**Secret Orchid Care Tips from a Master Orchid Grower — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/secret-orchid-care-tips-master-grower/ Master orchid grower John Clements shares expert tips on orchid care, history, structure, and breeding at San Diego Botanic Garden. ## Key Takeaways - Orchids have a unique flower structure that distinguishes them from other plants. - Orchid breeding is a detailed and well-documented process similar to animal pedigree tracking. - Many orchids are easy to grow with proper care, especially in climates like San Diego. - Orchids have a rich history tied to global plant collecting and cultivation. - Certain orchid species and hybrids can be very valuable and rare. ## What the video covers - Introduction to orchids and their botanical family, Liliaceae, related to lilies and irises. - Historical context of orchid collection by wealthy patrons and its environmental impact. - Overview of orchid flower structure with three sepals, three petals, and a distinctive lip petal. - Discussion of various orchid species and hybrids, highlighting their unique features and complexity. - Insight into orchid breeding culture, record keeping, and hybrid genealogy. - Explanation of common orchid types like phalaenopsis and dendrobiums and their growing conditions. - Description of orchid potting, pseudobulbs, and plant establishment for healthy growth. - Mention of orchid fragrance variations and how scents can change over time. - Highlight of the rarity and high value of certain large orchid species. - Encouragement to visit San Diego Botanic Garden’s World of Orchids exhibit. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction to Orchids and the San Diego Botanic Garden 2. 00:35 Meeting John Clements and Orchid Photography 3. 01:23 History and Collection of Orchids 4. 02:09 Orchid Flower Structure Explained 5. 06:00 Exploring Unique Orchid Species and Hybrids 6. 09:32 Orchid Breeding and Hybrid Record Keeping 7. 15:00 Growing Conditions and Care Tips 8. 16:00 Orchid Rarity and Value 9. 20:00 Potting, Pseudobulbs, and Plant Establishment 10. 25:00 Conclusion and Visit Invitation Answers ## Questions about this video What family do orchids belong to? Orchids belong to the Liliaceae family, which also includes lilies and irises. What is unique about the structure of orchid flowers? Orchid flowers have three sepals and three petals, with one petal adapted into a distinctive lip, a feature common to all orchids. How is orchid breeding documented? Orchid breeding is well-recorded with detailed genealogy available through organizations like the Royal Horticultural Society, similar to animal pedigree tracking. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:01 Speaker A I've grown a lot of plants in my day, but one plant I have never grown is the humble orchid. 00:07 Speaker A And believe it or not, there's so much more to orchids than you might imagine. 00:10 Speaker A Certainly more than I thought. So I'm here in San Diego, California at the San Diego Botanic Garden to see an old friend John Clements at the World of Orchids exhibit. 00:19 Speaker A Let's go find him. 00:24 Speaker A - The man. 00:27 Speaker A - Hey Kevin, you caught me. 00:30 Speaker A - The myth, the legend, you're taking some photos of the orchids? 00:35 Speaker A - I was taking photos. 00:45 Speaker A - How you doing? 00:50 Speaker A - Good, nice to see-- 00:56 Speaker A - Good to see you. 01:05 Speaker A - You again. 01:11 Speaker A - Well last time we saw you, this place looked completely different. 01:16 Speaker A It was the world of house plants exhibit. 01:23 Speaker A - It was. 01:29 Speaker A - And I think we were standing right where a corpse flower was. 01:39 Speaker A - That's about right. 01:45 Speaker A - Yeah. 01:48 Speaker A - Yeah. This place changes all the time. 01:51 Speaker A - It does. 01:57 Speaker A - That's one of the neat things about this greenhouse-- 02:04 Speaker A - Yeah. 02:10 Speaker A - Is that we constantly are reconfiguring it and making it into different shows and events, and things. 