Topic: Wild orchid seeds

[katynewbie]

 8)

I know I shouldn't have them, probably. But I have been given some.

What do I do with them now and will they survive? I know nowt about flowers!

 ;)

[ACE]

We used to have to move wild orchids, they nearly always died. I expect the seeds will be the same. They seem to make their own mind up if they want to grow or not. I think its a case of they will grow where they want to, not where you want them to.

[katynewbie]

 ;D

Guess it's fair enough really! If they want to grow on my patch I will be delighted!

 ;)

[Palustris]

Orchid seeds have no food reserve within them, so they need to begin absorbing nutrients as soon as they germinate. Unfortunately the nutrients are provided through a symbiotic relationship with a fungus. That fungus is usually only present where there are already orchids of the same type growing. The best place to sow the seeds is around the plants from which the seeds came.
The other method is to sow the seeds in petri dishes with the correct nutrients available in the growing medium. Sadly this is best done under laboratory conditions.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Does anyone know whether the commercially available hardy orchids are as difficult to establish, or are they more reasonable?

[Trixiebelle]

ACE! Why did you have to move them? I remember when I was a nipper going out on long expeditions with me dear old dad looking at wild orchids. And their location was as secret as the Osprey nests we photographed as well!

Katy: Can you not get in touch with a 'wild orchid' society type thing to take them off your hands and cultivate them?

[ACE]

I had to move them because a grave had to be dug in the plot they were on. I used to get them in a digger bucket with a quarter ton of soil and only moved them a few yards. but the nearly always failed to come up the year after. As Palustris stated it all has to do with fungi spores.

[Trixiebelle]

Ah! I see Ace  :) Didn't realise you did that for living ... as it were  ;D

They are very delicate flowers and shouldn't be moved at all really.

[ACE]

As a gardener on the council it was one of our jobs. Planted thousands but I never got one to grow ;D
The orchids in one cemetery used to carpet the ground and we had to mow them down to keep the cemetery tidy, used to get loads of complaints. But we left them one year and they came up a bit thin the next year. Mowing them just before they turned made a better show.

We also had adders tongue which was one of the few sites that they grow in England. But when you think of it some of these old country cemeteries are really the only original meadowlands left.

If you ever come to the I.W. go to mountjoy cemetery, and see the cowslips, oxlips, ladyslipper orchids, bee orchids, and all sorts of old fashioned wild flowers and grasses. All left to grow wild and natural.

[Trixiebelle]

Blimey ACE! I'd love to see those flowers! Promise me you'll never mow them ever again!

[Robert_Brenchley]

They might need to be mown to maintain the existing mix of plants.

[ACE]

True, cut in june for spring flowers, and cut in august for summer flowers, leave mowings for the seed to drop before raking it all up