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Hello everyone!
This months newsletter is chock full of tempting specials, free stuff, and great ideas to enhance the enjoyment of your hobby!  This issue is quite tall; as you can see by the menu at left, we are pulling out all the stops for the upcoming holidays! Don't forget to scroll all the way down to read Liese's column on how to do battle with the ugly mealy monsters.... Enjoy! |
November Plant Special
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The Brassavola Family!
Y'all can save a bit of dough this month if you like showy, fragrant flowers. Three different Brassavola varieties are on sale if multiple plants are purchased. These normally go for 15 bucks a pop, but if you get all three they're only $11.67 +shipping.
See the details at the link below:
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| Orchid Classes | |
 Saturday November 13th "Orchids 101"
Our aggressive show schedule had precluded us from holding our popular on-site orchid classes here at Oak Hill Gardens. Now that the show season has wound down, we have a couple classes scheduled for you. The first one is a week from this Saturday. Liese will be reviving her "Orchids 101" class, to better prepare you for keeping your plants happy through the fall and winter months. Check out the details below:
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| Free Oak Hill Gardens Calendar! | |
 Year-at-a-Glance
With every purchase, until supplies last, we will include a colorful Oak Hill Gardens calendar on glossy card stock for your wall. This sneaky marketing gimmick will ensure that you think of us every time you need to check a date! Aren't we clever?
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| Holiday Gift Certificates! | | 10% bonus dollars until the end of the year!
It is not too early to be thinking about Holiday gifts! This year, we are again offering 10% bonus dollars on Oak Hill Gardens gift certificates of all denominations. This offer is good for all certificates purchased by the end of the 2010 calendar year. For instance, a $50.00 gift  certificate will allow the recipient $55.00 to spend at Oak Hill Gardens. See the details by clicking the flower or the certificate! |
| Orchid-Related Gift Ideas! | |
 by Cheddarhead DesignOur webmaster, Kevin Hanley, is also a skilled photographer who has accumulated quite a portfolio of orchid photos over the years. Through his company, Cheddarhead Design, he is offering those images transferred onto an expanded line of clothing, housewares, note cards, and other cool stuff. These are great gift ideas for the orchid fanatic who thinks they have everything! The holidays are upon us! Check out the merchandise by visiting the site at the link below.
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| Growing Tip of the Month - by Liese | |
 Mealy Bug Menace!
Fluffy, white, cotton-like clusters are beautiful- if you are gazing at the clouds. However, if encounter this view while handling your orchids, panic usually sets in! Mealy bugs show up mainly on Phals, Paphs and softer leaved orchids. But we have also observed their fuzzy little bodies wiggling around on Dends, Catts, and tougher-leaved genera.
The mealy itself is a soft bug and is relatively easy to kill when contacted with insecticide. Bonide's Systemic Insecticide (Acephate is the active ingredient) or the Bayer brand products we carry may be used to knock them down, but they tend to be resilient and may return soon.
The mealy have discovered, over time, that if they hide in the right place until the spraying is over, they can quickly crawl back out of their crevice and begin again to munch on their favorite leaf. Mealy bugs will crawl down into the nooks and crannies of your plants, including in between the brown sheath covering old Cattleya pseudo bulbs. They will also crawl down into the media and feast on the roots and rhizomes beneath the surface.
During a particularly bad infestation you might find the little critters clinging to the lip of the pots or trays, underneath wooden benches, or hanging out on cork mounts or slat baskets.
After a few years of dealing with a European supplier of mealies (and the orchids that came with them!), Greg devised a method of wiping out these insects before they could infest our growing area. He takes an entire batch of newly imported bare root orchid plants and immerses them in insecticide. He calls it the "Dunk and Fluff" method. Here's how it might work for you:
1) mix up a tub (a 5 gallon bucket works well) of the insecticide of your choice.
2) remove the plant from the pot
3) remove all potting material from the roots of the plant
4) immerse (or "dunk," if you will...) the entire plant in the insecticide solution (don't forget rubber gloves, eye protection and a respirator, if called for by the insecticide manufacturer's instructions).
5) swish the plant around thoroughly to force the solution into all of the nooks and crannies of the plant and root system (pretend you are a washing machine agitator - as you might imagine, this comes naturally to Greg). You are now finished with the plant.
6) make up a second bucket with 10% bleach solution (do NOT dunk the plants in bleach-they will die! - gotta cover my bases here.....don't forget the eye and hand protection!)
7) dip all potting related items in the bleach solution (pots, labels, wires, rings, clips, etc.) Let them all dry completely!
8) repot the plant using fresh potting mix and a clean, dry pot.
9) examine/inspect your growing area, making sure that there are no little critters hiding on your tables, curtains, rug, saucers, grow carts, light tables, etc. If so, spray it down with insecticide or alcohol.
10) put the plants back into your growing area and watch them grow, thrive and bloom
If only one or two little mealies are found on a plant, the "Dunk and Fluff" method may not be necessary. A simple spraying may do the trick. However, you may want to also spray/soak the media with insecticide solution as well as the plant, as there may be more bugs hiding below. The sooner you treat, the easier they are to control. Multiple sprayings, days apart, may help kill the insects during different stages of their development, giving you a better chance of chasing them away completely.
Watch your plants closely when you water. Look at the underside of the leaves, where the bugs are more likely to hang out. If you find some, check out the plants around it. There usually is a "host" plant that is covered with the white cotton. You may want to do the "Dunk and Fluff" with the host plant and spray the plants that surround it.
Be vigilant! If you catch it early, you can stop them!
Good luck, and enjoy your hobby!
Liese
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Enjoy the colors of Autumn!
Sincerely,
Greg, Liese and Hermann |
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