02:14 Speaker A It's really fun. 02:20 Speaker A - Well, right now it's the World of Orchids exhibit. There's about 200 plus different varieties in here. 02:27 Speaker A I can smell it. Why don't we start where, where orchids started. I mean, I don't know-- 02:32 Speaker A - Yeah. 02:40 Speaker A - Much about them. 02:47 Speaker A I haven't grown them much in my life. The only times I've ever received them, I think is probably how most people these days would get them, which is, happy graduation or you know, it's your birthday, that kind of gift. 02:53 Speaker A - Sure. 02:58 Speaker A - But what do we need to know about orchids just from a botanical level like, what family are they in, that kind of stuff? 03:10 Speaker A - Right, well they're in the Liliaceae family, so they're related to lilies and irises, and things. 03:19 Speaker A And they are really all over the world. 03:25 Speaker A - Yeah. 03:28 Speaker A - The only continent that orchids don't occur in is Antarctica. 03:31 Speaker A - Do you know the actual like, historical origin of how they started being collected and cultivated and maybe even bred, or? 03:37 Speaker A - Very often wealthy people or royalty would dispatch people around the world on boats and they would go out looking for plants, collect them and bring them back. 03:42 Speaker A And not just with orchids, other kinds of plants too, but it, and to the point where they really wiped out certain areas. 03:50 Speaker A - Yeah. 03:54 Speaker A - In the world. 03:57 Speaker A - Not the best practice in the world. 04:04 Speaker A - Not the, not the greatest practice. 04:09 Speaker A - Why don't we kind of walk around and look-- 04:19 Speaker A - Sure. 04:24 Speaker A - At some of the unique ones. 04:27 Speaker A - Well, that's what's neat about what we've got going here. You know, the Trader Joe's orchids typically are gonna be phalaenopsis. 04:29 Speaker A And these are all species and really complex hybrids that orchid growers really grow, that are just total addicts. 04:35 Speaker A Like this. 04:40 Speaker A - This is not, you're not finding this Trader Joe's. 04:45 Speaker A - No, no, this is like probably 500 blooms on that plant. 04:51 Speaker A And that's Coelogyne cristata. And cristata in Latin means crested. And so it's-- 04:55 Speaker A - Yeah, yeah. 05:00 Speaker A - Really referring to that dorsal sepal there. 05:04 Speaker A - Sure. 05:08 Speaker A - And so they're, you know, they're just spectacular. 05:14 Speaker A - Why don't we take a look at this one right here? 05:19 Speaker A - Yeah. 05:23 Speaker A - Because this one I feel like illustrates something you were telling me about orchids, that's just a feature of them no matter where they are in the world. 05:29 Speaker A - Sure. 05:37 Speaker A - Is the structure of the petals and the flower, et cetera. 05:44 Speaker A - Right. 05:53 Speaker A - So can we break that down? 05:57 Speaker A - Sure. 06:00 Speaker A - Yeah. 06:04 Speaker A - So with orchids, they really all have exactly the same structure and that's what distinguishes an orchid. 06:09 Speaker A And so if I were to look at this orchid, I can show that, they either have petals and sepals on the flower and they have three of each. 06:16 Speaker A So the sepals will always be at that dorsal position at 12 o'clock. 06:21 Speaker A - To the top. 06:26 Speaker A - The top, and then you'll have a sepal here and a sepal here usually. 06:31 Speaker A - And what's the difference between a sepal and a petal? 06:36 Speaker A - So the petals are the other structure. 06:46 Speaker A - Yeah. 06:53 Speaker A - So the petals would be here and here, and then this is what really distinguishes an orchid from all the other plants in the Liliaceae family, is that it has one petal that has been adapted to become a lip. And so every single orchid, regardless of species, regardless of where it occurs in the world, they'll all have that structure. 06:57 Speaker A - And that happens, and when we look at this one right here, which is, 07:01 Speaker A - Dendrochilum multiflora. 07:06 Speaker A - Dendrochilum multiflora. Multiflora, meaning multiple flowers right? 07:10 Speaker A - Right. 