How to Get My Orchid to Rebloom
Your orchid plant was colorful and fabulous, and had blooms for months. You eagerly awaited its next blooming season for another show, but despite your careful tending, nothing happened. The plant grew healthy leaves and appeared to thrive, but sat in green and flower-free splendor its whole second year. Don't give up and pitch it out. An orchid can be finicky and it might take a very small adjustment to inspire it to bloom again. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Watering can
- Pebbles
- Tray
- Orchid pot
- Orchid potting medium
- Fluorescent grow lights (optional)
- Fan
- Orchid fertilizer
- Room thermometer
Instructions
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Water with care and only when the orchid medium is dry. Stick your finger into the potting medium to check for moisture before accidentally drowning your plant. More orchids are lost to watering problems and root rot than any other reason. Look for 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of dry medium as your signal to water.
Use room temperature water. Orchids have a perfectly understandable aversion to icy showers. Don't mist the plant because water will just collect on the leaves and in the crown where the leaf joins the stem. This can kill the orchid. Place the orchid on a bed of pebbles in a tray of water to increase humidity, but do not let the pot sit in water.
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Repot your orchid the season after you buy or receive it. If you acquire the plant from an orchid nursery, ask when you should repot. Otherwise, assume the medium will break down and the plant will need a new pot its first year. Use only orchid potting medium because regular potting soil holds too much water.
Keep the pot size snug. Allow for only a year or two of growth when selecting a new pot. Orchids will put all their energy into filling up a large pot with roots and overlook blooming if you place them in too roomy of a pot.
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Protect the orchid from direct sun, especially at mid-day. Put it near an east window or slightly back from a south window so it gets good, strong light but doesn't cook. Orchids in the wild thrive in dappled shade, so a sheer curtain may create the ideal condition for your plant in a very sunny window.
Add a grow light if you don't have enough natural light where you display your orchids. Fluorescent lamps suspended about 8 inches above the foliage will work. The lights need to be on between 12 to 14 hours a day.
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Give your orchids a breeze. Orchids need air movement and a small fan blowing near them will approximate natural conditions so the flowers feel at home. Cir circulation helps roots dry out after watering and a fan can be directed to blow across the pebble-filled water tray to increase humidity.
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Avoid over-fertilizing. Fertilize very weakly when you water and not each time. The Sacramento Orchid Society advises using a dilution of 1/4 of the recommended amount of orchid fertilizer in a weekly watering. Skip fertilizing every three weeks or so and use plain water to remove fertilizer residue.
The University of Minnesota Extension recommends half-strength fertilizer once a month. Whichever you choose, don't overdo it and burn the sensitive roots.
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Check the temperature. Orchids are motivated to flower when there's a shift in temperature. Some orchids like nighttime temperatures as low as 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Day temps should remain below 84 F. Follow this pattern for two weeks in November -- or anytime from late October to early December -- and you may be rewarded with a second, third or fourth season of blooms.
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Tips & Warnings
One way to tell if your plants are getting the right amount of light is leaf color. Dark green leaves mean the plant may need more light and very light green or blotchy yellow leaves mean it's getting too much light.
References
- Photo Credit David Sacks/Lifesize/Getty Images
