It feels as though time is escaping me .. Lately it's as if spring has sprung and time is now fleeting faster again. Like clockwork every spring comes and my work life gets busier and my home life suffers. It comes with a territory I suppose. So it's been a while since I put out a post and I thought today I would solve that, take a break from life and post about our orchids. After all they make us happy!
I have been eyeing up Orchid racks lately.. But I needed a quick and simple solution NOW. Our two Vanda orchids, the ones that I have to soak in water daily, were both hanging on an outdoor plant stand, and things were getting a little bit too tight. These Vanda orchids need plenty of breathing room so they completely dry out before their next soak. That got me thinking that I need to come up with a different solution for hanging these. They also love a lot of light and I wanted to move them closer to the door where the majority of the light shines through.
I remembered having a coat rack in my basement .. That I put away for the yard sale that I never had. (Maybe this year. Hehehe.) I thought this might be a perfect temporary solution, but it turns out it may be more of a permanent one. It has hooks made for coats that would be perfect for hanging my bare root Vanda orchids. After locating it in my basement and bringing it up, and cleaning the cobwebs off of it, I forgot that it had a brace in the middle. It was a circular brace made for placing umbrellas into it. This would make a perfect shelf! I could display our other sun loving orchids in this area as well. But how would I do it?
How could make a shelf to sit on top of that bracket. The past couple of years when we have parties at the house, and buy either shrimp or fruit or vegetables, they come on the sturdy black trays. I've been keeping those trays because they make great water collectors for underneath our pots.
I grabbed one of those and cut out a hole in the center. I took off the brackets at the top and slid the entire piece down over top of the center pole.
I have to say it turned out better than I thought it would. I don't think anybody would even know it was originally a coat rack.
I also modified the top slightly by adding some wire tie loops to hang the Vandas. It's probably the part I most visually don't like. Once I come up with a better solution I will implement it. But for now the homemade loops work.
And look at that… Plenty of hooks still available! I guess this means I can buy more Vanda orchids. Smile smile.
There's a small tray at the bottom of the coat rack where I set our two Dendrobium orchids. They are also sun loving orchids so this is a good solution. The only thing is that area/shelf isn't quite good enough to set these pots. I'll have to find a larger tray to fit there or possibly build a a wooden shelf. This way those orchids are more stable and are at lower risk of falling over onto the floor.
I think I will end the orchid update here. There's always more to talk about, but already I can see this is getting lengthy. I'll write something again soon.
Last but definitely not least silver! .. I can't end this post without talking about a piece of silver, that just wouldn't be right. So today I have on display a Somali Republic 2021 100 shillings silver coin. It's a 1 ounce, Bavarian State Mint issued coin, depicting an elephant on one side and a Somali crest on the other. I have to say this is one of my more favorite coins in the stack. This beautiful elephant, like my orchids, need the proper care and preservation.
My favorite part of this coin is the actual elephant. It's so detailed whereas the rest of the coin design pales and comparison to it. But that's OK because the elephant should stand out and be the star of the show. Also like our orchids the flower stand out and the plants sometimes take the backseat, so is the case with this coin at least in my opinion.
