Читать книгу Orchids For Dummies - The Editors of the National Gardening Association, Steven A. Frowine - Страница 52

Many orchid vendors follow a convention when describing the relative maturity of the plants they’re selling. Here’s a rough guide to terms most used. As you can expect you’ll run into a bit of variation from grower to grower. Here are the size designations you’ll encounter:

 Seedling Size (SS): The orchid will bloom in two to three years or more depending on the type of orchid.

 Near Blooming or Flowering Size (NBS or NFS): The orchid is six months to a year or more from flowering.

 Blooming/Flowering (BS/FS): The plant is the right size to flower.

 In Spike: The orchid has started the process of flowering.

 In Bud: The flower buds have formed but haven’t opened.

 In Flower: At least some of the flowers have opened.

 Already flowered: The orchid has already flowered at least once and is now out of bloom. Buying plants at this size and stage usually means the plant is well-established, which is greatly beneficial. Unfortunately, it can also mean the flower wasn’t that great when it flowered, which is why it hasn’t sold already. This last issue is more of a concern on seed-grown plants, not clones.

Sometimes vendors also list the pot size and/or the leaf spread. In general, a larger pot size indicates a larger plant, although that’s not always so.

As far as risk with shipping damage goes, plants in flower are the most delicate. If you’re impatient to see your new orchid in flower (and who isn’t?!) but you don’t want to risk the flowers being damaged in transit, specify that the plants be sent in low spike or low bud, if available, which means they’ve just started the process of flowering so are not as vulnerable to the vulgarities of shipping.