Do you get stressed over ugly plants?

[coeruleo]

also, i must say, i love the jewel orchids, but my ludisia has fallen prey to some mysterious orchid pests, and went from a bushy 10" pot of leaves to a stark bowl of dying stems in less than 2 days. i am sprayinig them with neem, but not sure if they will survive or not. talk about unsightly.

[otis226]

In general, I couldn't agree more with what Bruce said. I find most all orchids, less than stunningly beautiful when not in bloom, very interesting growth, but not beautiful. I do like to try and keep obvious problems off foliage, (sunburn, insect damage, ect.) But some, such as Zygopetulums and Oncidiums are rarely going to have 'showroom new' looking leaves! My favorite orchids by far are the Cattleya alliance, and most all of them are less than beautiful, if not downright ugly, when not in bloom, but I still find their growth fascinating and wait patiently for that sheath that may actually have a bud or two in it!
Cheers,
Tony

[TwoStems]

I actually really like Catt alliance growth...to me it's quite interesting to look at. Phal leaves bore the hell out of me, but that could be because I have boring phals. I do wish my Zygo-type orchids had shorter leaves, as they always get in the way of things and are at risk for being knocked over because of it. I've broken my fair share of zygo leaves.

[sand_tiger86]

I too find Cattleya growth to be interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, their leathery leaves are a little too prone to sun scorch and once it's there, it's pretty much there forever because Catts. don't tend to drop leaves very often once they're mature.

[Dazed]

I am guilty of liking the scorched look on my catts, the fact that it's not the plain old green is what I like. The phals are only interesting when I'm too bored to find something else to look at, and that's only when I put in the rare effort to rub some leaf shine on em. Onc are ugly as hell though, it's only savin grace are the blooms.

[sand_tiger86]

I think an unblemished Phal. is pretty on the rare occasion that I forget how sick of looking at them I am (thanks to box stores). Their big floppy leaves are rather nice to look at, provided they're not wrinkled and yellow.

Oncidiums are just hot messes though. They are so trashy looking, especially in clear containers. They just look like weeds. They're also too damn big. Every time I see a nice one in bloom at the store, I look at the foliage and think "Well what the hell am I supposed to do with this when the flowers go away? No ma'am..."

[Dazed]

I have a large onc here and when I first got it it was a pale green, it has since put out 2 new growth, and I'm all a twitter that I haven't killed it, but my daughter gave a once over the other day and said; "Mummy this one's dead." I told her that that's how it supposed to look, then she just shook her had sadly, and mumbled; "You and your orchids"

[sand_tiger86]

LOL...I got a similar reaction from my mom when I got my first Cattleya. "What is...? It looks poorly. Only one leaf per *looks at it*...stick?" I just laughed and said "Yeah, that's pretty much all you get. One leaf on a stick." Catts, those stingy bastards. I told her when those "sticks" flower, they'll eat her Snapdragons for breakfast.

When it burnt to death I threw it out, to which she just gave me the "Mhm..." look.

[coeruleo]

i much prefer oncidiums out of bloom to cattleyas. oncidiums are leafy and green, and when they become a bigger plant, they look less messy. or maybe the messy looks more wild or something. i used to have a huge cattleya bowringiana, and the damn thing always looked like it was dying. unless it was flowering. then it looked pink, so i gave it away. i used to pick at the dried bulb sheaths in a neurotic way to get it to look less dead.

[sand_tiger86]

That's because it was a species Cattleya...*vomit* lol

The more compact hybrids are much nicer and fuller looking in and out of bloom.