07:15 Speaker A - So if you were to look, there you go. 07:21 Speaker A You have that lip right at the bottom there on that-- 07:26 Speaker A - Correct. 07:36 Speaker A - Little tuft of yellow. 07:43 Speaker A - It has the same structure form. 07:50 Speaker A - Mhm, yeah. 07:57 Speaker A - Yeah. 08:01 Speaker A - Just obviously much more per flower spike, I guess. 08:10 Speaker A Right? 08:16 Speaker A - Right. And when we look at cattleyas in a little bit, then you'll really see a lip and a half. 08:20 Speaker A - Yeah, yeah. 08:35 Speaker A - I mean, there are some that form a lip that is not in proportion to the rest of the flower where it really just sticks out. 08:39 Speaker A - Little aggressive, yeah. 08:48 Speaker A - Yeah, oh yeah. 08:53 Speaker A Big and beautiful and frilly, you know. 08:58 Speaker A - I was gonna say, I don't know, I can't tell if you're into it or if you're not into it. 09:01 Speaker A - No, I really like them. Yeah, that's my favorite. 09:06 Speaker A - Well let's take a look at some of the ones over here then. 09:12 Speaker A - Yeah. 09:22 Speaker A - So these ones here, Dendrobium Roy Tokunaga. Talk to me about the breeding sort of culture in orchids. 09:27 Speaker A Is there, is that huge? I mean-- 09:32 Speaker A - It is. 09:36 Speaker A - I can only imagine it's, maybe as much as roses or other plants like that. 09:39 Speaker A - You know, this one is from an Australian dendrobium. And so, and again, that's one of the best orchids to get from Australia, would be these dendrobiums. 09:42 Speaker A And then there's very good record keeping. So you can go in the Royal Horticultural Society. 09:45 Speaker A - Oh. 09:52 Speaker A - And my name's in there on a couple of hybrids-- 10:02 Speaker A - Is it really? 10:07 Speaker A - From a long time ago, 40 years ago. 10:10 Speaker A - Do you still have them? 10:17 Speaker A - No, I actually don't even have the plants anymore. 10:26 Speaker A - Man. 10:33 Speaker A - And so what's interesting is that we can look up this hybrid. 10:37 Speaker A - Yeah. 10:44 Speaker A - We'll look up that name and then it will show who bred it, the year they bred it, and then what the genealogy is. 10:55 Speaker A - Wow, wow. 11:02 Speaker A - Which is kind of fun. 11:07 Speaker A - Sort of like a, like a pet breeding, like-- 11:15 Speaker A - Right. 11:20 Speaker A - You know. 11:28 Speaker A - It's like the AKC if you bought a dog. 11:32 Speaker A - Mhm, yeah, yeah. 11:43 Speaker A - You could actually find the parentage and-- 11:49 Speaker A - Wow. 11:56 Speaker A - Find where that's recorded. 12:02 Speaker A And so all the orchid hybrids do have that in common. We can look them up. 12:07 Speaker A - So when you look at like an orchid, like this one here, the zygopetalum hybrid here-- 12:15 Speaker A - Uh huh. 12:20 Speaker A - To me I say, does this follow the same pattern? Because you've got that bottom lip that you've talked about. 12:24 Speaker A - Correct. 12:32 Speaker A - But then these ones seem to be in different positions a bit. 12:36 Speaker A - Well, what you can see here is that these two sepals have kind of come up slightly, but it's still that same form. 12:41 Speaker A - Yeah. 12:49 Speaker A - We still have this sepal here, sepal here, sepal here, the two petals. 12:57 Speaker A And then what's happened here with this other petal, it's just this really neat big lip. 13:00 Speaker A - So, and that's mostly, a breeding decision to sort of force it to show in that way? 13:03 Speaker A - In some ways. 13:08 Speaker A - Yeah. And so you can accentuate that, but in nature, the hybrids you know, will accentuate sometimes what nature has. 13:13 Speaker A But you'll find like zygopetalum intermedia in nature. It will be very close to this already with that great big lip. 13:18 Speaker A This is another one that's really fragrant. And you know, it's just beautiful. And some of these will have a really bright, kind of a chartreuse color mixed with this brown. 