Gardening guru shows super simple 70p hack to ensure your orchid stays alive

A GARDENING guru has shared three simple tips to ensure your orchid stays alive.

So if you are useless at looking after plants and have one too many orchids that you haven’t managed to keep alive, you’ve come to the right place.

A gardening pro has shared three simple tricks to ensure your orchid not only stays alive, but is super healthy tooCredit: Getty

One of the secrets is already in your kitchen cupboard, whilst another is in your fridge, and you might even have the third answer in your bathroomCredit: Getty

It turns out that there’s more than 25,000 species of orchid in the world and according to a gardening pro, they’re actually relatively easy to look after if you understand their care requirements.

As reported by The Express, Shane Dibbs, the director of Seed Barn, has shared his top tips for looking after orchids, including simple tricks that cost less than £1.

He said: “Orchids are often seen as a high maintenance plant which are difficult to care for and require a lot of care to thrive, but they are actually incredibly low maintenance and don’t require much maintenance.

“The most important thing is to understand the specific care requirements that orchids need, such as water, temperature, light, air circulation and humidity. Each orchid has different needs depending on their species and environment.”

Pot on

For the first hack, you’ll probably already have the secret in your kitchen cupboards – potatoes.

I’m a gardening pro – I got my dry lawn looking lush and green in 4 weeks, anyone can do the same with my steps

If you’ve got any potatoes that you aren’t eating, you can chop or grate them into small pieces and boil them up for a few minutes.

You can add this to the soil of your orchid, or store the solution in jars for a later date.

According to Shane: “This is an economical way of helping orchids grow without breaking the bank.”

If you’ve run out of potatoes but fancy giving this trick a try, you can buy them for as cheap as 70p from Asda.

Milking it

Next up, Shane recommended using milk to ensure your orchids grow healthy.

According to Shane, you can make a DIY solution with milk and water, which will provide your orchid with the necessary nutrients.

Gardening tips and hacks

He said: “Milk contains a nitrogen-building protein that orchids require.

“Make a solution of one part milk and four parts water to feed your plants, and use this every two weeks.”

For those who don’t regularly buy milk when they do food shopping, you can buy milk from most local supermarkets for less than £1.

Sounds salty

Finally, while it might sound counterintuitive to give your orchid salty water, according to this pro, Epsom salts are rich in magnesium which promotes orchid flowering.

Shane advised adding a teaspoon of Epsom salts to water and water your orchid as normal.

If you want to try this trick, Epsom salts can be bought from many health and beauty stores, as well as most supermarkets.