I received my first orchid in the spring of 2020. In the early stages of the pandemic, one of the consolation prizes of being an essential healthcare worker trudging through the uncharted territories of COVID was the deluge of freebies from local businesses. Free lunches and dinners delivered to the hospital wards. Discounts on various clothing and shoe brands. McDonald's offered free meals if you showed your first-responder or healthcare worker badge, and for several months, the Person insisted we go there for breakfast sandwiches nearly every weekend.
I was rotating at the cancer center in April 2020, attempting to angle for a recommendation letter for fellowship applications. An orchid company, now with an excess supply and decreased demand in the wake of the pandemic, had donated boxes upon boxes of orchids for the healthcare workers at the hospital. I went downstairs to the conference room with my co-resident, and we were greeted with tables full of blooms in purple, pink, and white hues. Clueless and frozen by indecision, I stood there dumbly until a nurse nearby said, "Pick one that still has some buds, so it'll last longer."
"How do I take care of this?"
"Just put a couple ice cubes in once a week."
I picked a Phalaenoposis with two spikes of purple blooms. At home, I placed it by the sole window in our apartment that receives any direct sunlight. Dutifully, I followed the nurse's instructions and fed it 3 ice cubes each Saturday morning. Eventually, the flowers crinkled and shed, and the spikes turned brown. I left the dead spikes tied to the wooden stakes and continued to feed ice cubes each week. I had no idea what I was doing, but the leaves still looked green, so I kept up with the routine.
To my great shock and delight, the orchid produced another spike and rebloomed in January 2021. Oh shit, now I really have to learn how to take care of this.
I started doing research by watching Youtube videos and reading articles online. I quickly learned that ice cubes were NOT the way to go, and that I had likely bumbled my way into keeping the orchid alive by not overwatering with the ice cube method. I bought a new pot with slits to allow for aeration and orchid mix and eventually repotted the orchid after its blooms had fallen. My gateway orchid has now consistently begun to spike every winter, leading to a spray of purple flowers that last for several months throughout each spring.
Since then, I've discovered that my local Trader Joe's stocks an impressive collection of orchids and have acquired a pink mini-Phal and an Oncidium with dark-red flowers. I went to the orchid show at our local botanical garden and purchased a cattleya hybrid that is supposed to produce beautiful pink blooms (though I have yet to get it to bloom). The cattleya has been a lesson in fuck-ups -- I should have repotted it as soon as I got home, but instead kept watering once a week without realizing the roots were drowning. After I finally repotted it, most of the roots died, and it took weeks before I started seeing new roots. Even now, I'm not sure if the new growth I'm seeing will pull through.
Someone asked me why I deal with orchids, given their reputation for being difficult to care for. To me, it's actually the opposite. Orchids do not demand constant attention; mine only require watering roughly once per week. It's a slow process, but there are little joys to be derived from checking on the plants each weekend and observing new roots or leaves making their debuts. Most of all, there is something immensely satisfying about the patience and payoff of getting an orchid to rebloom. In some ways, it reminds me of the delayed gratification we suffer through in medicine.
