My orchids

In an attempt to try growing (phalaenopsis) orchids for the very first time, I eventually found a place for my first 2 orchids. It took me about a month to figure out what to do with them. Within days of buying them I'd taken them out of their pots and left their roots exposed to the air, inside. Then I placed them outside in the same condition but after taking a few days to get them used to the additional sunlight. A few days later they started getting at least 6 hours of full sunlight.

In the beginning, every time I moved the orchids they'd drop a flower. They didn't like me moving them about when they were always inside. Then I learnt (online) that orchids needed sunlight and I learnt further my 2 orchids' leaves were too dark in colour. So I started adapting them to direct sunlight and they haven't dropped a flower since. The only exception to this was when I tried pollinating one of the flowers by hand. I was too rough with the pollinating and snapped one of the flowers off at the stem.

My orchids after being exposed to more sunlight and before mounting them.

My orchids did start toughening up after being exposed to the elements. So on the 27th August 2015 I spontaneously came up with an idea and mounted my orchids on what I had laying around and could find. Out in the back yard was a solitary piece of wood and it was heavy. I picked it up and took it through my apartment to the front yard and began mounting the orchids to it. Finally they had a new home by my front door.

Then this morning, thinking to myself, I wonder how my orchids are going today and I discover something terrible has happened to them. See pictures below:

Not only were most of the flowers partially bruised and faded in colour but it looked liked they had been attacked by something bigger than a fly. Lots of the flowers had their pollen caps ripped off but also have the whole pollen area removed altogether. This makes no sense to me. In the last picture it looks like something did try to pollinate that flower as the pollen cap (the bit at the bottom) is partially uncovered. Something gutted the pollen area of some of the flowers; bruised the flowers; left marks on them; and made me really unhappy.

The day before yesterday I bought a pink orchid but I will not put it outside. I will let nature take it's course and hopefully the orchids outside will come up with their own line of defense against it's attacker/s. If that was indeed the case.

Here is my new orchid. Isn't it lovely?