Kathy Puckett’s Orchids
Many people suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) caused by the lack of sufficient sunlight when the nights are long, with days that are not only short, but often dim and gray. Kathy Puckett is a gardener who not only feels the loss of sunlight, she feels the loss of flowers.
During spring, summer and fall she tends extensive gardens that are noted for a collection of dozens of iris varieties, as well daylilies of every color. Three years ago, hoping to stave off SAD and her frustration at not being able to get her hands in the soil Puckett bought her first orchids.
The first thing to be said about orchids, aside from the fact that they can bloom in midwinter, is that they do not require soil. Or more accurately, many of the large family of orchids are epiphytic plants. They grow on another plant which supports them, but they are not parasites; their roots get their nourishment from the air and rain.
Although women of a certain age may remember their first experience of an orchid as the showy and exotic cattleya orchid corsage they got for a high school dance, some people look at orchids and see something nearly obscene or scary. It must be said that the word orchid comes from the Greek word orkis, which means testicle and refers to the shape of the roots. Some find the testicular aspects of the lady slipper flower disturbing. Puckett says many people find the shapes kind of scary because they can resemble insects, often the insects that they depend on for pollination. Mother Nature isn’t always interested in what we humans find beautiful to insure the continuation of the species.
Puckett said she started with a difficult orchid because she didn’t know any better. Now her collection numbers about 200 orchids, that includes a couple of terrestrial varieties, those that do need their roots to be in soil.
Her first orchid was an ascocenda she bought at the Greenfield Farmer’s Market.. In New England this orchid needs lots of light which Puckett can provide because her plants stands are in front of a south window. However, it also needs to be showered every morning because it needs to be dry by evening.
When I first heard about Puckett’s orchids I was astonished at the number because I was under the impression that orchids required a greenhouse. I had grown my own first orchid, a phalaenopsis, this summer and knew it could be happy on a window sill, at least for a few good weather months, but I thought most orchids required sufficient heat and humidity to thrive.
“I keep the thermostat in this room at 62 degrees all the time,” Puckett said. “With the sun it gets warmer during the day, up to 75 degrees which is good. Plants like to be 10 degrees cooler at night.”
I noticed that the plant stands had their feet in plastic pans of water, and heard a whirring sound which I thought might be a humidifier. “No, I keep a little fan going all the time. Moving air is at least as important as humidity,” she said, acknowledging that she does go around and spray with water every morning.
One thing surprised me. She says she uses rain water, or melted snow as much as she can. This is because her well water contains a variety of salts. “Many orchid growers have rain barrels and use rain water, but some say to mix it with regular water because orchids do like some calcium.
Although there are many showy orchids like those used in corsages, and my favorite, the moth orchid, many orchids are delicate and tiny. We think of them as not having any fragrance, but Puckett says that many orchids are fragrant, but often at one special time of day – when their natural pollinators are around. That sneaky Mother Nature again.
Puckett has also become interested in Asian orchids which tend to be more notable for their foliage which can be trimmed with silver. Some orchids are mounted on a piece of wood or bark, as they would be in nature, and there are terrestrial orchids that have their roots in real soil.
Puckett laughs when she says she is still a novice; its just that she has a lot of plants. They do well indoors, but come fine weather she brings them all outside where she has built shelves against a barn wall. They are in bright shade until 5 in the afternoon when she lowers a curtain of shade cloth to moderate the sun that has worked its way across the landscape.
Puckett has learned a lot about caring for orchids from websites including the American Orchid Society, www.orchidweb.org, and the orchid forum at www.davesgarden.com.
Happily she has been able to get many of her orchids locally, from David Walker at Green River Orchids on Route 5 & 10 in Deerfield, at Annie’s Garden Store in Amherst, and Windham Flowers in Brattleboro.
It is always illuminating to meet a collector like Puckett. It is one thing to know that orchids comprise one of the largest plant families with 35,000 species – and still counting – but quite another to see the enormous array of size, color and form, the subtlety of foliage and tiny blossom, or the roughness of other foliage and the glamour of brilliant flowers.
January 12, 2008