Chapter Four: Depression and the Light

   Well, it's certainly been a long time since you've all had an update, and wow, it's almost been three years. A lot has gone on since then, like, a LOT. Shortly after my last post from January 2014, I moved out of my parents' place to live with my older brother. Then in the summer that same year, I moved in with my first ex. By the end of 2014, that relationship fell apart, and left me feeling really low. I moved into where I am now right afterwards, and just didn't have the energy to set up my stand and care for my plants. So, as one would assume, everything besides my one flask slowly withered away in the boxes I used to move them. Through 2015, I went along a personal journey to improve my mental health, and things have improved drastically since then. Then fall of 2015 rolled around, and I organised to have a friend in Montréal send me some plants from the local orchid show, I set them up in a fish tank in front of a south window in my room. And history flows from there. I'll have those pictures and the story leading up to where I am after the break.



   Well, I started with a tank on top of my dresser, and that was enough to rekindle the flame, but things sat on a low simmer for a while. Several plants were mounted, so they didn't survive. I started university in January of 2016, so I was a little busy. *shrug*

   I started university going for Pharmacy, but after summer classes, I decided to switch to a plant related degree, and am now going for a B.S.A. in Horticulture Science. During the summer my interest in orchids started to get hotter, and I bought a plastic shelving unit and changed it into this, using artificial and natural light.

   Finally, I hit critical mass and was completely enveloped in my passion for orchids once again. I, somewhat ironically, headed right back to where I started, growing in a closet! In here I used my old three bulb set up. It uses three 4' T5 Sunblaster bulbs. One each of 2700K, 6400K, and 10 000K spectrum. The light in there looks really natural, so it makes me happy.

   I had some people suggest that I lower the lights, which I did eventually do. I eventually moved most of the non-orchid plants back out onto the plastic stand, and filled the closet up with more orchids! Since September, I jumped from four orchids and my compot up to twenty-three! I rejoined the Sask. Orchid Society back in September, and managed to pick up some plants from the vendor that was visiting, and then visited with two of my friends from there and came back home with some divisions from them as well. And then once again, my friend from Quebec sent me some plants from the October show.
   In the next series of posts I'm going to try to get back into cataloging individual plants and tracking their development. I'm going to try to schedule them, so let's see how that goes.