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Speaking the word "orchid", you immediately imagine luxurious, fancifully shaped flowers of various colors. On the contrary, its flowers are shallow and inconspicuous. But it is worth taking a look at its leaves, and you understand that not only flowers can be beautiful in orchids.

Those who planted makodes at home know that he belongs to the group of so-called “precious orchids”. This is not surprising, because his leaves are really as if embroidered with gold, silver or copper.

I can’t even believe that nature created such beauty. At my place grows one of the most common species of this plant - Macodes petola. Its foliage is velvety, dark green, veins are golden. I’ll tell you how I look after him.

This type of orchid is not very demanding on lighting; it easily coexists in partial shade. But if you nevertheless put makodes on the windows on the sunny side, then bother to shade the plant from direct rays, otherwise burns will appear on the leaves.

The temperature during the day should be kept around 22-25 degrees, and for good growth at night, it should be 4-5 degrees lower. If you make highlighting all year round, the dormant period does not occur.

In summer, Makodez feels great outdoors, for example, on the balcony. The main thing is to protect it from direct rays, strong wind and rain.

Makodez is very hygrophilous, because his homeland is the tropics. Therefore, air humidity should ideally be around 80-90%. You can get closer to this level by placing the pot on a pallet with wet expanded clay. In addition, the plant needs regular spraying - twice a day. You will notice a lack of moisture right away, because the makodez will develop worse, and the tips of its magnificent leaves will begin to change color.

Watering should be plentiful and frequent all year round.

You can navigate by the humidity of the substrate - it should dry, but not completely dry. You should know that this plant reacts very poorly to the salts contained in the water, so tap water is not recommended, especially if it is hard. It’s best to filter, or at least defend.

Before watering, it is better to warm the water to 30-45 ° C and shower it with water. Do not forget to make a good drainage - if the plant is poured, the roots may rot. When growing this precious orchid, it is important to regularly apply special fertilizers for orchids throughout the year. You can feed every third watering, but the concentration of fertilizer should be half as normal, as the full concentration will harm the roots.

To protect makodes from disease, monitor temperature, humidity and ventilate the room in a timely manner.

Many say that Makodez has inconspicuous flowers, but I do not agree with this statement. Maybe they are inferior in beauty to the leaves, but for me they are the best. And when in the middle of winter these red-brown flowers bloom with a white raised lip against the background of gold threads scattering through the foliage, the spectacle, in my opinion, is not more beautiful.

Macodez propagation by cuttings

I want to share the experience of breeding macodez. I had to learn it myself, and I thought: maybe someone will also find it useful to find out.

At Makodes, the stem is creeping and branched. When the roots of roots — small pimples — form near the leaves, it means that the plant can be divided. I cut the stalk so that it has 2-3 stem nodes and a root. I immediately treat the wound with charcoal, let it dry. And then I put the handle in a glass of water and wait for the roots to appear. This happens after about a couple of weeks. After that I put the handle in the sphagnum moss. So, you had one makodes, there were two!

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