13:28 Speaker A And usually a blue or a purple lip. And-- 13:34 Speaker A - Yeah. 13:38 Speaker A - That knocks my socks off. 13:43 Speaker A - I mean that, I mean let's give, I want to hit this one real quick, let me see. 13:47 Speaker A - Yeah, that one has a, a nice-- 13:54 Speaker A - That's a very punchy-- 13:57 Speaker A - Yeah. 14:03 Speaker A - Fruity scent almost to me. 14:11 Speaker A - Two weeks ago when this plant first came in, it smelled sweeter. 14:18 Speaker A And to me it smells a little, almost mothball-y right now. 14:21 Speaker A - Mhm. 14:27 Speaker A - Just has, it's morphing over time and this scent will change. 14:35 Speaker A - So when I see this, when I see you know, these are growing in pots, it looks like. 14:46 Speaker A - Correct. 14:54 Speaker A - But you know, most orchids is maybe the phalaenopsis that you get. 15:00 Speaker A They're depending on atmospheric humidity. - [Kevin] Mhm. - A lot of times if you're raising orchids like this on a slab or piece of wood, or piece of cork oak, you're watering that maybe two or three times a week. 15:11 Speaker A So you're splashing this down and that's not the kind of thing you can do terribly easily in the house. 15:16 Speaker A - Yeah. - But there are some that are so easy to grow. Like in San Diego, you could grow them outdoors on your patio with just a little bit of cover. 15:24 Speaker A Some you could grow inside the house. - Yeah. - Really the trader Joe orchids, mostly phalaenopsis, those are easy. 15:31 Speaker A - Yeah, that's what I'm used to seeing. I mean, I think everyone watching is probably used to seeing that long stem-- - Yeah. 15:36 Speaker A - And then these big petal, sepal flower combos. Wow, look at this one here. 15:41 Speaker A That little-- - Isn't that's sweet. - That one's going down-- - Right. - That little pendulum. 15:45 Speaker A - Yeah, some of them do grow pendulously. - Wow. - In fact, look at that-- - Look at the-- - Species name. 15:50 Speaker A It's dendrobium pendulum. - Pendulum, yeah. And look at the like, I don't know what to anatomically call that, but it sort of clusters at each node and-- - Yeah. - Kind of resets, unique look on that one. 16:00 Speaker A - Yeah and little flowers coming out of those nodes as it goes down. - Let's talk rare. 16:04 Speaker A - Okay. - Because you know last time, and we're actually John, standing underneath it. 16:06 Speaker A (John laughs) The spiritus sancti. - Yes. - My namesake, the plant I've been hunting for and you guys are sort of flaunting it. - Yeah. 16:13 Speaker A - Right here. - We'll have to get a cutting for you. (John laughs) - Hey look, if you're the one who suggested it-- - Oh listen now you-- - I was gonna try to bribe you. - You have to live up to that. 16:20 Speaker A - I was gonna try to bribe you. But yeah, I mean in the world of orchids, I can only imagine there's quite rare ones. 16:25 Speaker A - Yeah. - Maybe even species that there's not that many of. - Sure. - I'm wondering, you got 200 here, what can we highlight? 16:31 Speaker A - Kind of intimidated to say so, so that, somebody doesn't come in and hurt some of these plants - Well let's keep it, let's keep it-- - But let's say that-- - Let's keep the prices out of the converstation. - I would say that, 16:38 Speaker A any of these larger orchids easily would sell for five, 600 bucks a piece. - Wow, wow. - You know? 16:44 Speaker A - When it's a nice specimen like this. If you could get it, they're pretty valuable. 16:49 Speaker A - Yeah. From a size perspective that impacts the value. Right, but-- - Sure, from older it is. 16:54 Speaker A - From a beauty or maybe even just, what about just pure rarity? - Sure. 16:58 Speaker A There aren't any here that I would describe as being really you know, terribly rare, but some, pretty tough to find. 17:06 Speaker A - Mhm. - I mean, you know like, there's one called paphiopedilum rothschildianum that used to be, gosh if you could find one, it would be maybe 400 dollars per fan. 17:16 Speaker A You know and that, it's a paphiopedilum, which is like these over here. - Yeah, yeah. 17:20 Speaker A - And that's an expensive orchid. And that's 40, 50 years ago. - That's crazy. 17:23 Speaker A - So-- - Yeah. - You know that we would sell, there was one particular hybrid we had that we sold some of to Japan for 10,000 dollars. 