My white orchid

No, this isn't my white orchid. It's a chickadee cracking open a sunflower seed in the lilac bush outside my kitchen window.

We're getting a nice, fresh snowfall today, and it's about time. The old snow had been looking tired and dirty lately, so this storm will spruce things up.

But this post is actually about my white orchid, a phaelenopsis.

It deserves some blog space because it has been such a good orchid.

I bought it, in full bloom, last spring. I think it came  home with me in late May, just as the kitchen remodeling project began.

I needed a little beauty in the house to offset the dust and noise of the remodeling. So the orchid came home with me, from Lowe's, and stayed in bloom from late May through August. As soon as the remodeling was finished in late June, with the kitchen's bay window in place, I set the orchid there, despite the fact that it would get some full sun each day. (Supposedly orchids should get only filtered sun.)

Apparently it liked the full sun and the view, for, as I said, it stayed in bloom from late May to late August.

I was about to cut the flower spike back to 1"-2", which should be done after the plant's flowers have died and dropped off, when I noticed a new branch coming off that spike, and it was forming buds. I decided it would be a shame to cut off those buds, so I left it alone to blossom again.

Then one day as I was watering the plant, I noticed that one of the roots crawling out of the pot was not, in fact, a root, but another flower spike! I was excited to see another spike forming so soon, but there was a problem: the spike, because I'd been assuming it was a root, had been allowed to grow perfectly horizontally rather than being trained to grow upward. I wasn't sure if it was too late to train it upward or not. I didn't want to accidentally snap off the tender spike.

I came up with a plan: Each day I would prop something additional under the spike until the spike was pointing upward. I did this carefully, holding my breath and expecting to see the spike break each time I forced it a bit more to grow in the direction it hadn't planned on.

After several days of this, the spike was headed upward, and its buds were developing nicely. Now it was time to use a hair clip to secure the spike to the bamboo trainer.

That procedure was successful, too. After a few more weeks, the white orchid was in full bloom again, with the buds off the branch of the original spike, and the new spike's buds, opening daily.

So this photo shows you what the orchid looks like today. What I love about orchids is that their blossoms stay open and healthy for many weeks.

I suspect we'll be enjoying these white blossoms into March, at least.

A neighbor who also enjoys orchids mentioned a good point to me last summer: A bouquet of fresh flowers lasts, usually, a week at most. An orchid plant's flowers last a few months. Instead of buying a mixed bouquet of cut flowers, why not buy an orchid instead?

My white orchid probably cost $12.99-15.99, at most. That's not a bad deal for some long-lasting beauty. And this orchid has certainly been giving us our money's worth.