Orchid babysitter advice

[electric.chowder]

I'm going to be going away for about a month next week, and am leaving all my plants in the care of my parents. They have kept some of my plants in the past (never my orchids though) for shorter amounts of times, and it never fails that when I come back, a few have died, or are on the brink of death. I've got a couple of phals, oncidiums, dendrobiums and a mini catt. so they shouldn't be do hard to take care of, but I don't want to return and have a bunch of brown orchids. I plan on writing out a loose watering schedule for them, but not really sure what else to tell them to do, so any advice from anyone whose left their babies with someone with a brown thumb would be greatly appreciated!


thanks!

edit: all the ones left for my parents are in pots, the mounted ones are going to my grandmother, she's got a much more greenthumb (I think that's where I got it from )

[tizzycat]

electirc chowder, do you have time to insert some skewers and attach watering/care instructions thereto (like a flag ) so that there is no mixing up the orchids/instructions and they can water each according to the state of the skewer?

[tizzycat]

do stress that overwatering (in most cases) is a killer.

[elitebettas]

i would tell them to come over and water the plants once a week, so only 4 times when you are gone. I would also stress telling them to water the potting medium and not water the leaves or from top so as not to get any water wedged in crowns or new growths. i'd put the orchids somewhere where you don't care if the water drains (so they don't have to move the plants, or soak them etc-less interaction with them the better). Probably advise them to water them with a narrow spouted watering can. Good luck

[kmarch]

I've had a number of orchid babysitters over the years. My advice is to prepare both your orchids and your babysitter as best as possible. If you have only a few orchids (maybe less than 50 or so) consider things like making a huge humidity tray our of your bath tub or a couple of large plastic tubs, this makes it easy for your baby sitter to water. All they have to do is come in and pour water in the pots until water comes out the bottom and into the tub. If you have less than 10 or if they are small orchids, the kitchen sink will work well for this too. Finally give detailed (but clear and not confusing) instructions for watering. If you have orchids that have different watering needs seperate them according to their needs (for example one tub gets watered once a week a secnd tub gets watered every 3 days or all of the mounted orchids hanging in the shower get sprayed every day). Print out the instructions for watering and place them immediately next to the orchids so every time your babysitter sees the orchids they see the instructions. It's all about the preperation.

[boxerfan]

I was recently gone for several weeks and left my partner to care for my orchids. I had her water them every three days and skipped fertilizer until I returned. I was able to talk to her daily and fine tune my instructions, plus an orchid growing friend stopped in to check when she had a real emergency such as needing to cut back a spike on my Brassia. It wasn't ideal, but everyone survived until I returned home. Good Luck, Lisa

[tom499]

I would 2nd the bath tub idea. Watering depends on your conditions really, but if you keep them in the bath with a lowish temperature the plants will sort of slow down

when i went away for 2 weeks I left mine in the bath tub in trys. I filled the bath with water to raise the humidity and they were left like for 2 weeks without water.

4 weeks may be too long to leave plants in this 'slow' state so the other bath tub idea would be better.

The skewer trick is good, and easy way for anyone to check.

It may sound patronising to your holidays, in that case im sorry but as you have different types make sure all the labels of the plants are visible so theres no confusion atall.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by elitebettas

i would tell them to come over and water the plants once a week, so only 4 times when you are gone.

Only do this if this is how frequently you water them. If you have mounted plants that require daily soaking or somethign like Masdevallias that need watered every 3 days or so don't tell them once a week. You don't want a collection of stressed plants when you return.