All About Orchids

by Casey Schwartz

Com­mon­ly known as the Orchid fam­i­ly, Orchi­daceae, is thought to be the sec­ond largest fam­i­ly of flow­er­ing plants. (The largest fam­i­ly of flow­er­ing plants is the sun­flower fam­i­ly which includes asters and daisies.)

Symbolism & History

The orchid has been a sym­bol of love, lux­u­ry and beau­ty. To the ear­ly Greeks, the orchid rep­re­sent­ed viril­i­ty and dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages the orchid was con­sid­ered an aphro­disi­ac and used in love potions. In the 18th cen­tu­ry, orchids were still very rare and only a few botanists and the wealthy could enjoy them. In 1818, William Cat­t­ley became the first per­son to bloom an orchid and that changed the flower world for­ev­er. Jun­gles and forests were stripped of mil­lions of orchids and a sin­gle orchid sold for thou­sands of dol­lars. This phe­nom­e­nom echos the time of Tulip Mania that hap­pened in Hol­land in 1637. Orchids are now bred and cul­ti­vat­ed specif­i­cal­ly the cut flower industry.

Orchids and Food

The fam­i­ly includes the Vanil­la orchid which is the source of the Vanil­la extract we use in cakes, pud­dings, and ice creams.
Here are some oth­er ideas for Vanil­la extract use in every­day food:

• Add a gen­er­ous dash of pure Vanil­la extract to a cup of cof­fee, tea or cocoa.
• Use Vanil­la with sweet pota­toes, yel­low squash or carrots
• Add a few drops to vinai­grette dressing
• Sweet­en grape­fruit halves, sprin­kle with Vanil­la extract and let sit for five min­utes or so
• Mix into oat­meal or cold cereal
• Brush but­ter mixed with pure Vanil­la over mild fla­vored fish, seafood or poul­try dur­ing broiling
• Stir a few drops into pan­cake or dessert crepe batters
• Add to fruit glazes for poul­try and ham
• Add to club soda it gives a touch of sweetness
• Mix into orange juice and lemonade.

Common Orchids

Phalaenopsis:

Most peo­ple are intro­duced to orchids through Pha­laenop­sis orchids. These are the thick-leaved plants with love­ly arch­ing sprays of blooms that can be seen in so many design mag­a­zines and sit­ting on cof­fee tables across Amer­i­ca. There are about six­ty species of Pha­laenop­sis; they are native to trop­i­cal Asian coun­tries includ­ing Borneo,the Philip­pines and Java.

Dendrobium:

The large genus Den­dro­bi­um with over 1600 species, comes from the Far East and the west­ern Pacif­ic. We find these dai­ly at the mart in white and pur­ple. A bunch of 10 make a great state­ment in a bud vase, give a flo­ral spray and love­ly lacey look and can be found on most all the Rose Parade floats. They also have a light sweet scent and are won­der­ful for mak­ing Hawai­ian style leis.

Cymbidiums:

Cym­bid­i­um orchids have been mak­ing a come­back in recent years as more peo­ple dis­cov­er these won­der­ful orchids and thanks to the appear­ance of the minia­ture cym­bid­i­ums. They are much more cold-tol­er­ant than many com­mon species of orchids and fea­ture sprays of large blooms in the dead of win­ter. These beau­ti­ful flow­er­ing plants can be kept in pots out­doors year round in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and will bloom in the spring from late Feb­ru­ary through April.

Orchids in Bloom

Sin­ga­pore’s Botan­ic Gar­dens pio­neered orchid hybridiza­tion in the 19th cen­tu­ry. The trop­i­cal city exports over $20-mil­lion worth of orchids a year and in 2006 had around 15 per­cent of the world mar­ket for cut flow­ers. The Gar­dens orig­i­nal­ly focused on com­mer­cial crops, lead­ing to the spread of rub­ber across South­east Asia, before switch­ing to botan­i­cal research. I vis­it­ed this gar­den while work­ing onboard a lux­u­ry cruise ship in the 1990s called the Sea God­dess and worked with a local florist named Dol­ly. She would board the ship in Sin­ga­pore with hun­dreds of orchid stems to cre­ate mas­sive sprays of orchid arrange­ments all over the ship. I found to my delight that if I watered them, they last­ed for two or three weeks!