17:30 Speaker A - Are you serious? - About 40 years ago. - Wow. - Because this was just on the cusp of everybody doing tissue culture. 17:35 Speaker A - Mm. - So they buy it for 10 grand, but then they own that plant and they can make thousands. 17:40 Speaker A - They tissue culture it one time and they can-- - Right. And then they make-- - Yeah the tissue-- - That money back. - For the tissue. 17:44 Speaker A Yeah, exactly yeah. - Because it was just such a cool orchid. - Wow. Yeah so, variance wise, we obviously saw the ones that the flowers are so small you can't even see them really. 17:51 Speaker A - Right. - And then I'm looking at this one Hawaiian Talon-- - That's a pretty big one. 17:53 Speaker A - I mean, this is huge. - Isn't that big? - Is this as big as they'll get, or there's even larger? 17:57 Speaker A - There are some that'll maybe get another inch or two even bigger than that. 18:01 Speaker A But that's about as big as those are gonna get. - That's a nice scent. - That's a big one, isn't it? 18:05 Speaker A - That's a really nice-- - Imagine grandma with that as a corsage. That used to be the big-- - I can imagine. - Corsage flower, you know? - Honestly, my grandma's so, a small Filipino grandma. 18:12 Speaker A - Oh yeah. - It would be like the size, that's almost the size of her head. 18:15 Speaker A - And then you know, this is a very similar type that's been changed. It used to be I grew up, you know, they keep changing the names of plants just to keep my brain-- - Yep, yep. - Active and, 18:24 Speaker A that's now corynanthe skinneri. But it used to be a cattleya skinneri. And so that's changed but, it's really this type of orchid, but look at the number of flowers. 18:34 Speaker A - Yeah way more per-- - You know, yeah, per stem. - Per stem, yeah. - Just beautiful. 18:39 Speaker A - Yeah, it's interesting how like this would be I guess, three or four per stem. 18:43 Speaker A And then that one has, and then I guess it's something to do with how many are planted in that cluster too, right? 18:48 Speaker A You can sort of manipulate the-- - And then as the plant gets older, more mature, and these pseudobulbs get really plump and thick, then the flowers will get better. 18:56 Speaker A - Mhm. - You know, the healthier the plant, the more different growth points you've got on it, the better it'll be. 19:03 Speaker A - If I'm caring for these at home, let's take maybe this one right here as an example, The Cornelia V Coer-- - [John] Coerulea. 19:11 Speaker A (Kevin and John laugh) - I got tongue up, Tahoe rose. I mean that's a very complex one. 19:16 Speaker A Is this, like structurally in the actual pot itself? How many orchids are in this pot? 19:22 Speaker A - That's one orchid. - So it's one. - And it may have more pseudobulbs but, and this would've been an apathetic type orchid, but almost everybody will grow them in a mixed media, which usually contains either coconut coir, 19:36 Speaker A it could be bark, I've grown them in pure pumice. You can grow them in lots of different things or combinations thereof, you know? - Yeah. 19:44 Speaker A - But you're really looking for something that drains well that won't rot, and that, kind of mimics what they would maybe have-- - Sure. - If they were growing apathetic. - So it's apa, it is an apathetic plant, 19:54 Speaker A but it's planted in a media that might not at first blush, especially if you're a new gardener. 19:58 Speaker A - Right. - Look apathetic. It might look more like a mix-- - Right. - But it's just not. 20:02 Speaker A - But it will tend to be very open-- - Yeah. - Very airy, so it drains well. 20:05 Speaker A - So when you're talking this being one orchid, where I'm going with this is, you've got these pseudobulbs. 20:10 Speaker A - Mhm. - Are they clumping and sort of throwing out more from the base so that you could, can you divide? 20:16 Speaker A - You can, you can divide orchids out. So they will, try and, It's hard to find a suitable one to explain that. 20:24 Speaker A Might be easier on one of these. - To cut one down. - So here's a new growth point. 