GARDENING BY THE MOON

When I raise baby orchids, they start out growing in a sterile environment, in a glass “flask” with nutrient agar. The seedlings stay in the flask for at least a year, until they’re mature enough to withstand the rigors of a real world in which only a tiny fraction of newly-germinated plants would ever survive. Even with the early years spent in a sterile bubble, there’s often some attrition of the weakest plants when I take them out of the flask. I usually deflask multiple batches of plants at once, and over the years have noticed that some batches fare much better than others for no apparent reason.

I’ve racked my brains trying to figure out why this is. Originally I thought it was taboo to deflask during the couple of months leading to the winter solstice, when day length was decreasing, and best to do it in spring, before the summer solstice, when day length was increasing. Patterns of change in day length do have an effect on baby orchid survival, but I was never convinced that that was the whole story.

Recently, I’ve deflasked several batches in the dead of winter, but noted the phase of the moon at which deflasking occurred. It may be pure superstition, but the batches that were deflasked during the waxing moon phase have grown noticeably better than the batches deflasked during the waning moon phase. I’m sure that this couldn’t have been a “self-fulfilling prophecy” phenomenon in which I treated one batch better than the other, expecting a better outcome, because I had no idea which moon phase would be better. According to the farmers’ lore, the waning moon is the right time for tasks that “reduce” or require root growth, and the waxing moon is the time for tasks that “increase” or require above-ground growth. Deflasking could go either way. It reduces the number of plants growing together and requires establishment of roots, but it also requires an increase in vegetative growth.

Apparently the vegetative growth hypothesis wins out, at least that’s how it looks so far. Obviously I need more data before coming to a conclusion, but maybe the old farmers were right. Now I wonder if there’s a moon phase that’s optimal for perfume-making.

BLOGGER’S BLOCK: CAUSE AND CURE

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here, but I must have needed an August vacation. So far the whole month of August has been kind of depressing, with cold, cloudy weather and overwhelming work in the orchid greenhouse. I’ve spent several weeks on the metaphorical mountaintop doing some soul-searching. No, the soul-searching wasn’t about perfume, it was about plants.

After five years I’m finally ready to acknowledge the fact that I’m just not cut out to be a farmer, even a farmer of exotic plants that don’t involve dirt. It’s hard for me to deal with the day-in-day-out grind of having several thousand plants that depend on me for water, repotting, and protection from pests. I really don’t like dealing with the combination of living things and conditions that are beyond my control, like the weather. It’s sad to see orchids freeze when it gets bitterly cold and the heating system fails, or dry up when it gets too hot and I’m not around to water adequately. There’s nothing more depressing than to walk into the greenhouse and see a huge grasshopper or slug whose greedy gut is bloated with several dozen seedlings of a rare species that I’m not likely to ever get hold of again. Grasshoppers and slugs always go for the most valuable plants.

After much thought, I’ve decided that it’s time to let go of orchids as a business so that I can concentrate on a few other things that I enjoy doing - like perfume making. Of course I’ll continue to grow some of my favorite orchids as a hobby, but that’s far different from farming them. I’ve decided to put the orchid business up for sale and hope for a good buyer to come along, someone who has more time and greenhouse space than I do and can take the plant business to the next level. There. I wrote it. It’s real. Wish me luck!

Realistically, it may take a long time to sell the nursery business to someone that I’d want to have take it over, but in the meantime getting out of the business is just as much an exciting dream as starting a business is in the first place. It’s a dream that will keep me going a while longer on the watering and bug zapping and other chores, knowing that there’s at least a theoretical end somewhere in sight.

Next post, I’ll be back to perfume, and would like to remind those who are testing the new ones to send me any comments you have before I start doing writeups on each one. Thanks to everyone who has sent comments already. They’re fascinating, and really useful.

Gotta go now, there are several dozen huge adult cymbidiums in desperate need of repotting. I should at least water them.

COLLECTING, CURIOSITY, AND PERFUME

A scientist, an orchid grower, and a perfumer walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “What would you like”? All three answer in unison, “One of everything!”

Of course, all three of those characters are me, in just a few of my different real-life roles. I’ve been repeatedly asked how I come to engage in so many seemingly incompatible activities, and I think the main answer, aside from failure to ever “grow up” and “settle down”, is probably an obsessive desire to collect and a really passionate sense of curiosity about everything under the sun. It’s not just about collecting objects, it’s about collecting experiences, which, I suppose, is a corollary of curiosity - the kind that killed the cat, took Peter Pan on his fabulous journeys, and produced the drifter and the dilettante. Scientists are curious about how things work. Orchid enthusiasts are curious about how plants grow, how they evolved, and how the offspring of different crosses will turn out. Perfumers are curious about what will happen if you mix certain things together, or curious about what to combine to make a novel scent that conveys a message. All of these undertakings are more fun if you have a big selection of toys to play with.

As a scientist, the modern incarnation of an alchemist, I collect methods and data, the more the better. The best way to answer any scientific question is to obtain data using as many different approaches as possible and see what elements they all have in common, where they diverge, and why. Come to think of it, this principle applies to any sort of learning or truth-seeking enterprise. It's interesting that every one of the old paintings depicting alchemists shows them in a messy, cluttered environment, the result of collecting. This looks just about right.

After I moved to Seattle about 15 years ago, I started seriously collecting orchids. When orchid plants became readily available to order online, I became obsessed with obtaining every species of orchid that I could lay my hands on, just because of my wonder at the amazing diversity of forms and lifestyles that have evolved within this one plant group. The collecting obsession eventually evolved into my own nursery business, Olympic Orchids. One of the things that I noticed was that the flowers of every orchid species have their own highly distinctive fragrance and I would always think to myself, “This would make a great perfume!”

At the same time I was collecting orchids, a huge variety of perfume samples and decants had become increasingly available online, so I engaged in a perfume sampling frenzy that is still ongoing. I was an avid essential oil collector and perfumista long before I was a perfumer. I continue to learn something from every perfume that I smell, regardless of whether it’s well or poorly made, and regardless of whether I like it or not. I’m not sure when and how it happened, but one day I tried mixing up some of my essential oils to see if I could re-create the scent of a particularly fragrant orchid. It didn’t really work, but the experiment did lead to a lot of learning, buying of new materials, and experimentation.

To go back to my own ancient history, I’ve always been fascinated by perfumes and odors. Even as a child I went around smelling everything, including my mother’s perfumes. Once I had my own money, I started collecting small bottles of essential oils, buying every oil that I could obtain. I didn’t really do anything with them, just sniffed them. At the time, it just seemed like a strange and perverse form of recreation, but now I realize that it was a form of education, getting to know perfume materials, satisfying my curiosity about how they smelled, going back to them again and again to learn those smells. Once I started trying in earnest to make perfumes, I branched out into aroma chemicals, which meant I had to learn a new and completely unfamiliar repertoire of odors. It’s sort of comparable to a musician going from simply playing the piano to making complicated electronic music and then combining the two. I’m still working on learning about aroma chemicals, incorporating new materials into my creations, and figuring out how to make them all play nicely together, but that’s the sort of challenge that keeps me engaged in any sort of activity.