Create Your Own Orchid Arrangements

Flower Duet loves work­ing with orchids and if you are close by the Los Ange­les area, or look­ing for a rea­son to vis­it. Flower Duet is offer­ing an All About Orchids Class, a two-hour in-depth look at orchids. We will demon­strate a small Den­dro­bi­um stem spray arrange­ment that any­one can do at home and then show how to cre­ate a dra­mat­ic large stem Den­dro­bi­um cen­ter­piece. Each stu­dent in class will be hands-on to cre­ate a Cym­bid­i­um orchid cor­sage and design their own Pha­laenop­sis orchid plant in a dec­o­ra­tive con­tain­er. Stu­dents will learn the method to repot a live orchid so that it will spike year after year to give off lots of blooms!

From Tuc­son to Tai­wan and in the moun­tains of the Blue Ridge and the Rock­ies there are orchid shows dur­ing the month of March, If you are local to Flower Duet in Tor­rance, Cal­i­fo­ri­na, check out the South Bay Orchid Soci­ety Show this weekend.

March 5–6, 2011
South Bay Orchid Soci­ety Show
Tor­rance Cul­tur­al Arts Cen­ter, 3330 Civic Cen­ter Dr., Tor­rance, CA.
Con­tact: Mar­la Corey; (310) 707‑7097

The Secrets of Daffodils

by Kit Wertz

The March birth flower is the daf­fodil, in the Nar­cis­sus fam­i­ly, and there are tons of daf­fodils at the mar­ket and bloom­ing in our gar­dens at home. If you are going to work with daf­fodils in your cut flower arrange­ments, read on for best results!

Purchasing:

Pur­chase when flower buds are still closed.

Problem:

All flow­ers in the Nar­cis­sus fam­i­ly which includes daf­fodils, paper­whites and jon­quils, exude a milky sap that can clog stems of oth­er flow­ers if the cut Nar­cis­sus stems are not con­di­tioned prop­er­ly. This will pre­vent the oth­er flow­ers from last­ing a long time in the vase.

Solution:

Fol­low these steps to mix daf­fodils with oth­er flow­ers safe­ly in your spring flower arrangements.

• Start with cool water and flower food. As will all bulb flow­ers, the tem­per­a­ture of the con­di­tion­ing water should be cool and not warm (unless you want the flow­ers to open quick­ly). Use pro­fes­sion­al flo­ral food for best results and cut the stems at least ½ inch before plac­ing them in a clean con­tain­er with the cool water and prop­er amount of flo­ral food (fol­low manufacturer’s instructions)
• Con­di­tion the daf­fodils for at least SIX hours before arrang­ing them
• Do NOT re-cut the stems after con­di­tion­ing before you put them in the final arrange­ment or the sap will leak out again and hurt the oth­er flowers
• Keep bulb flow­ers in shal­low water. If they are placed in deep water, the stems can get water logged and shriv­el up and the petals of the blooms will get papery
• For best results – only mix nar­cis­sus flow­ers with oth­er types of flow­ers in flo­ral foam arrange­ments and not in vase arrange­ments to les­son the chance of the sap get­ting into the vase water

Daffodils in Bloom in Julian, California: Daffodil Show – March 26–27

Each spring, the small town of Julian, Cal­i­for­nia (famous for its apple pies and hon­ey) is trans­formed into a yel­low won­der­land. Thou­sands of daf­fodil flow­ers dot the land­scape in and around town, hav­ing been plant­ed by vol­un­teers each fall. After the dev­as­tat­ing wild­fire that swept through the area in 2003, the daf­fodils still bloomed and gave the town a feel­ing of renew­al. As quot­ed in the March/April 2011 issue of West­ways mag­a­zine, “Many of the peo­ple who lost their homes have become part of the vol­un­teer team that plants the bulbs every year,” said Anne Dawkins, co-own­er of the Blue Heron Gar­den Shop & Gallery.

In March, the town holds an annu­al Daf­fodil Show. This year it’s March 26–27. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it the Julian Cham­ber of Com­merce website.

Blooming News in March

Flower Duet on Television

Sat­ur­day, March 12, 2011 11:30 a.m. – Chan­nel 50, KVCR

Cre­ative Liv­ing with Sheryl Borden

From the Cre­ative Liv­ing site: “Casey Schwartz is a flo­ral design­er, and she makes arrang­ing flow­ers look so easy. She’s going to demon­strate how to arrange one dozen ros­es with green­ery in a tall vase so that the num­ber 12 rose stands per­fect­ly straight in the mid­dle of the vase.”