20:28 Speaker A - Okay. - And they, what they, we call it popping an eye. It'll actually have a growth that pops out. 20:33 Speaker A - Yeah. - And they're latent. Here's one here that's a latent bud, right there. - Oh, that little nub right there, yeah. - That little nub there. - Okay. 20:39 Speaker A - And so this is one of those little growth points. And it's now throwing a new pseudobulb, and then these leaves. 20:45 Speaker A And this is a bifoliate. It will open up and create leaves like this-- - I see. - As it matures. 20:49 Speaker A - Okay, I see. - And so over time, the bigger plant you have, you could take that and divide it into three or four parts. 20:54 Speaker A - That's what I was gonna ask is, so let's say I do want to do that. 20:56 Speaker A Obviously, maybe it's not at the exact right size to do so now, am I gonna wait until this new offshoot has developed some of its own root system? 21:05 Speaker A - Correct, yeah. - Then cut it off and move it. - Right. So typically what my rule of thumb is that I won't make a division less than about four bulbs. 21:12 Speaker A - Okay. - Because they don't have enough energy and life there to sustain. - Yeah. 21:16 Speaker A - That hard, it's a hard thing for them to be cut off. - Sure, yeah, yeah. 21:20 Speaker A - And so I want to have at least four bulbs that I can then really get that plant well established. 21:24 Speaker A - Okay. We've seen a few but, there's probably a hundred we haven't looked-- - Well-- - At right? - You know, there are so many good ones. 21:30 Speaker A - [Kevin] We haven't gone over here. - No, this is-- - I'm curious what's over here. 21:32 Speaker A - Look at this dendrobium. - Oh wow. - Look how many flower spikes. - And this is, and are you telling me again that this is one. 21:39 Speaker A - [John] That's all one plant. - That's crazy to me. - Yeah. - Where my head goes, maybe because I grew up playing Pokemon is I-- - Uh huh. - Wanna catch them all. 21:45 Speaker A I want every single one. (John laughs) But I'm okay if it's smaller, I just want to have it. - Right. 21:49 Speaker A - Right? - Yeah. - That collector mentality but who knows? I mean, maybe I'll want to grow some large ones. 21:54 Speaker A - And some of the orchids, you know, orchids just, they're classy plants. - Yeah. - They're classy flowers and, when I was much, much younger, I would take plants and rent them to-- - Really? 22:04 Speaker A - Yeah. - I would rent them to Nordstrom's. - No way. - Yeah. And so they'd just have them like in the ladies department or something and, you know, this was 40 years ago. 22:10 Speaker A And I'd rent them out and because it looked really classy. - Yeah. - But this is really a spectacular thing. 22:15 Speaker A - That one's, I mean the stems on those, or the psuedobulbs are really thick on that one. 22:19 Speaker A - And that's-- - Wow. - One of the easier orchids to grow. - Mhm. - That'll grow outdoors here. 22:23 Speaker A - So, okay yeah. I know we talked a little bit about care. I kind of wanna go back to it. 22:26 Speaker A - Yeah. - Maybe with this beautiful backdrop here. I mean, look at this one. 22:30 Speaker A Yeah, the ones that have the, the final petal, or that lip petal will be completely different in the, in the color compared to the rest, I think are really striking. 22:38 Speaker A - Yeah. - But if I want, so I want to get into orchids, right? - Uh huh. 22:40 Speaker A - That's part of why I'm here. - Sure. - It's to try to figure out how to get into the game. 22:43 Speaker A - Sure. - Where should I begin? - I would start with something easy. - Yeah. - So you can get, one of the things, I go to Trader Joe's at least once a week. 22:50 Speaker A - Okay. - And every time I'm there, I look to see what they have, because most of the time it's gonna be phalaenopsis, like behind you there. 22:57 Speaker A - [Kevin] Mhm, mhm. - And you know, those are very, very common now. And those are easy. 23:01 Speaker A But very frequently there might be in that big group of plants, there'll be one zygopetalum, which you like. 23:08 Speaker A And that's one of my favorites. - [Kevin] Yeah. - There'll be a miltonia maybe in there, there'll be maybe an oncidium that is unlike all the others. 