The long outdoor-growing season has ended, which means it is time to move on to indoor plants.
Orchids are one of the easiest ways to provide the color of flowers to your home while also providing you with a growing challenge. The easy part is buying the orchid. They are already in bloom in the garden center or supermarket, and the blossoms last for eight weeks or more. If you look carefully, you might be able to find one with a two stalks: one in bloom and a separate stalk loaded with buds, and that will let you have blossoms even longer.
The challenging part is to get orchids to bloom again.
Your orchid will have to rest for six months or more after blooming, showing nothing but leaves and the spent stalk. Don’t cut off the stalk, but move your non-blooming plant to a cooler area of the house, with temperatures between 55 and 65 degrees and lots of light.
The orchids don’t want much water but they would like a bit of fertilizer. So, water them at most every other week, when the plant seems dry, using a half-strength solution of liquid fertilizer. And if all goes well, you will have blossoms again.
But to be honest, that is just a bonus. We enjoy the blossoms so much it is worth the price if we get just the blossoms that were on the plant when we bought it.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
