Liu Xinglong

Growing orchids and raising orchids is neither a whim nor a family heirloom here.

Strange to say, in our family, starting from grandpa, it is all men who serve flowers. The two kinds of flowers that grandpa fiddled with the most back then were chrysanthemums and sisal. Chrysanthemums are wild, the weather is in autumn, the mountains are all over the golden yellow, grandpa will pinch down a lot one by one, spread the bamboo bed with the shade with newspapers, and then spread the chrysanthemums on it, put it in the sun, after drying, make a few pillows, and remove the heart fire for the family members who will inevitably be on fire because of the roasting fire in winter. The sisal that grows in front of the house and behind the house was planted by my grandfather himself, and the tall flower stems are carved like beautiful jade. Grandpa plucked the petals on it, put it in a steamer and steamed it over high heat, and after drying it, he continued to steam it in a steamer, and so on three times, before he stewed a can of soup with half a catty of lean meat, saying that it can cure headache and dizziness after drinking. After his father retired, he planted some flowers and trees in his small yard, and every year during the Spring Festival reunion, the children pointed at the flowers and trees as soon as they entered the house, thinking about taking them away when they left home after the holiday. One of them, a wax plum, a red plum, a gardenia, and an osmanthus tree, were later relocated to Wuhan and planted in my yard. My father planted the camellia the most, and the one that was loved by the family still grows very luxuriantly in the eldest sister's house, and every year when the flowers bloom, the sister and brother-in-law must take a few photos and send them to us to admire.

In our family, the first person to raise orchids was my younger brother. In his later years, his father often told his other children that his younger brother served orchids better than Lao Tzu. There is a saying that people who love orchids have a good heart. My brother is exactly like this, especially filial piety, our family and my brother-in-law's family have a total of 4 old people, before and after more than ten years, my brother has been with him day and night to the end. Complaining is complaining, in front of everyone, the younger brother wipes the green leaves of the orchid with a handkerchief piece by piece, and the father silently looks at the past with love in his eyes, both towards the younger brother and towards the orchid.

At that time, as soon as April came, the girls carried small bamboo baskets, came down from the surrounding mountains, and entered the county seat with incense all the way, standing at the only crossroads, shouting in dialect: Sell orchids! The crisp female voice ripples with the spring breeze, and the city is full of refreshing fragrance. Orchid arrows tied with red silk threads, 2 branches in a small bundle, only 0 yuan, and then slowly rose to 0 yuan, whether it is 0 yuan or 0 yuan, it will not take long to sell a single branch. When you are a worker, you can only buy a bouquet or two after work at night, and those who work the day shift can only smell a little aftertaste at dusk after work. Moved by this, he once wrote an essay "The Girl Who Sold Orchids", which was published on the front page of the four-open tabloid "Red Cliff" sponsored by the Huanggang District Qunyi Museum, but the title was changed to "The Orchid Girl" with effective temporal suspicion. After the announcement of the regulations on the protection of wild plants, when the spring flowers were blooming, the crowds of girls suddenly disappeared, and the orchid sellers were replaced by some middle-aged women with suspicious appearances, and the location was also changed to a vegetable market. Many years later, he set out two orchid gardens in the yard and planted rare orchids in the three towns of Wuhan, and his younger brother didn't say anything when he saw it. A few years later, when I started to raise orchids in pots, my brother reminded me that orchids are very difficult to raise, and he himself no longer raises orchids except for a few Junzi orchids. My brother meant that Junzilan was relatively easy to raise, but I didn't recognize it, and the subtext was an antipathy to "crazy Junzilan".

種養蘭花這些年，不知不覺中形成一個習慣，冬去春來之際，會指指點點地數上兩遍，第一遍是數這一年種養了多少蘭花，第二遍是數這一年種養的蘭花長出多少花箭。還有一個不曾與人言說的原因，就是盤點這一年間，特別是高溫高濕的夏天，因為沒有照料好，不幸枯萎的有多少。最初的時候，蘭圃中的蘭花生長極好，時逢花季，半個社區都是它香氣瀰漫的範圍。隨著房前屋後因公因私不斷地修繕改造，哪怕站在蘭圃旁邊，盯著施工人員的靴子，也挽不回被踐踏的命運。今年3月初，尋得兩棵樹，第一棵是石榴，有朋友自告奮勇來幫忙，樹栽好了，代價是不少蘭花也化為泥土。第二棵是金銀花老樁，我不敢再驚動他人，提前一天，將蘭花挖起來，放置稍遠處的桂花樹下，再挖出一座深坑。等金銀花老樁到了，親自動手栽下去。待一切全弄妥當了，再將蘭花移回來，栽在老地方。隔夜再看，原本就已經長出來的幾枝花箭，明顯躥高了不少。

