Transplanting Orchids With Help From a Son

Mom had mentioned to us a long time ago that she needed hapuu which is a Hawaiian tree fern. She needed its bark to transplant orchids that were outgrowing their pots. I decided to forget about it since she already had four or five pots of it and the bulbuls often come to dine on the buds anyway.

Therefore, when we saw a rather pricey bag of hapuu at the store, I tried to discourage Art from buying it. He insisted that we should get it for mom. I told him that she already said she can't do it anymore and someone else would have to do it. 

Art said he would do it.

Riiiight.... 🙄  He's got a bunch of bonsai plants that are no longer bonsai.

Art bought it anyway and the big bag of hapuu languished on our patio for months and months and months. When I passed by it the other day I saw weeds growing in the bag. 

I told mom and she said she'd completely forgotten how to repot orchids anyway.

"What?!?" 

I told my brother that his mother would love to have his help with the orchids. He'd been too busy with babysitting his grandchildren for a long while, but had some free time now, so he was happy to come over. Granted, he said it's something he's never done although he'd seen our father do it decades ago.

Mom was thrilled to be able to spend quality time with her son again. And here's what mom (who repeated that she no longer has any idea how to repot orchids anymore) said.

When we went out to the patio, she immediately said, "Wait! You need 20-20-20 orchid fertilizer."

"What?!? You never mentioned fertilizer." I showed her other kinds of fertilizer we'd bought her before, but she said it had to be orchid fertilizer.

I finally showed her the 16-16-16 which I told her had the same ratio. 

"No," she said. 

"The ratio is the same," said Dennis. "It should work I would think."

"OK," said mom. Do you see who she believes the most?

Art set up a chair for her so she could supervise and put a drop cloth on the ground to contain the debris.

"Wait," she said. "You have to get the smaller pots. You need gravel at the bottom."

Dennis complied and then started to add the hapuu.

"Wait, you have to put fertilizer at the bottom and mix it." Mom continued.

"You have to clean off the pots well and separate the orchids." Mom instructed. 

"OK, now add more hapuu," mom continued, "and put some rocks on the top."

And so it went. Dennis, ever the loving and wonderful son that he is, followed her advice (which she no longer insisted she couldn’t remember how to do) while also doing what he thought was best and managed to complete all the repotting.

Here are some of the freshly potted orchids.

WORD OF CAUTION: Please don't follow what mom said because it's not exactly what we've seen online. However, we'll see what happens. Dennis says he just hopes they don't all die at once.

In the end, the most important part, the best of the best part was that mom had her son's complete attention for a whole hour and that was golden!