Orchids, although given a bad reputation for being high-maintenance, can be easy to grow if owners take some time to learn what they need.
They are not like traditional potted houseplants. They do not grow in dirt but rather by hanging on to the bark of trees.
With proper care, an orchid can be in bloom for months each year and can live indefinitely. In this respect, orchids are an excellent value as far as blooming plants go.
Plant expert Graham Rice of the Royal Horticultural Society has shared his best tips to get an orchid to bloom more than once a year.
Of all the orchid varieties, moth orchids (Phalaenopsis), are probably the easiest orchids to grow at home.
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Many may find that some orchids are difficult to coax into bloom more than once, especially when they’re being grown in the house.
Instead of throwing these orchids in the bin when they fail to re-bloom, give them some attention and you may be rewarded with more blooms.
Graham said: “There’s one easy trick that helps enormously: make sure that the temperature at night is lower than the day temperature.”
He explained that it “doesn’t take much”, as owners simply have to lower the heat by degrees to “kick the plant into flowering”.
The expert added: “Moving them to a different room in the house may be all they need but it makes a huge difference to most of the orchids we grow in the home.”
Orchid specialist at Just Add Ice agreed with lowering the temperature to ensure this houseplant blooms.
They said: “A day to night temperature difference of five to 10 degrees is necessary to trigger orchid reblooming.
“When your orchid starts to send up a new spike, you can return it to its usual environment.”
Cool nighttime temperatures allow orchids to store rather than expend the carbohydrates they produce during the day.
Night temperatures that are too high or day-to-night fluctuations that are insufficient are perhaps the “second leading cause of failure to bloom”, claimed the experts at the American Orchid Society.