Growing orchids in the field is almost unanimous, and as long as it is not a man-made disaster, there is generally no major problem. Changing to flower pots to raise orchids, how many people say that it is not easy to raise, how many people say that it is easy to raise. Almost all of the people who say that they are easy to raise are mountain people. In the eyes of the mountain people, the place where the orchid grows, it needs soil without soil, water without water, but it grows alive and fragrant, which is much easier than any kind of crop. Dryland crops are afraid of waterlogging, aquatic crops are afraid of drought, and some are afraid of both drought and waterlogging. The orchids that grow on the barren mountains and mountains, after three years of drought, can still come in response to the spring breeze, and the bitter rain can still recover with all things after the fall of three autumns. It is said that orchids are not easy to raise, and most people are from the city. It is not influenced by classical poetry to raise orchids as the top priority of self-cultivation, many times, the truth of orchids in the hearts of people in the city is a rebellion against living in a reinforced concrete environment, and it is a secret correction of the surrounding world. The kind of person who keeps three or two plants in a delicate pot, places them next to the nearest one, and waits for the orchid to bloom and the fragrance of the orchid to spread must have an indescribable intention. In this way, it must be said that raising orchids is just like raising people, and it seems that all aspects of the city are very good, and in the countryside it seems that this and that are unsatisfactory, and the people who live are often very different.

As for orchids, I value the dense bushes more and more. Planted in an orchid garden, raised in a flower pot, it's all like this. The so-called lonely fragrance refers to the fact that when the orchid is found, it carries a flower arrow, and as long as the eyes are staring, it can bloom without waiting. Those orchids that only have a small handful, look very arrogant, very thin, and are placed anywhere, and immediately show their twelve-point ranking, even if they wait for 3 years, they will not bloom. It is even entirely possible that in the second year, it will become red and dissipated, and it will be pitiful, and you will have to "look for him thousands of times" and go where to get another one. Such an orchid, under the word "raising", is said to be an orchid, but in fact, it is the mood and nature. Orchids have experienced several major changes due to different construction. Each time I came back after a catastrophe, I also learned to think about orchids in harmony with the things around me. After a lot of hard work, I found that I was planting orchids on the surface, but behind it was cultivating a small nature that I could grasp. Those few orchids that survived every change were as lush as a canopy of thatch, and the lessons they gave me were also like endless thatch. I don't think that such an analogy will greatly reduce the quality and character of the orchid, on the contrary, it is a return to the basics of the orchid after being overly spoiled. It is really unknown whether the so-called superb orchid, which has been auctioned for hundreds of thousands of yuan in the market, can survive to the next spring and autumn in the hands of the buyer in a delicate manner. Plants that can't be vibrant, even if they reach the sky, can only be with dead branches and leaves in the end.

Whether the orchid that comes to the world from nature conforms to human nature or retains its nature is a question, and it is not a problem. No matter what kind of wonderful pen of raw flowers, the orchid is written as a second wonderful product in the world, and what makes it touch the scene is certainly not the kind that is kept in the flower pot and cannot help the wind, but the vigorous vitality smelled from the fragrance of the faint silk. Of course, the basis of this judgment is first of all why an orchid is an orchid, not a chicken and a duck, let alone a deer and a horse.

On that day, when he saw that his orchids had grown a lot of arrows, he counted the numbers according to the usual practice. There are 1 and 0 orchids in the front and back yards respectively, and 0 are planted in various pots. I learned that it adds up to just 0 trees. There is a common sense in the world that "rare things are precious", but in the comparison between 0 and 0, "love is more kind because of old age" is the last word. Su Shi said that Chunlan is like a beauty, and she is not ashamed to offer herself. Orchids and love are not rare things, because orchids and love are too rare people, so they forcibly push orchids to a sky-high price, and even mistake love for a strange fate that can only be cultivated in three lives and three lifetimes. Born in the land and grown up in the land, this is the refreshing hollow valley orchid. Therefore, before and in the future, I am more inclined to plant orchids, and the "raising" of orchids is only a last resort.

People's Daily (20/0/0 0 Edition)