I live in an apartment condominium in Northern Virginia. When I got interested in orchids I realized I had a desirable true east exposure from the windows. I fortunately also had 6 inch deep window sills. The apartment also has a whole house humidifier that runs at about 40+% humidity full-time during the heating season. Direct downdraft from the heater/air conditioning vents has been diverted so as not to strike the orchids. The few orchids with which I began seemed to thrive. Then one day my wife and I were at the National Capital Orchid Society show and she was captivated by a large, dark blue flower that we discovered was called a Vanda. On further research it seemed these orchids were particularly fussy in their cultural requirements. I read that most are grown bare root in hanging baskets, often outdoors in places like southern Florida. That the roots required frequent watering or misting. That they would not tolerate being too wet, nor too dry but demanded relatively high humidity. The also preferred bright indirect light but preferred only short periods of direct sunlight. These did not seem to be conditions easily met in a relatively small condominium where the growing spaces also doubled as bedrooms.
Being at a stage in life where I can afford to experiment, I decided to try to adjust the plants purported fussiness to the realities of my environment.
The first thing that had to go was the idea of a hanging basket. It had to grow in a pot and that had to be of modest dimensions.
Next it could not require too frequent watering. Orchids are my joy not my masters. I decided it probably would not like usual bark mixtures since they held too much moisture. Being willing to be avant-garde I decided to try EpiWeb imported by First Rays Orchids (www.firstrays.com) from Scandinavia. It is a firm foam-like plastic material made from recycled milk containers. It holds no water except what might get trapped in the tiny spaces in the foam. It is available in sheets for mounting but also in 1 inch cubes which was what I used. This material seemed adequate to support the roots and plant but I needed something to retain some moisture to fulfill the criteria of not requiring daily attendance. Again from Rays I decided to add in PrimeAgra which is a Light Expanded Clay Aggregate (LECA) of which there are several similar on the market. This product remains moist after soaking and is often used in semi-hydroponics culture. I mixed this about 3 to 1 of EpiWeb to PrimeAgra.
The lucky plant was a Pakchong Blue purchased mail order from Hausserman’s outside Chicago. It arrived in excellent condition on 11 July 2008. It was much larger than I was expecting being 16 inches tall. It was in a 6 inch clear plastic pot with a bark mixture that appeared rather old. On unpotting I found a 2 inch plastic basket with the original plant placed whole in the outer pot and then surrounded with the bark mix.
The roots were very long and curled up in the plastic pot. They had also woven into a netting and had trapped a considerable number bark pieces. The roots were soaked then painstakingly cleaned and straightened. About 20% of the roots were bad and trimmed. I made no attempt to remove the plastic basket. Some of the extremely long roots were shortened. The roots were then interwoven with the EpiWeb cubes and pellets of PrimeAgra forced in between. The root mass was then place in a 6 inch “orchid” pot having a large central hole in the bottom and three sizeable slits about a quarter way up the sides. EpiWeb and PrimeAgra mix then filled the space. (After thorough cleaning,the PrimeAgra had been pre-soaked for 24 hours.) After the plant was potted it was soaked for about 15 minutes in tepid water with KLN root stimulator.

It was ultimately put on an humidity tray as close to the window as possible without actually touching the glass. To water and feed it was removed to the kitchen and soaked in a bucket to cover the entire pot for 30 to 45 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in a solution of water with DynaGro Orchid (or DynaGro Bloom.) Since this was the only plant so treated I reused the same solution for 3 treatments and then replaced it. Occasionally, on the last of the 3 uses I would add either KLN or SuperThrive. (I discovered that these additives get foul if kept in solution for more than a day.) Once every month I flushed the pot for several minutes with tepid tap water.
To my surprise the plant seemed to enjoy its care. It never showed signs of stress and immediately put out roots from the lower stem. Fortunately these aerial roots have not gotten longer than the pot. That would not do in this environment. To my greater surprise, in additional to some new leaf growth, I saw two flower spikes emerging in late October 2008. One quickly aborted but the other grew rapidly so that flowers bloomed about 1 month later on an inflorescence containing 10 buds.

Only time will tell whether this Vanda is able to thrive in this environment. Perhaps the flowers were a desperate attempt at species survival. Having dealt with the EpiWeb it seems unlikely that the original roots survive being planted in it and the aerial roots are probably nurturing the plant. These roots have made no attempt to penetrate the EpiWeb nor have I noticed any roots sneaking out the side holes. The EpiWeb can facilitate excellent air movement which may be playing a role here.
We have enjoyed the flowers tremendously although my wife points out that this plant’s flowers are not the deep purple she so much enjoyed at the show. If I had the room, I would have to try to find that species and try again but at present, too may orchids are vying for that short length of window sill.
Nick Cirillo

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