For my 60th birthday (9 years ago!) I was given a beautiful pink orchid by our department head. It sat on my desk, clearly in the wrong place, flowering less and less and eventually refusing to flower at all.
Orchid in January 2012 (6 months later)
My beautiful orchid this year 2020
Many years ago an elderly lady I knew had a wonderful selection of Phalaenopsis Orchids. “Oh they are so easy to look after” she would proudly claim. What is easy for some is like climbing a mountain to others! I was one of those, always with a 100% failure rate.
5 years later, when I retired I took my orchid home with me. I was not going to ditch my pot of 3 healthy green leaves and set myself a challenge to encourage it to produce flowers again.
I read copious information on the internet on how to grow orchids. After repotting it in bark with a handful of perlite, and moving it around my home for the best light, with great excitement, 2 years ago, it finally gave up one flower.
Last year I had 2 flowers but they didn’t last long. Determined to do better, I bought a specialist orchid spray and a bottle of orchid water. A twice weekly misting and 2 capfuls of the nutrient enriched water once a week has paid off. This year it has produced an abundance of the most beautiful flowers, which almost 3 months on are still looking healthy.
An orchid grower reading this may well tell me that buying specialist feed and mist is not necessary. I’d love to know how you keep your orchids healthy and in flower.
After writing this I found a post I wrote in January 2012 about the orchid which you might find fun to read Click HERE.
