, @GRITS80. Like a most-wanted poster, my picture should hang in every nursery in the country for my murderous black thumb. No plant or flower stands a chance with me, even succulents shudder. I’m an expert in botanicide.
Please explain how your orchids thrive on trees. How are they living there?
Well my screen name. But I love a project so usually have something going on. I need to work with my hands. It doesn’t have to be well done or even useful; it’s the process rather than the product.
@abasket and @ChoatieMom
I live in Tampa so our climate is usually very conducive to orchid growth. That said, we had an unusual number of cold snaps this past winter than necessitated wrapping the trees with frost cloth several times. If the “feels like” temperature was forecast to go below 40 degrees for more than a couple hours I wrapped the trees.
Orchids are epiphytes so they are able to attach their roots to the bark of the trees without harming the trees. About 18 months ago when I was really struggling to figure out what to do, I had a landscaper attach around 25 plants to palm trees with fishing line. A tropical storm came a couple weeks later and I lost every single plant. I became determined to find a better way and came across something called the Orchid Hug on Amazon. And I also happened upon an incredible display of orchids at a home in Boca Raton. The owner showed me how he used landscape velcro to attach the plants. So the method I’ve settled on is using velcro when I attach plants to skinny trunks like a Crepe Myrtle and I use the Orchid Hugs on big trees like oaks, elms and palms. Orchid hugs are wire loops that attach to the tree with just one screw and hug the plant against the tree so the roots can take hold. We had back to back hurricanes last fall and I didn’t lose a single orchid while much of my neighborhood was in shambles. It’s really quite amazing how they withstand some brutal weather.
I have a lot of trees and that means a lot of shade so it’s been impossible for me to succeed with annuals or really any kind of flowering plant. I even had to put artificial turf in my back yard because of a grand oak. But the dappled sunlight that peeks through the trees is perfect for orchids. I’m careful to put them on the side of a tree that gets the least direct sun.
I keep 20-25 orchids in my house at all times just for fun. Sometimes it’s really luck of the draw how long they will last. Sometimes the blooms drop in a few weeks and other times they last 3 months. There is a wonderful orchid grower who drives to town every Thursday and sells her plants on folding tables at a gas station. It used to be a well kept secret, but the secret is out now and people plan their Thursdays to swing by and see her beautiful plants. She has taught me a lot and sometimes throws in an extra plant because she loves seeing pictures of how well they are doing on my trees.
