Growing Orchids From Seeds: For Serious Gardeners Only
If you have never gardened before, let alone grew an orchid, then growing orchids from seeds will not be for you. You need to learn how to walk in the orchid world before you can run. Trying to grow orchids from seeds is running at full speed while blindfolded. You need to grow young plants into adult plants successfully before you can attempt growing orchids from seeds. You also need specialized equipment like a greenhouse.
Patience, Patience And More Patience
The average length of time to grow orchids from seeds is three to five years. It takes that long for the seeds to germinate and produce a plant of any distinguishable size. Growing orchids from seeds can't be a passing fad. You must be committed to orchids like you would be to a lover. In fact, your orchids will most likely outlast your lover.
Birds And The Bees
In order to get your orchids to reproduce, they must be pollinated. In the wild, the birds and the bees help pollinate orchids. However, your orchids won't have that access. You will need to pollinate them yourself. Yes - you have to be involved with orchid sex if you want to grow orchids from seeds. Hopefully, your current lover will not get jealous.
Orchids are not too picky when it comes to making baby orchids (seeds that eventually sprout into a plant). Orchids have successfully been crossed with other kinds of orchids in order to make hybrid orchids. You need a pencil or other pointy tool that opens the cap and rubs the pollen from one orchid onto another. It takes practice to get the pollen to stick. And that's orchid sex.
Flasking
Flasking is a fancy name for growing orchids from seeds. As the name suggests, the seeds are grown in flasks instead of pots. You need top be sure your flask is sterile before you can use it for growing orchids from seeds. Orchid growers recommend that the best way to sterilize flasks is to stick them in a pressure cooker after filling them one to two inches with water.
Then you need a growing medium for your orchid seeds to grow in. You cannot use regular potting soil. You must get a specialized medium just for the purpose of growing orchids from seeds. This will be costly.
When the seeds and the growing medium are inside the sterilized flasks, they need to go under fluorescent lights for eight hours a day. The seeds should then turn green in about five to six weeks. As you can see, it takes a lot of work and special training growing orchids from seeds.