Flower Fields Blooming in Carlsbad

Opens March 1st, 2011

Vis­it The Flower Fields, which fea­tures fifty acres of gor­geous and col­or­ful Ranun­cu­lus flow­ers with a view of the blue Pacif­ic Ocean. Attrac­tions also include a spe­cial nurs­ery, gar­den, and gift shop by Arm­strong Gar­den Cen­ters, and fes­ti­vals through­out the season.

Descanso Garden Cherry Blossom Festival

March 19–20, 2011

See the bloom­ing cher­ry trees at the Des­can­so Gar­den and see a tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese tea cer­e­mo­ny Sat­ur­day at 11 a.m., 12:30 and 2 p.m. and a Japan­ese cook­ing demon­stra­tion at 11 a.m. Sun­day. Take a guid­ed tour of the Gar­dens’ sev­en flow­er­ing cher­ry trees at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. both days. Cher­ry trees will be avail­able for pur­chase. The Camel­lia Lounge will sell a sig­na­ture cock­tail cre­at­ed espe­cial­ly for the fes­ti­val, as well as ben­to box lunch­es and oth­er Japan­ese cui­sine on both days. Free with admis­sion: $8 adults, $6 senior/students and $3 chil­dren 5–12.

How to Force Flowering Branches to Bloom Indoors

by Kit Wertz

If you have some fruit trees in your back­yard and want to force the branch­es to bloom in a cut vase indoors, here are the steps to fol­low for best results. You can also buy branch­es at the local flower mart. Some in the mart today include plum blos­som, cher­ry blos­som and forsythia.

Step 1: Cut twice – Cut the branch off the tree or shrub when the buds begin to get plump (about three to six weeks before they are due to bloom nat­u­ral­ly). Once you have the branch­es inside, cut them again at a sharp 45-degree angle just before putting them in your con­di­tion­ing water.

Step 2: Keep in water – If it’s cold out­side, the water should be cold. If it’s more like South­ern Cal­i­for­nia weath­er, it’s okay to use warm water and com­mer­cial flower food. Some peo­ple will tell you to use bleach in the water to kill of bac­te­ria. It’s more impor­tant to make sure the vase you are using is clean and free of bacteria…so use the bleach on the vase…NOT in the water you use to keep your flow­ers fresh. (See our newslet­ter where we debunk the myth of each type of home­made flower food). If it’s dry inside your house, you may want to spray the upper parts of the branch­es a few times per day with fresh water to keep them moist until the buds bloom.

Step 3: Repli­cate Moth­er Nature – Cov­er the branch­es with plas­tic or cloth to keep them about 50 degrees at night and 60 degrees dur­ing the day to mim­ic spring weather.

Step 4: Let there be light – When the blooms start to appear, arrange the branch­es in a tall vase and place them in a sun­ny spot. Once the blooms open, move out of the sun­ny spot and change the water weekly.

Book Review

Orchids by Liz Johnson
Grow­ing orchids at home does not have to be intim­i­dat­ing. This book makes it easy to choose a fresh orchid plant, repot it if nec­es­sary, care for it while it’s in bloom and how to keep it alive after the bloom as fad­ed so that you can have more blooms in the future.

Ms. John­son also offers some love­ly ideas for dis­play­ing orchids indoors and includes instruc­tions on how to cre­ate a bou­ton­nière and a cor­sage fea­tur­ing orchids. She includes an exten­sive direc­to­ry of indoor and out­door orchids. For each orchid, she details where it’s from, when it flow­ers, if it prefers cool or warm tem­per­a­tures and whether or not it likes the sun or the shade. She also explains what type of pot­ting mix to use and when to repot the plant for best results.

If you love hav­ing orchids in your home and want to keep your invest­ments giv­ing back div­i­dends of love­ly blooms in the years to come, then this 144 page book full of col­or pho­tographs is the one for you.

Floral Tool — Moss Pins

Moss pins are a great tool for secur­ing moss to any num­ber of sur­faces. They have a few alias­es so good to know all the names in case you need to pur­chase them.

Moss pins are also known as fern pins, green­ing pins or pole pins. These flo­ral u‑shaped pins are used to fas­ten moss, green­ery or flow­ers to foam, top­i­ary forms, wreaths, or Sty­ro­foam. These are a handy, fast tool because your work can eas­i­ly repo­si­tioned. They are inex­pen­sive, usu­al­ly come in packs of 50 and are very sharp. Flower Duet has some­times used our 22 gauge flo­ral wire and cut them to a length, made them into a U shape and are good to go. We have used them also to anchor a wed­ding aisle into grass, just be sure to pick them up afterwards!