Pfui, Nero Wolfe

Years ago I read Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe was a very fat genius who never left his brownstone townhouse in New York City. He often expressed disgust with a "Pfui." His representative in the world was his live-in assistant, Archie Goodwin. Archie gathered clues and interviewed suspects, eventually persuading them to come to the brownstone for group confrontations with Nero, who always solved the case at the meeting.

Nero seemed to love two things: eating and orchids. He refused to discuss cases with Archie during their gourmet meals; they were sacred. His rigid daily schedule called for four hours in the rooftop orchid rooms to work with Theodore, the orchid expert who lives in rooms adjacent to the thousands of plants, all orchids. Nero and Theodore fuss over the plants, carefully regulating humidity and temperature.

Reading these books gave me the impression that orchids are fussy and delicate. It just aint so, I learned quite by accident.

Almost three years ago an appreciative doctoral student gave Dennis a potted white Phalaenopsis, which just happened to be Nero Wolfe’s favorite genus. (This photo is not mine. I pulled it off the Internet. Our orchid has pure white blooms.)

I figured that under my care it would be moribund in a month or two. We put it on a table by a front window where it received plentiful north light. I watered it. It thrived. Its stalk of blooms lasted for five or six months. Winter came, but the dry heat produced by the nearby wood stove had no effect on the orchid.

In the spring I passed the orchid along to a gardener friend, who repotted it and set it in his back yard under a tree. When late autumn came, he returned the orchid to me with two bloom stalks. They lasted for months.

Last week I bought a bag of orchid potting mix, watched two You Tube videos and repotted the orchid, which has grown a new leaf and is working on another. The new leaf has grown an inch since repotting. 

So here’s what I say: Phui, Nero Wolfe, you made a mountain out of a molehill. Orchids are easy.