DIY/ Garden: Repotting & Building Decorative Frame for Orchid

Source: Created on Adobe Illustrator

Greetings from a very cold South Africa!

This was just a quick weekend project that I've been wanting to get to for ages. It was easy, fun and I'm pretty impressed with the results!

I'll admit, I'm not exactly sure what kind of orchid this is, it was a housewarming gift. For the longest time, it didn't do much, didn't even show a lot of growth, after moving it around and experimenting a lot, I finally managed to get it to start growing again, and wow, did it grow! And grow.... right out of it's original container. Clearly it was time to repot.

It does best when it has some sort of support, but the plain stick we were using wasn't very pretty, and I wanted something that would also look pretty, so I built a little frame thing around it. Pretty and functional, my favourite combination of things 😀

Here's how I did it:

Prepping for Repotting

Source: Created on Adobe Illustrator

Equipment Used:

• Plant
• Container for plant 20cm
• Potting Soil (I use Culterra Professional Potting Mix)

So far this seems to be the easiest way too prepare the new pot and soil, first I like to fill the new container with some potting soil, about 1/4 of the size of the container is usually pretty decent. After that, I just pop the old container (plant and all, as is) into the new container, then I very carefully fill the space around that container with potting soil, packing in a little bit, bit not too tightly. It should leave a nice pot shaped space, as shown above.

Transferring to New Container

Source: Created on Adobe Illustrator

Next, I gently place my hand around the base of the plant, as show, and quickly flip the container over, it usually slides out pretty easily. Working quickly (which is why there aren't more photos of this step), carefully flip the plant, with soil still attached, over and place into the space created in the new container. This way I can repot it without disturbing the roots too much.

Building the Decorative Support Frame

Source: Created on Adobe Illustrator

For this step I used:
-Chopsticks from a local restaurant (I hate wasting and always try to donate/DIY/recycle before throwing anything away)
-Glue gun and glue sticks

This part was pretty easy, I simply started by sticking four chopsticks into the soil, after that I glued four more to the tops of those, creating a roughly square shaped 'cage' around my plant (had to be very careful while doing this, hot glue and cute little plants.... scary combination)
Once the main shape was there, I started to add more sticks, for the top half, making a diamond like shape. I stuck a few more on there just to make it look right. And then I was done and ready to clean it all up a bit before moving it to its permanent home!

Source: Created on Adobe Illustrator

The orchid seems to be doing much better in it's new container, and I also think it looks pretty good. Will definitely do this for more of my plants in the future.

Thank you for reading! Till next time!

Credits: All photos by: S. R. Webber
Photo collages created using Adobe Illustrator - by S.R Webber