Orchidaceae

So I thought I could start off by talking about Orchid care. They are surprisingly easy to look after.

I think they put people off because of their exquisite and exotic blooms, people automatically assume they would need some sort of special treatment. They don’t! You pretty much set them up in their place and then ignore them most of the time while they flower for months. There are thousands of species but the most common is the Phaleanopsis, aka. Moth orchid.

Most of them come from the jungles of Asia where they live on the branches of trees in the rainforest canopy. They are ‘epiphytic’ which just means they live on other plants  for support, they don’t sap any of the plants goodness just borrow its big strong branches to hang off. You find other types on forest floors or in mountains of  the Himalayas in slightly different conditions, but generally they can be treated as follows;

• To set up your orchid you find a spot on a windowsill. The bathroom or kitchen is perfect for this on an East or West facing window. South isn’t great as you don’t want direct sun and if its North make sure its right up against the window to get enough sun.
• Buy your orchid from a garden centre. Choose one that has nice fleshy leaves and roots that are a medium green colour (too dark and they haven’t been getting enough sun and too light and they have been getting too much). Pick one with hardly any flowers open on it, you want as many buds as possible so when you get it home you have the full flowering period.
• Buy a saucer, some gravel, some baby bio Orchid feed and a mister.
• Fill the saucer with gravel and place the orchid on top, nestling it in so its balanced. Then simply fill the saucer with gravel and leave to do its thing! The gravel tray creates a  micro-climate for the orchid and mimics the humid rainforest atmosphere it loves.

If it’s a phaleanopsis orchid the pot must be clear. The roots can photosynthesise and a beneficial fungus lives on the roots which needs light to flourish. Learn to love the wiry roots that protrude from the top, they are part of this exotic beauty. Many other types have opaque pots and will have fleshy bulbous roots that roll over the lip of the pot, these can stay in an opaque pot.

Every week or week and a half, take the cold water that’s been left in the kettle and fill up a bowl or pot. Then dunk your orchid in for 3 minutes. Allow to drain then plonk back onto it’s gravel tray. Every now and then as you walk by you could refill the gravel tray with water if you feel like it but no biggie if you forget. Leave the mister nearby and give it a spray now and then, just for those roots that poke out. They go silvery grey when they dry out.

Once a month add a few drops of the baby bio to the watering session. Weak and often feeding is better, maybe you could add a drop each time you water when in flower?

When it has finished flowering….Don’t throw it away! Some absolutely mental folk give up at this point. MADness. Just get some scissors or pruners and snip the Phaleanopsis down 2 nodes from where the flower has just finished. The nodes are the little bud-like things that dot up the stem. If its a bulbous rooted orchid then cut the flower stem clean off, for dendrobium canes wait for the new flowering cane to develop before cutting the old one off as the goodness from the old cane is recycled to make the new.

Now, find that north facing window sill in your house and make sure that its the coldest place you have without it being outside. Move your orchid here. Stop feeding it at all and only water once a month. Go to the calender on your phone and set a reminder for 3 months away. Then your orchid should be moved back into the original spot and the cycle resumed. The temperature fluctuation between night and day is what gets the orchid to re-flower so make sure there is a decent enough drop at night at the spot it was moved to.

I will add more detailed info for differenr orchid types as and when but as an intro, there you go 🙂