Orchids Growing in the Wild - Searching for Wild Grown Orchids

[Music] hi guys welcome back to the channel so if you are following me on instagram you'd know that this weekend I went to the Western Cape I went to a place called sneak with treetops which is in the oats Nikko mountain range and in this property they have a river that flows through the jungle that they have and you can actually walk down to the river going down one of these two trails mock wood or famous so we decided to go down mock wood and come back up on famebox now the whole point of us going down to the river was to look for cannabis plants such as rostra which are known to be found in the Western Cape and also to look for wild growing orchids so just as we had entered onto the pathway we came across these little you know mounds of sphagnum Moss as you can see which is actually a really good sign especially for anyone who does grow orchids or converse plant specifically Nepenthes you would know that growing the sphagnum Moss is actually very helpful every plants as they help to deter alvey's and other bacterias from attacking plants and it's a it's a very good indicator of showing the humidity in the area well in the localized area of your greenhouse so we just passed these little allows growing here with the orange flowers and I'll just let you guys take a look at the mountain range that we're actually in [Music] so I decided to do this video and voice over as firstly I would want to exchange experiences with everyone on my joining with going to response and also I wanted to do the voiceover because the original audio quality for the video was like literally was junk so so here we are so this is when we first found our first orchid along the hack and I really loved how long the boots on I find it very fascinating how the roots grow along the branches and just that allows the plant to stick on to the bark I don't understand really how they attached so strongly onto the bronzer so for me that was really interesting to see especially as I don't see mounted orchids very often seeing these wild ones is really great so I just sort of take some time to talk about what the environment was lack in this jungle the temperatures the humidity the sunlight wind etc so in the Western Cape in the specific area it's called the garden route it is known to rain pretty much throughout the year it rains mainly in winter and it rains the summer but less in summer so this area gets rain throughout the year which would help in describing or helping us understand why exactly they are orchids that are able to grow in this area because it's very humid and it rains throughout the year so in this clip we just go down to the river mouth and we search along the river mouth for some more sense and Trust unfortunately we weren't actually able to find any Joshua this the reason for this is because there's only one dress recipe she's along this garden route and it's no one shares location data for cannabis plants in general and I understand that that's just to her aid in preserving the species right so there's no harm in that but there was only one grocery species and I didn't really have high hopes for actually finding the tracer so anyway back to what we were originally saying it rains very often throughout the year drains and the second thing on top of that is that it's therefore very humid so the lower down you go the more humid it is the closer you get towards the river the more humid it is and the more mass is growing and the more lichens there are and be more wild laughter is the more bushes they are you know anything that you're associated with a higher humidity amount and this really does help in growing the Orcas which are found here as they need humidity all masses and orchids and Nepenthes for example they're only high humidity but the the other strange thing is that a very unique fact of the Western Cape is that they had their own unique biome the famous biome which is very unique and it's very obvious to see that as when you're towards the river it's much more humid but if you go a hundred metres up the mountain it is drastically less humid and you can feel the change and the humidity in the temperatures and the further up demands when you go the less and less you get Sunbeam the plant life that is actually rounded and actually completely changes the basically a completely different jungle you wouldn't think that five minutes ago you were in the same mountain range it's very interesting to see that so on top of the changes of humidity in the specific environment that you find within different altitudes and in this mountain range the amount of temperatures also does vary quite a bit going lower down towards the river mouth it was little Pakula although much warmer than what I expected it was around 25 degrees Celsius which is you know a fairly good temperature range for many plants and especially orchids to grow in and the amount of sunlight also did change between the altitude so the lower down you were the more plant laughs that is which means that it's darker and it's there's more dappled sunlight whereas the higher up in altitude you go the more open it is and there's more sun mats which means that this different types of plants growing and there's less humidity and therefore it's also warmer and has greater fluctuations in temperatures as there is also this decrease in plant lab and coverage in the area so just understanding those different things is is quite interesting and it's really great to know the natural environments that the plants do you enjoy growing actually grows in and to understand really what what your plants are exposed to that's a major thing in going the planters try to come walnut compare try to simulate your environments that you provide your plants as best as you can to the natural environments that good ones come from so just to sum it up humidity is constantly high here not as high as maybe my greenhouses there was still high temperature ranges around 25 degrees Celsius very dappled sunlight and it was just like a typical jungle if you've ever been into one but it was really great to see it now let's go and move on to talking about actual orchids and nervous plants in general so it's really great to actually see orchids growing out in the wild many people they would take a carnivorous plant or another company response an orchid they would take one out of the wild and try a salad and that's this happens with Nepenthes for example they found in tropical regions such as Borneo or Malaysia for example and what people do is that they take the plants out the ground and they'll sell them and this is a really terrible thing as this decreases the