Orchids

[bill_schubert]

I set up a window box a while back hoping to force some orchids we had sitting around to flower.  The box faces east and so gets cold from the window, only a little direct sunlight but lots of indirect light, and high humidity maintained by a lid on the glass box.  I then practiced my best gardening technique by ignoring the plants entirely.  With the enclosed box I had not even watered them in more than a month.  Yesterday I looked closer and two of them have pushed out flower stems so I'm probably a couple of weeks away from flowering orchids we've had for over a year.  These are the $10 kind I picked up in the store that typically flower that one time and then never again.

Two of the three plants have flower stems

Once they bloom I'll take them out and put them in the living room.  For now, they are still quietly being ignored.

Comments

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I've only managed to get orchids to bloom more than once on two occasions. Well done!

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Only the second time I've seen it done. The first was same side of the house on the ledge in the shower window put there by my wife. It is what gave me the idea. It is fun and near as zero effort as I can manage.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

It seems benign neglect is the way to go! :)

[susandennis]

I am so not a fan of orchids BUT I am a huge fan of your horticulture endeavors. I love your rig!

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Orchids are my go to gift for Dana. Dollar per hour they are blooming it is the best plant ever. But they so seldom bloom again we end up with a bunch of small plants sitting around emanating disappointment. Now I've recovered some ground.

And, yeah, I need to work on my little world. Upgrade my moss and such. But all this damn employment is screwing up my schedule. I can't be expected to do more than one thing a day, can I?

[susandennis]

Tell me about it twice this morning I was going to text you very unimportant things and then I looked and I realized you were at work not worth interrupting you I'll be glad when this job's over

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Woo hoo!

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

I happened across a Youtuber whose videos are about home-gardened orchids, MissOrchidGirl.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC84mfcCFGDPeeBhKbG8dijQ

Followed some of her instructions/information, and actually have an orchid re-blooming which heretofore has lived between its in-bloom state when we brought it home and now, as a foliage plant. It is re-blooming with just one blossom stalk which has on it just one piddling little blossom, but, dang! Best we've done in ten years or so, so I'm not complaining and I'm hoping others in the "foliage collection" will eventually follow suit
One of the things she says is that they ("they" is phalaenopsis orchids in this case) want a cool period of a couple of months to stimulate blooming.
And somewhere I read that orchids want circulating air.

Don't ever knock the $10 orchids. Those are almost invariably phalaenopsis, but they're easy-care because they like their respective daytime and nighttime temperatures about where humans like them without artificial cooling or too much heating. For where you live, though, I'm guessing some AC's in order for them. Where I am, our summers usually aren't so impressively hot.

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

Oh these are both my joy and nemesis . I have some in the kitchen that I've gotten to bloom a second time, but they are in a holding pattern right now (and one needs to be repotted)
The ones in the office I got at New Years not only still have their bloom on one stem, but are now reblooming on the second stem.
I'm trying to learn their ways.

Super amused that you too have dead stems still clipped up. I do that too. They never come back to life.