23:14 Speaker A So one of the things I do when I look for plants, it's like I, after I've been around-- - You're like trying to snipe. - Plants for 50 years, it's like there's a sea of things, but one thing catches 23:23 Speaker A my eye. - Yeah, yeah. - It's, which of these is different. - Sure. - And so my eye will go to the one that is unlike the others. 23:28 Speaker A And that's, and I'd probably buy a plant every time I go. - Do you really? - I really-- - So you stock up. - I still do. 23:32 Speaker A - Well how many orchids do you have in your own personal collection? - Oh, not that many anymore. 23:35 Speaker A Probably 30, 40 you know, but I mean-- - I mean that's a lot. - I used to have. - That's a lot. 23:39 Speaker A - I used to have acres. - Okay, well that's fair. - Of orchids, but no longer. 23:42 Speaker A But those are easy. So the zygopetalum is easy, The phalaenopsis are easy, this is an easy orchid to grow. 23:48 Speaker A - This guy here? - For a beginner. Those are cymbidiums and those are true terrestrial orchids. 23:52 Speaker A They're from Asia. There is one species from Australia. - Wow. Cym Son of Freak. (John and Kevin laugh) That's quite the name. - That's an interesting name isn't it? - That's quite the name, yeah. 24:01 Speaker A - Now if you want to do your own hybrid, you can name it anything you want, so-- - Oh, that's not, now I'm in. 24:07 Speaker A Now you got me in. - You see. - Because now I need to name something stupid, you know. - How about, Cymbidium Epic Gardening? 24:11 Speaker A - There you go. (John laughs) Save that name. It's coming. Three or four years from now, it's coming. - We'll be looking for it. 24:15 Speaker A We'll be looking for it. - Yeah. Actually yeah-- - But this is an easy planter-- - If you are breeding it John, like-- - Yeah. 24:19 Speaker A - We talked about how to breed it, right-- - Mhm. - Or how to cross it, excuse me. 24:22 Speaker A - Right. - From seed though, it's gotta be years? I mean-- - I've, on phalaenopsis I believe it or not, I've actually had some that would bloom in the flask. 24:31 Speaker A We actually grow them in flasks. - Oh. - In a grow room. You know, they're in-- - In a flask. 24:36 Speaker A - Yeah, they're in sterile media. - Really? - And we raised them on auger. 24:39 Speaker A And I have had-- - Wow. - A few little cymbidiums, or a phalaenopsis rather that would bloom maybe two years old in a flask. 24:45 Speaker A Most things are gonna take five to six years to bloom. - So-- - So this is a long term-- - It's a long game. - Process. 24:51 Speaker A - I mean I've talked to a lot of folks in the plant, where I met a guy who took 20 years to make a potato from seed. 24:55 Speaker A - Yeah. - You know, from true seed-- - Right. - Not a seed potato. 24:58 Speaker A You know-- - And plumeria will take seven to 10 years sometimes-- - That's wild. - To bloom from a seed. 25:02 Speaker A So you wanna start when you're young. See-- - Yeah. - You've got so much life ahead of you. 25:06 Speaker A - I've got what, let's see, five years. I'm 35, I might live till I'm 80. 25:11 Speaker A - You got a-- - That's 45 years, I got nine rounds. - You can do a lot of hybrids, Kevin. - Yeah, I can do a lot of hybrids. - You can do a lot. 25:16 Speaker A - Well dude, thank you so much for showing this. - Oh hey, it's always a pleasure to have you here. - It's been a pleasure to come up, yeah. 25:21 Speaker A - Yeah. - I will see you, soon? - Yes. - And if you're in the area, the World of Orchids exhibit is still going on. 25:27 Speaker A San Diego Botanic Garden, check it out. Good luck in the garden, keep on growing. Topics: orchid care orchid growing tips orchid structure orchid breeding San Diego Botanic Garden John Clements phalaenopsis dendrobium orchid hybrids orchid history Study this video - [Flashcards from this video](https://sozai.app/tools/ai-flashcard-generator/?from=transcript&id=77061) - [Quiz on this video](https://sozai.app/tools/quiz-generator/?from=transcript&id=77061) Free, made by AI from this transcript. 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