biodiversity not just for the plant life but for the actual species of plants in the area so the most the more individual plants that you're removing out of a community the less chance there is of plants actually made him with each other and providing new offspring and variation in these offspring and eventually will cause a hull collapse of the of the community of that specific species which is a terrible thing but many people argue that actually collecting wild growing growing plants is actually a good thing and to an extent I can understand that right so if I am if I'm building on a piece of land and I have no knowledge about plants or anything and I don't really care at all about them I'm not going to worry that I'm destroying some random plants because to me it doesn't mean anything but now if that is the last plant of that species in the area I can understand why some people would argue it's actually good to collect these plants as you can then preserve the natural the natural plants from that area right so in some cases it would be beneficial to collect plants but only if you have the right permits only for now and if you have consent from the land owner and obviously not to turn a profit but rather to help in conserving species and to preserve a location where these plants grow that eventually one day they may be reintroduced or aid in creating genetic variation within the horticultural population that we do have around the world another great thing about seeing the Walker's growing on the promises added its further great reassurance to know that there are plants parent plants that are flowering that are creating offspring that are able to produce viable seeds which seeds can then propagate and spread everywhere and allow the movement of orchids within this forest I mean to me I think that's really great that there's a really stable population here which is nothing enclosed by people as this area this Garden Ridge area is really known to be really beautiful and really unique in that they have so much vegetation and Wildlife another thing that really was really interesting to me is that I heard that orchids need a specific type of fungus or a bacteria or something to be present while they are seeds to actually aid in germinating the orchid seeds I'm not sure that's true or not let me know in the comments if this is true but it really it's really interesting to know that this specific type of fungus is therefore found throughout the whole entire world as they are orchids on almost every single continent of the world so for me that's really an interesting thing to know that this type of fungus is it you know everywhere I you know may be wrong and they may be different fungus is for different species which further just makes me wonder like how people manage to actually breathe these plants and grow them from seeds but it's really great to know that that this fungus species is everywhere as well so in this video you can ask you that we're gaining in in altitude we can see that the plant life is completely different there's less moss it's much drier there's less plant laughs it's much more open and there's more sunlight and it's really it's ready unique and that's a couple meters away do you have a completely different habitat I have a completely different microclimate that you're exposed to and that is really really interesting and very unique to the Western Cape and their specific laments that they have and their specific biomes that they have let me know how many orchids do you guys were able to count on this video I'm not sure maybe I may have missed some so let me know how many Oh cause you guys found out like you see them on maybe there are some last ones that are flowering that I didn't see there's literally so many growing all over the place that are made in the Sun another thing that I noticed was that growing carnivorous plants such as Nepenthes Israeli although growing them from seed is difficult and time-consuming it's a it's much easier to do than growing an aquifer zone right so if you have to grow an orchid using the specific fungus like how do people actually manage to do that how do they collect this fungus presuming it's the same funders for all oger species and apply the fungus onto the seeds that they grow in Matt how do they manage that you know growing an appendage from seed for example all you really have to do is just put the put the seed on your media and keep it warm so how do people impregnator an orchid seed with this fungus and what exactly does the fungus do you know it's it's a really unique thing I think that there's a symbiotic relationship Treena orchid the orchids and the finals you know growing other species of carnivorous plants such as drawstrings also so easy you know you were just well it's all relative but it's easy if you know how to do it you just take your media you sprinkle the seeds on top of the media and then keep it moist and then the plants with the seedlings will germinate in the middle crow you know some of them obviously need to put them into the fridge and let them germinate but I found it very very interesting how exactly the orchids grow other plants you know you just put the seed into the soil and just let them do their own thing you know a lack of example a being more peas or you know corn or something something like that you just put it into the soil just keep it moist and that's it but thinking about how exactly you would apply this methodology of applying a bacteria to a see that's really strange and obviously it does sound like I'm rambling on a bit about this but for me that's that's a really incredible thing especially if you look at the amount of variation are in orchids now the whole reason why I decided to film this video and share with you guys and talk over it is that I'd like to share my experiences and my life with people and specifically around my laughs was growing to the response as they're really important to me and I think everyone should have the opportunity to learn about in response to experience them for their own ways and to have an opportunity to grow these plants as I really think that they're amazing and this is the goal the channels to help educate people on the universe plants help them see the wonders of them help them to learn more about no response and see everything that they have to offer to people as they really are unique plants to grow just as just as unique as Oakland so if you guys found this video interesting or informative or if you enjoyed it in any way please consider giving your luck and if you want you can also subscribe to the channel every week I post a video about nervous plan so thanks guys I'll see you bye [Music] you