Shhh........Don't Tell The Orchid Police

My Orchid, originally uploaded by BillieS.

Do these look like happy roots?

This time last year they did not look like this. In fact there were very few roots left. Here is the story.

A year and half ago this orchid and another one were part of a large pot of orchids and bromeliads that I bought at Costco. They were gorgeous with many spikes of flowers. They kept blooming and blooming and I left them with a neighbor when we came back to Mexico. When we went back months later they had just dropped the last flower. I didn't see how I could bring them into Mexico.....make that, smuggle them into Mexico....the car was full and they were just too big. So, I apologized to them for what was coming but told them to do their best.

I repotted them and sat them in deep shade in my magical garden. The next time I was back in Houston and I saw them, their once magnificent thick deep green leaves had been attacked. Some places had been a feast for some insect, and other places they had been bent or cracked. And the roots.....oh, so sad. The once green luminous roots....some were shriveled and brown and some were still giving a valiant attempt to keep the plant alive. I felt so badly about my mistreatment of these regal orchids that I decided that I'd have to risk it all to bring them with me to Mexico so I could take care of them. I became an orchid smuggler. They rode to San Miguel in the bottom of a trashbasket with some stuff on top of them which didn't help their leaves either.

After they arrived I repotted them and left them in the floor of the new shower of the studio so that I could water them with the rain of the shower. They just sat there.....maybe they were still in trauma, maybe they were trying to heal. I wasn't sure they were going to revive. Another trip to Houston was going to leave them alone in Mexico except for Carmela who comes three days a week. So I decided to put them in the laundry where she could talk to them and water them when she came. Between the wonderful light in the laundry, the humidity, the heat and Carmela's sweet talk, they decided to live......new roots.....and.....what is that nub? a new root.

Now I think they are going to make it. When they bloom again, you will see pictures.

But, shhhhhh..........don't tell the orchid police that they are here.