A big red cattleya I carried home from Florida 2 years ago
Life isn’t measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away
I have always loved orchids, but never had the space or the sunlight to get them to bloom in the winter. Until I moved to Kansas, and bought a house with a sunroom. Three floor to ceiling south facing windows and three facing west give me more than enough winter sun to make lots of plants happy!
Sunroom in January
Unfortunately, I can’t access Photobucket right now (down for maintenance, how dare they??) for pictures of my first orchid plant, which was a spider orchid similar to the photo below.
Spider orchid
I think it lived for two years before I drowned it completely and it died. You see, I thought orchids needed a lot of water, and since it’s so dry out here, they must need water all the time! I couldn’t have been more wrong- orchids don’t need much water at all in the winter when they’re blooming.
I might think about watering them once every two weeks if I remember. My stepmom, who lives in humid Florida, might water once a month or less in the winter. And it’s not a lot of water, either, maybe a cup or so, even for this big cymbidium that I’ve had for 10 years and needs serious repotting!
As you can see, she’s pretty ragged looking this winter, after my invasion of grasshoppers this past summer (you guys might remember my muffled sobs as plant after plant got chewed to pieces!). Nonetheless, she is a very reliable bloomer, and has 4 other flower spikes coming on this year!
And the blooms look like aliens crawling out of a cave:
Boo!
My very favorite orchid is a cattleya my aunt gave me several years ago, which I just split up and repotted this summer, and is very happy with all the room in the pot! Still, I won’t get many blooms this year, but with all the new growth, next year should be a real show.
Here’s a couple of pictures from last winter before the repotting adventure:
This plant has blooms almost as big as my hand, and the smell when it’s just getting ready to bloom is incredible!
All these orchids go outside all summer long, under a shade cloth where they get early morning sun and dappled shade the rest of the day. They get a good hosing once a week or so to flush the roots, and if I remember, I fertilize once a month with an orchid fertilizer.
When the temperatures get into the high 40’s everyone comes inside, and placed where they can get plenty of light and some direct sun, and then I just leave them alone! The sunroom is heated, but only to about 46 or 48 degrees, because the orchids love the cool nights and warm days. And the blooms last forever. That red orchid bloom at the top is two weeks old.
So if you thought you couldn’t grow orchids, think again- they’re really just another houseplant that needs a sunny window in the winter to give you a beautiful show!
One of my stepmom’s orchids in Florida, a moth orchid.
