I have great admiration for those with indoor green thumbs! While I have in the past had beautiful large perennial flower beds, my indoor plants have never thrived. In fact, there was a time when I told my husband to buy me cut flowers instead of a potted one so I wouldn’t feel the guilt of watching them fade and die! I am aware that potted plants are often coerced to bloom, but even the green didn’t look healthy under my care. So, I rarely have indoor plants. God waters the outside ones, and we are all happier for it. Until…My youngest bought me a mini orchid. It came in an egg-cup-sized pot with clear cellophane around it, and instructions to add one ice cube a week. And somehow it was happy in my kitchen window. So happy in fact, that it grew a few extra leaves and its roots came out of the soil… and I thought to myself that I should transplant it. I pressed the soil against the roots to ensure good contact as any farmer with a seed packer would do. Those of us with little orchid knowledge would think I was doing the plant a favour. I did continue to give it an ice cube a week, with my daughter occasionally supplementing my ice cube with a second one of her own. The change of pot seemed to stunt it for a while. Eventually, the roots started popping back out of the soil, and even the orchid even flowered. I was proud of what I had done but probably shouldn’t have been. Did you know that plants often flower when they are under stress?!? Mine was under serious pressures that I didn’t even know about.

A short while later, I got a chance to visit a greenhouse orchid grower in Niagara. A participant of the Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program that I lead, Liam was happy to show us around. Things I learned:

• Orchids do not need ice cubes, but they also do not need heavy watering. Ice cubes may keep most of us from overwatering though.
• Orchids are planted in very light and airy soil because they are different from other plants. Their roots absorb moisture from the air. Compacting the soil against the roots is actually not helpful.
• In nature, orchids grow and bloom in the treetops. Their fuzzy looking roots get the nutrients they need from the air in tropical climates.

In summary, I learned that my transplanting the flower and pressing the soil against the roots to ensure great contact with the dirt was pretty much the opposite of what the orchid needed. The knowledge that I had of plants did not include a deeper understanding of this flora.

The one thing I had done right was completely by mistake. My kitchen window is near the dishwasher, and the sink is often full of hot steamy water. It is the most humid room in the house. When my friend told me that my orchid looked great and I shouldn’t move it, she was unknowingly onto something – the orchid loved the moisture in the air in my kitchen.

Sometimes, I wonder if we realize that there are orchids among us – people that bloom and thrive in places and in ways that we do not understand. We often take the knowledge we have and assume that it is the same for everyone else. But what if culture or upbringing, personality or experiences have driven others to see and experience the world in a different way than we do? Do we instantly assume that people are weird, impolite, or wrong, because they don’t follow the patterns we expect? Do we pause and try to understand their perspective?

There is value in digging deeper into who we are and why we do what we do. Orchids have adapted to an environment that has little light or moisture on the rainforest floor. They are a beautiful innovative plant. I would have never understood the needs of orchids except that I had the chance to learn from Liam and his family. I still don’t have it all figured out, (not going to grow greenhouses of orchids anytime soon!) but I am kinder to the orchid I have.

The photo is of my growing orchid. I moved it to the dining room for a better picture, but I put it back in the kitchen after its photo shoot. If you look closely, a baby orchid is growing in the top part of it, roots fully exposed and enjoying my sometimes-steamy kitchen. It makes me happy to see it thrive in its environment.

Bloom where you are planted.