Información general sobre el Sistema de Gobierno

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constructed that first biodiversity bed with good drainage and a high-quality organic growing mix that contained compost, leaves, peat moss, composted pine bark, and the heavy clay topsoil that thinly covered the yard. To this I added blood and bone meal, following the recom-mendations on the bags. I reasoned that my best plants deserved the best soil, so I used the same growing medium I had been using in my vegetable garden. After the plants were established for a full growth cycle, the bed required only occasional irrigation. The northeastern ex-posure proved itself the perfect combination of sun and shade for the orchids.

I have often wondered why more orchid fanciers, not to mention outdoor gardeners, don’t grow Bletilla. Its ease of culture may deter orchidists who practice a bizarre form of snobbery, favoring challeng-ing species over more readily rewardchalleng-ing ones. The backyard gardeners may hesitate simply because it’s an orchid. It should, however, enjoy a place of honor in anyone’s plant collection. Given the right amount of exposure (more sun in the North, as usual, and more shade in the South), Bletilla adapts as readily to the shaded perennial border as do a hundred other garden plants. Wet feet will rot its roots and corms, and sometimes a late cold snap will produce unsightly leaf tip damage, but otherwise season after season passes without incident as each clump blissfully increases in size and floral exuberance. Typical garden pests—

including, wonder of wonders, snails and slugs—leave it alone. Insects appear to visit only to pollinate the sweet-smelling flowers with their ruffled rose and magenta lips.

About ten years after the first plants arrived, I added a dozen corms of two interesting white variants of Bletilla striata. Bletilla striata var.

alba bears pure white flowers with a pale pink blush. Smaller and slower growing than the wild type, though equally friendly to the gar-dener, it never quite reaches the same height, forming a second tier of blooms in mixed plantings. Somewhat less frequently seen, though in all respects identical to B. striata var. alba, is a form with variegated leaves called ‘First Kiss’. It blooms alongside the other types, the paral-lel venation of its leaves enhanced by the white striping.

A few years ago, Bletilla ochracea was offered by a large mail-order

Bletilla striata grows at the base of a Japanese maple.

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nursery, and I ordered six corms. They bloomed well the first season, about a week after B. striata flowers began to open, their yellow color-ation harmonizing splendidly with the other Bletilla plants in the same bed. Bletilla ochracea plants grow about a foot tall, about half the max-imum height of either of the B. striata types. In my experience they grow just like their cousins, though unfortunately they do not increase as rapidly. My plants were moved during the spring of 2003 along with the rest of my collection. I planted them in a deep bed constructed of treated pine, in a prepared growing mix.

Growth rate, plant size, and floriferousness increase in Bletilla with fertilization. Soluble chemical orchid fertilizer at one-half the manu-facturer’s recommended dilution applied monthly during the growing season supplements annual amendments of blood and bone meal ap-plied in late winter. Timed-release fertilizers such as Osmocote have also worked well in small beds and pots.

Bletilla needs plenty of rain as the weather warms up and through the blooming season, but the need to avoid water standing around the roots cannot be overemphasized. Well-drained beds, ideally raised slightly above grade, will give the best results and encourage the roots to spread, in turn promoting new growth that may later be divided. By the time summer really turns up the heat, the plants become rather drought tolerant and need no more watering than, say, a bed of annu-als such as marigolds or zinnias.

Ease of propagation is perhaps the most desirable horticultural fea-ture of the Bletilla species (and, according to various authors, their hy-brids). Mature clumps can be divided with a shovel and transplanted immediately, anytime after flowering. The more fastidious may choose to wait until the plants are dormant. Then the corms may be lifted with a garden fork. After removing the soil from around the roots, cut the corms with a sharp knife so that each piece has two or more growing points. The cut surfaces may be dusted with powdered sulfur, or simply set aside for a day or two to allow the wounds to dry. The prepared corms may then be replanted in the garden or stored under refrigeration in plastic bags of dry peat moss. Replant stored corms in spring, as soon as the ground can be worked.

Clark T. Riley (1999) describes Bletilla as growing from seed “with abandon.” He goes on to say that “any of the popular media or even . . . dampened Sphagnum moss” give reliable germination, though at a lower rate on the moss. Further, he reports that seedlings may bloom only two or three years after their parents were pollinated.

Ease of culture and propagation, exciting prospects for hybridization both among the species and across generic lines with Arundina and Calanthe, and darn nice flowers and foliage should earn Bletilla a place in any garden. Perhaps we should change its common name to “queen of the hardy orchids.”

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In this catalog, rather than create a narrative for each selected orchid species, something I find tediously repetitive in many other compendia, I list the essential cultivation information for each orchid, along with notable facts in the form of “comments.” My intention is to enable gardeners to determine quickly and easily the suitability of any given species or hybrid according to their particular gardening needs and desires.

It should be noted that this catalog is neither exhaustive nor entirely based upon my own gardening experience. Plants in my collection will be so identified. Only references containing information about cultural requirements are included. For the sake of completeness, information about species already discussed is also given. All of the cultivation tech-niques referenced here are fully described in earlier chapters. Recipes for various orchid media, such as the Tullock general purpose mix, are listed in chapter 2.

When considering the season of bloom, variations in climate must be taken into account. As a rule, garden events occur about two weeks