orchids blooming outdoors hawaii

OMG Our Hawaii Orchids Bloomed in Kona

Hawaii Orchids

Definitely was not expecting our Hawaii orchids to have bloomed already. I stuck an old orchid plant in our hibiscus tree at our house in Hawaii about a year ago. Forget all about it until I noticed the orchid was attaching itself to the hibiscus tree in the photo below.

A friend had assured me that to grow Hawaii orchids, all you need to do is throw them into the trees. Keep them in a shaded environment and ignore. No fertilizer. No watering. No fussing over it.

Hawaii Orchids

OK, I figured, what harm could it do? Once the orchid has finished blooming, throwing it into a tree is not much different than throwing it out. It will either live or it won’t. A bunch of spent orchids I had placed on the ground under the mango tree did not make it. But the one I stuck into the hibiscus tree attached itself, as evidenced by the photograph above of our Hawaii orchids.

It’s kind of creepy, in a way.

Hawaii Orchids

I left Hawaii 3 weeks ago, and the Hawaii orchids didn’t even have buds at that time. Our gardener sent us this photo with the tag line: your orchids have fired! Isn’t that amazing?? Where else in the world can you throw orchid into a hibiscus tree and it rewards you a year later with all of these blooms? Nature is fascinating.

Elizabeth Weintraub

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