growing Anacamptis inside the lawn on clay soil

[K Andrzejewski]

Because in many gardens across Greater London I still see old broken terracotta pots (in many different sizes, wandering in all hidden garden corners) I got the idea how to take advantage of them.

A few years ago I saw presentation of Richard Manuel about his method of growing hardy orchids. At the end he showed part of the garden with a couple of orchids in grassy slope.  If someone have old lawn on natural clay soil, there is very good possibility to successfully grow orchids from genus Anacamptis inside lawn using this old unwanted and broken pots.
First few pictures presenting step 1 - preparation

[LarsB]

Interesting use of old pots. Are there any other advantages apart from keeping the plant protected from the lawnmower? Do you add drainage in the bottom?

[K Andrzejewski]

Yesterday evening water disappeared from both holes after about 45 minutes , these mean that there is enough clay minerals in soil. Today morning I have found signs of the night control - my friendly garden fox checked what's going on with "his" lawn. After a dinner I took a sieve and I removed all grass roots, stones, glasses and all other things (better when the particles of the soil are so small as only possible).

Are there any other advantages apart from keeping the plant protected from the lawnmower?

This have nothing to do with any lawnmower, terracotta rings are to avoid growth of grasses inside. From my experience, wall of rings need to be about 10 cm high.

Do you add drainage in the bottom?

Lars - this all is about growing Anacamptis in a clay soil, not in the gravel mixed with sand. Here must not be any drainage at all, do you really want that frost will kill your plants??

Sunday probably I will plant first orchids.

[Anthony Darby]

I've seen it growing in pure sand at the back of a beach.

[K Andrzejewski]

I've seen it growing in pure sand at the back of a beach.

- are you sure, that was just sand like from DIY stores, or maybe something from this classification:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1195/htmldocs/images/shephard.gif
for example - clayey sand?
Kristof

[Anthony Darby]

It was sand. Not silt, not clay. The sort you get in, say, sand dunes which are found at the back of a beach.

[K Andrzejewski]

It was sand. Not silt, not clay. The sort you get in, say, sand dunes which are found at the back of a beach.

- OK. I'm going to be honest - I don't know how to improve such habitat: http://www.landforms.eu/Lothian/dune%20slack.htm in the garden.
In my opinion, few factors are very important for us:
- between the grains of sand and gravel is allways free space
- in UK in the winter time we have quite often rain with snow during the day, but this could turn to night frost
- water in temperature below 0*C turn to ice
- in defrosting progress, mix of ice and water could exist together until +4*C
So if someone want to grow green winged orchid in sand, this is not post for him. The same story for Himantoglossum hircinum in "kentish style" or Dactylorhiza coccinea enthusiast - please don't follow my posts.
Rgerads -
Kristof

[K Andrzejewski]

A small explanation – all orchids grower MUST understand, that growing them outdoors mean, that our plants are totally dependent from weather/four seasons progress and there is no miracle soil-mix or growing method. In greenhouse or cold frame, pots are usually plunged in sand or other soil mix to improve and keep constant humidity. Our work is to permanently monitoring the growing conditions and watering when necessary. If you decide to cultivate in clay outdoor, nature is working for us - and this is the main difference. Because of that, it's very important to take a much wider look at the situation of our small garden. If you are living in area where there is only sandy ground everywhere, even if you take a full car of clay (and 10 extra wheelbarrows from your neighbour who is growing hardy orchids too) – this all will be working totally different way.

Such scenario (as a contra to my post about growing orchids in clay) happened last year on Fred's forum - my countryman presented his “idea” to build the raised bed for orchids on slightly acidic sand, covered with a layer of marl and finally loam mixed with sand, gravel and some other things (weeds, moss etc.) as a main soil for orchids. At the "macro level" a whole resembles exactly the situation from the greenhouse: loam with orchids buried in sand in raised bed and whole layer of sand operates as a super drainage. So - we are going out of greenhouse to imitate the same conditions outdoors...  just pure stupidity. But what can we do if we are living in sandy areas??? We can dig a hole much wider as a shape of our bed and fill all with clay. Inside this base, we can form a mini-raised bed, only a very little higher than our ground level. This will minimize drainage so our soil will don't dry too quickly and this should be enough.
Picture from today - the level of pure, yellowish-brown and fat clay is about 30cm (1 feet) under my lawn.

[Anthony Darby]

Can you show us some that have been growing for several seasons?

[mark smyth]

Here in Northern Ireland Anacamptis grows in very good drainage places. I have seen A. pyramidalis growing in sand in sand dunes. I have seen A. morio growing in what must be sand covered by grass beisde the sea. For A. morio I will ask the site manager if I can dig a small to see what they are growing in

[K Andrzejewski]

"Quarantine"

My experience is showing, that in many cases quarantine is necessary for all new plants before planting them in our garden. If we are not sure what exactly we have, we can make very serious cultivation mistakes and in final result - we can unconsciously kill our plants. So I nearly always try to grow new orchids in pots during the first season. The biggest problem is with tubers from eBay auctions, last year I bought a dozen plants from section morio:
- 2 x subsp. morio from Germany
- 2 x subsp. morio from Germany (other seller)
- 3 x subsp. morio pink color from Germany
- 2 x subsp. morio from Slovenia
- 6 x subsp. caucasica from Greece (I can see from the topic "Orchis, Ophrys and others 2013", that more people bought from the same seller)
but they are:
- first are OK
- not Anacamptis but Orchis and I'm happy that I don't kill them in autumn
- morio pink will probably not blooming this year despite the fact that they should be FS tubers
- they came in very dry condition and I have lost one
- 2 plants from Greece are not this what I bought.
below a few pictures.
Kristof

To avoid chaos, I will don't talk about sand, dunes and coastal areas now. I can only propose to read this: http://www.rain.org/global-garden/soil-types-and-testing.htm


edit by maggi  ... oversized photos removed, resized pix  by MarkS in next post 

[mark smyth]

Kristof your photos are too big so I edited them so people can the whole photo.

[K Andrzejewski]

Choice Plants

Not accidentally I dug two holes in lawn. For the first one I have earlier flowering species from morio group:
- Anacamptis morio subsp. morio
- Anacamptis morio subsp. caucasica
- Anacamptis morio subsp. longicornu
here in autumn I hope to plant Anacamptis morio subsp.champagneuxi and picta too.
Also together with morio we can try orchids from section papilonacea, I already planted hybrid papilonacea (probably subsp.expansa) x morio.

Second hole is for a bit later flowering species and for more wet habitats. So my choice is to connect species from section laxiflora with coriophora/fragrance. Because I still don't see any differences between Anacamptis coriophora and Anacamptis fragrance except habitats (in my opinion - exactly the same like in case of Herminium monorchis), I focus only on the time of flowering. Here I will add Anacamptis sancta too.

Since yesterday all my orchids are on the right places, surprisingly my second Anacamptis morio subsp. morio from Slovenia is allive and with nice new tuber for the next season. Anacamptis coriophora/fragrance have a new, (very little) extra tuber already in growth. Hybrid A.papilionacea x morio I bought a few weeks ago from "Orchids by post" (thanks Alan!) produces now second tuber without any help.

I don’t connect all this species with Anacamptis pyramidalis, in my opinion – this orchid should grow separately, but after my total disaster in season 2011/2012 I started to treat this species with a much bigger respect.

Pictures from yesterday belowe (Mark, Maggi - thanks for your help)
Kristof

P.S. The rest of the soil I used to plant in vitro seedlings of Dactylorhiza incarnata .