a confession

 Last year at the library, another plant appeared near the sink in our workroom. There were two, actually, in an ugly gray wood box. And I waited for someone to tell me where it came from, who gave it to us, and ask if I would add it to the list of plants I try to take care of. No one ever said anything, nobody knew anything about it. 

Time went on, and it stayed in that spot; I would feel the thick, oval-ish leaves and wonder if it was even real - I wasn't sure. I never gave it one drop of water.

Probably three months went by. It never drooped, the leaves always looked the same, green and - well, the same. I was annoyed that no one said anything about it to me - someone must have taken it from the donor, but they weren't telling me. 

Then one day I was watching a youtube video - the Daily Connoisseur - and she watered some plants. Her orchids. I was struck by the thunderbolt, so to speak - those blasted things were orchids! Fussy orchids, exotic orchids, and I was ignoring them for months, without a drop of water!

I knew I had to mend my ways. And I remembered that my all-time favorite blogger, Anna, of Pleasant View Schoolhouse, had orchids, and she had a method of caring for them that worked for her. 

So it's maybe been two months? And one of them has bloomed! 

Here it is in the sink. What Anna did was to take each and run it under a lot of water. Then, give it another quart of water with fertilizer in it, three times per month. This is what I've done, and a couple of weeks ago I also moved them to a spot with less direct sun. Here is Anna's post, from 2008, Orchids without Fear. It works.