How to make your orchids flower for months
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Flowers | 25 comments
I can now understand why some people get obsessed with orchids. These are definitely flowers with attitude. We have two types of orchid living in the cottage. Phalaenopsis and one Dendrobium. Their flowers remind me of the heads of mythical beasts. Open-mouthed in a chatty rather than a snappy way. If you care for them properly, their extended flowering period almost guarantees that eventually they will start to work their magic and make their presence felt.
Our orchids live in the bathroom, on a deep windowsill. They seem to like the steam and the diffused light through the window. One of them has been flowering constantly since Christmas 2005.
My orchid fascination started late. For many years I only saw waxiness. I thought that people who became obsessed with them were weird. To me, orchids seemed vaguely malevolent, like Tobermory, that bitchy cat in Saki’s tale.
Then I was given an orchid. Danny was away at the time. As it sat on the kitchen over breakfast and supper, I gradually warmed to it. Its compost seemed rather dry so I watered it every day, not realising that I was killing it. Death came quickly. The flowers started to look very seedy. Then the buds went yellow and dropped off within days.
I considered buying a silk orchid or small silk trees. Seraphina has some very pretty ones in her sitting room.
A few months later we went to stay with our friends Margaret and Tony in Whitehaven. They were not orchid buffs when had they lived next door here in Cheveley. Their move to Cumbria had initiated many new interests. A vegetable garden and a passion for orchids, were the ones that stood out for me. They have a large sunny dining room and every windowsill was crammed with pots of orchids. All healthy and singing with flowers. It was January. I was amazed.
“The secret is not to ignore them and treat them badly.” Margaret shares without being preachy. “These are different to a normal houseplant. They are jungle flowers. The roots don’t like being wet.”
Margaret explained her two secrets. Use orchid fertiliser and immerse each orchid pot in a solution of water and fertiliser every two weeks for a few minutes. Then drain each pot well before returning them to their containers. Never let the orchids stand in water. Use a mister on the leaves, every now and then.
When we were leaving, she pressed a container of orchid fertiliser
Leave a reply
Hi Kim
Orchids need very little water – I just give mine a soak in water with orchid fertiliser every two or three weeks. Then they are thoroughly drained and returned to their cache pots. When a stem stops flowering and there are no longer buds at the end of the stem cut the stem back to three ridges above the compost.
It should shoot again after a rest.
Hi Val
The worm like things are roots. They love air and mist from a sprayer and needn’t be buried in compost.
Sometimes orchids just seem to turn u their toes and drop their flowers (Cold snap/ draught/ over watering. All you can do is cut the stem back and wait for them to flower again. Continue to fertilise every couple of weeks.
Hi Rachel
If you can get your orchid to flower twice you are probably doing everything right! Some orchids only flower at certain times of year so I reckon that yours need to rest for part of the year. Feed regularly and hopefully you will see buds and flowers again in a few months.
i can get my orchind to flower twice, but to date a can not get it to flower a third time. it just stays as a green plant. what and i doing wrong?
I have a Marks & Spencers (don’t know what sort) orchid which was given to me at the end of February, it has been in constant flower since so it obviously likes its position in a north facing window sill with a radiator underneath. However it is now suddenly dropping its flowers with no new ones in sight, also what I can only describe as worm-like things are appearing from the pot – are they new shoots or roots?
Hi,I also received my first orchid recently again as a birthday gift. The only advice given when recieving this beautiful plant was use rain water not tap.I poped it outside for a drink when the rain was a heavy mist, and to date it seems to have suvived, but it dose look less brilliant in colour and has droped two blooms, i am concerned I may have done it more halm than good ! And what do you do when the flowering stops, do you remove the stem, oh help, I don’t want to kill it.
Hi Laura,
I think that a daily spray sounds like a good idea for orchids. Ours get a daily steam as they are in the bathroom.
If I move an orchid to a diffrent location, I’ll try this. Thanks for the tip.
I have 1 Phalaenopsis and 2 Dendrobium,i find the best place for them is in my living room window they love the heat and a spray of water each day.My Phalaenopsis has been in flower for the past 3months for the second time this year.I was given 1 Dendrobium which was in poor health i put it in my living room window sprayed it daily, now i have a new leaf and new shoot it hasnt flowered yet but it wont be long hopefully.
That’s interesting, Ash. Our bathroom is cool as all the towels are piled on the central heating pipes. When the Phalaenopsis stop flowering they are moved to the cool side of the cottage (N.E). They tend to flower in the autumn around my birthday (they were all birthday presents) for about 4 months. They are moved back to the bathroom when they are in bud.
A friend of mine puts them in a shady area of the garden, after flowering. I tried this but they got badly infested with bugs.
I can empathise with your frustration with the green orchid blobs. I’ve moved them to the spare room and forgotten about them in the past.
I have a phalaenopsis which has just flowered for the second time. I had kept it in the same place for ages and there was no sign of a flower so I moved it somewhere colder, and presto! I think your bathroom having a cooler nighttime temp might be the key. Apparently they need to go somewhere around 18C to get them to flower.
I actually had three of these same orchids and in a fit of rage I put two of them outside in the snow because they were just sitting there like green blobs. A few months later the third one (that had been spared) started to flower and has rewarded me with an immense flower spike. I feel terribly bad about the other ones!
Hi Joanna,
Regarding temperature I think that the two orchids that we have are pretty tough. We’ve tried them all over the cottage but they seem to flourish in the bathroom. The steam is the key. They are beside an old window ,not double glazed, so the temperature must drop considerably at night when the heating is off. It™s not particularly warm in the bathroom when the heating is on!
The Dendrobium is the orchid that has flowered for years. My mum got this from the garden centre. If you were going to go for one this would be ideal.
Thanks for this … I’ve just recently started to think that orchids would be a good houseplant, and all the information in this post is encouraging. The one thing you don’t mention here is temperature – obviously it differs, because there are orchids all over the world – but the Tesco sort (actually, I think of them as the Marks and Spencer sort, because that was where I first saw them, probably in the 1980s) – what temperature do they like? And does it have to be constant? Or can they manage cold nights?
Joanna
joannasfood.blogspot.com