The Bangkok Duty Free and the Orchid Growers of Thailand must be laughing themselves silly over their clever scheme to separate tourists, high on their holidays, from their last few baht.
I had about an hour in the Bangkok airport before my flight and was wandering the shops, as you do, needing to spend what remained of my Thai money. I bought myself an elephant key chain and a few spices for hubby. There were many, many boxes of cut orchids that I admired and passed by. I wasn’t sure how Egyptian customs would deal with me bringing in plant life and didn’t want to risk it. But then I saw the orchids plants, sealed in bottles.
I was feeling overconfident – I have never grown an orchid in my life. I can’t grow picky plants like African violets or cyclamen. I think that seeing orchids growing like weeds all over Thailand (their native environment, duh!) infected my brain though. All I could think at the time was what could be better than cut orchids than an orchid plant? And they came with instructions – how hard could it be?
I ended up getting a package of four small orchids. I gave one to the mother of a friend of mine who loves plants and kept the other three.
First instruction: “Take the orchid plant out from the bottle, when this young plant has filled up the bottle or the nutrient jelly has dried up, approx. 1-3 months spent.”
Hmmm… The inspection stamp on the back of the box was 2009 so surely that was more than a few months? And the plants were in that little airless jar in my custody for weeks and were doing nothing. So I decided to open the jar because maybe they just missed a step in their translation, right?
Wrong. Within days of having opened the jar, the nutrient jelly started to grow mold! Oops.
Okay, on to step two: “Wash the jelly out thoroughly and leave it to dry in basket under shade until new roots have developed, normally consumes 2 weeks.”
I washed the tiny plants off, hoping the Cairo tap water wouldn’t do them in, and put them in liqueur glasses in a dark corner of my kitchen and waited. They looked as if they were molding too – at first. Then I realized that what I took for mold might actually be the roots. Cool!
Their two weeks were just about up when it was time for me to leave for my trip so I hastily potted them. I used coffee cups because it was all I had handy, and let’s be realistic – how long are these things really going to last anyway, especially now that they’ve been left to the care of my nine year old daughter? Think she’s going to remember to water them twice a day? Fat chance!
Good thing the nursery where I bought the peat moss has some lovely, mature, blooming orchids for sale. I should have just gone there in the first place!
Another thing I would recommend not getting in Thailand is a pedicure. I now have an ugly toenail and a month’s worth of Lamisil to remind me of my holiday treat…
We live and learn . . . ?? (The orchids don’t upset me nearly as much as your toenail. Eeeeuuuuw!)
by Mama Pea March 24th, 2010 at 8:45 amOoh, that toenail doesn’t sound too good. I’m terrible with plants too, but orchids seem to look after themselves or they did when I had a couple a few years ago. From memory they didn’t need much water.
by Shelley Munro March 24th, 2010 at 3:30 pmI stupidly decided to bring the last orchid to the US with me, to give as a gift, but I put it in my checked baggage. I guess I thought that the jar was pressurized or something? The poor little plant-ling got all scrambled with the nutrient jelly and didn’t survive
Lesson learned on the orchid front – and the pedicure!!!
The orchids I left at home are apparently still hanging in there…and since they like humid air and low light, maybe I finally found a good plant for my bathroom??
by Jenyfer March 25th, 2010 at 8:13 am