Orchid

My son-in-law gave me an orchid for Mother's Day last year. It had beautiful pink blooms on it. The blooms lasted until after July 4. It's a wonderful plant -- very low maintenance. All you have to do is water it with three ice cubes once a week.

After the blooms fell off, I got directions off the internet and did just what they said which included giving it fertilizer at least once a month during the non-blooming season. It was looking great. In February, it put out a long shoot and then tiny buds started appearing on the shoot. It was loaded with buds, and I was elated.

I kept a close watch on those buds anticipating the day they would bloom. They got bigger and bigger and turned in to small blossoms. But then, I discovered the blossoms were falling off. One by one, they began to fall off. I went back to the internet to see what could be the cause. One problem might be that it needed fertilizer. I started more frequent fertilizing, but to no avail. All the blossoms fell off.

Then the directions said to try repotting the plant. I got some special orchid potting soil, printed the directions off the internet so that I would not miss a step, got a little larger pot, put newspaper on my kitchen island and was set to begin.

I gently took the plant out of the pot on the newspaper trying not to disturb the roots any more than necessary. And then I was horrified. ANTS!!!! Millions of them were in the soil. They didn't have an ant hill in there; they had a whole city! Of course, they went everywhere. I quickly put the pot in the sink and filled it with water and started trying to get the soil off the roots of the plant (still trying not to "disturb" them). I grabbed the newspaper with the soil on it, ran outside and threw it in the backyard. Of course, the ants were going crazy all this time. They had gone all over my hands and arms. I was, literally, up to my ears in ants!

Finally, after much cleaning and washing everything down, I was able to kill the ants, repot the orchid and stop the biting of the ants on my neck and ears. The plant looks like it is going to survive the ordeal, but it will be a few more days before I know about me.

I have no idea where the ants came from. There was no trail. And I have two violets next to it that were not bothered. (I guess ants don't like violets, and I'm thankful for that.) But if they get in the orchid again, I'm pitching it. It's a beautiful plant when it's blooming, but not worth the ants.

In spite of all that, I sure have a sweet son-in-law.