Jo Boudinot

An eye-popping profusion of orchid plants , half of them in bloom or soon to be , is a normal morning for Jo Boudinot.

Ditto for Ria Malito

Neighbors in Radcliff , Ky. , the two are carpooling co-members of the Kentucky Orchid Society , which meets in Lyndon , some 40 miles to the east.They are united in their passion for the bounteous , beautiful world of these tropicals.

Only difference is , Boudinot grows her orchids in a somewhat complicated greenhouse where a reverse-osmosis water-purification system dispenses the right kind of water for these jungle natives.

Malito is a windowsill grower , tending her plants the old-fashioned way , collecting rainwater in a barrel and dispensing it via watering can.

Both are award-winning orchid growers.

Both will have plants in perfect bloom to exhibit among the hundreds of plants on display and for sale at the Kentucky Orchid Society's annual show this weekend at Louisville's Bashford Manor Mall.

And both home gardeners prove what all the orchid pros and all the orchids books insist :.

...
Boudinot , a native of south Texas , is a former airline stewardess and heart-surgery-team nurse , who has long gardened as a respite from stress.She started playing around with orchids nearly 10 years ago , using a small , very primitive greenhouse in her back yard.When she had to cancel a cruise to Alaska because her husband , retired Lt.Col. Burton Boudinot , confessed that he had had enough travel in the military , Jo Boudinot traded that loss for her gain -- a 14-by-30-foot metal-frame greenhouse.

She said her husband was heard to mutter during the somewhat prolonged construction period , I should have gone to Alaska..

Now he is chief admirer and likes to show off his wife's orchids to visitors , said Boudinot , a flower judge and president of the Kentucky Orchid Society.

Malito , a native of Munich , Germany , and a military bride who moved to Kentucky years ago , said she was always interested in orchids but thought you had to have a greenhouse to grow them.Then , one Mother's Day , her husband gave her three orchids as a surprise.

They did well and then I got one more and one more. . . . They multiplied , she said.

Malito still has one of the original orchids from 1988 , Monticello x Lippstadt.It lives along with perhaps 100 others in her large sunroom.Another group of a few hundred , those not in bloom or those that need cooler , moister conditions , live in a pragmatic , tarp-enclosed space in the basement.All go outside in her wildflower shade garden for the summer.

Ria Malito nurtures her orchids.
...
You just stay with it , said Boudinot , who visits her plants daily and breaks big jobs into small pieces.

Be observant.Watch especially for scale , a tiny brown spot at leaf-stem junctures carried by ants.For this reason , Boudinot does not summer plants outdoors and Malito keeps ant bait on the windowsills.

Be systematic.Malito keeps track of the life of her plants by detailed abbreviations on pot labels.She started keeping a journal with flowering and repotting dates , but it was a real bother , she said.

Boudinot uses color codes to mark repotting , which does not always happen when it should , she said.For instance , the blue tags in the pots in her greenhouse mean that those plants should have been repotted in 2000.The orange tags mean that they are due to be repotted in 2001.

Use only orchid medium , such as chips and coconut fiber , to provide good air and drainage.Boudinot also likes a pot molded with an interior cone projecting into the root zone , the Aircone pot.

Do not overfeed.Feed with dilute solution with a high middle number , such as 7-9-5 or , when they need a punch , a 3-12-6 mix.

Be sure temperatures drop at night by 10 degrees , which induces orchids to set bud and bloom indoors.

Use only rainwater or distilled water.
...
For more information about the orchid society show Saturday and Sunday at Bashford Manor Mall , call Boudinot at ( 270 ) 351-1767.

Gardening runs each Thursday.

An eye-popping profusion of orchid plants , half of them in bloom or soon to be , is a normal morning for Jo Boudinot.

Ditto for Ria Malito

Neighbors in Radcliff , Ky. , the two are carpooling co-members of the Kentucky Orchid Society , which meets in Lyndon , some 40 miles to the east.They are united in their passion for the bounteous , beautiful world of these tropicals.

Only difference is , Boudinot grows her orchids in a somewhat complicated greenhouse where a reverse-osmosis water-purification system dispenses the right kind of water for these jungle natives.

Malito is a windowsill grower , tending her plants the old-fashioned way , collecting rainwater in a barrel and dispensing it via watering can.

Both are award-winning orchid growers.

Both will have plants in perfect bloom to exhibit among the hundreds of plants on display and for sale at the Kentucky Orchid Society's annual show this weekend at Louisville's Bashford Manor Mall.

And both home gardeners prove what all the orchid pros and all the orchids books insist :.

...
Boudinot , a native of south Texas , is a former airline stewardess and heart-surgery-team nurse , who has long gardened as a respite from stress.She started playing around with orchids nearly 10 years ago , using a small , very primitive greenhouse in her back yard.When she had to cancel a cruise to Alaska because her husband , retired Lt.Col..Burton Boudinot , confessed that he had had enough travel in the military , Jo Boudinot traded that loss for her gain -- a 14-by-30-foot metal-frame greenhouse.

She said her husband was heard to mutter during the somewhat prolonged construction period , I should have gone to Alaska..

Now he is chief admirer and likes to show off his wife's orchids to visitors , said Boudinot , a flower judge and president of the Kentucky Orchid Society.

Malito , a native of Munich , Germany , and a military bride who moved to Kentucky years ago , said she was always interested in orchids but thought you had to have a greenhouse to grow them.Then , one Mother's Day , her husband gave her three orchids as a surprise.

They did well and then I got one more and one more. . . . They multiplied , she said.

Malito still has one of the original orchids from 1988 , Monticello x Lippstadt.It lives along with perhaps 100 others in her large sunroom.Another group of a few hundred , those not in bloom or those that need cooler , moister conditions , live in a pragmatic , tarp-enclosed space in the basement.All go outside in her wildflower shade garden for the summer.

Ria Malito nurtures her orchids.
...
You just stay with it , said Boudinot , who visits her plants daily and breaks big jobs into small pieces.

Be observant.Watch especially for scale , a tiny brown spot at leaf-stem junctures carried by ants.For this reason , Boudinot does not summer plants outdoors and Malito keeps ant bait on the windowsills.

Be systematic.Malito keeps track of the life of her plants by detailed abbreviations on pot labels.She started keeping a journal with flowering and repotting dates , but it was a real bother , she said.

Boudinot uses color codes to mark repotting , which does not always happen when it should , she said.For instance , the blue tags in the pots in her greenhouse mean that those plants should have been repotted in 2000.The orange tags mean that they are due to be repotted in 2001.

Use only orchid medium , such as chips and coconut fiber , to provide good air and drainage.Boudinot also likes a pot molded with an interior cone projecting into the root zone , the Aircone pot.

Do not overfeed.Feed with dilute solution with a high middle number , such as 7-9-5 or , when they need a punch , a 3-12-6 mix.

Be sure temperatures drop at night by 10 degrees , which induces orchids to set bud and bloom indoors.

Use only rainwater or distilled water.
...
For more information about the orchid society show Saturday and Sunday at Bashford Manor Mall , call Boudinot at ( 270 ) 351-1767.

Gardening runs each Thursday.

In the Judges Forum, AOS Secretary William Rhodehamel offers suggestions for revising the pleurothallid award criteria, and AOS Probationary Judge Jo Boudinot reviews the results of a survey on lateral awarding of orchids.