The last post was all about interesting attributes and intriguing stories about orchids.  Now that your appetite is expanding for orchids, we’ll teach you how to grow them!  There are lots of interesting species orchids, but the easiest to grow are some of the new hybrids.  Once you get your feet wet with the orchids described below, you can branch out into more intersting varieties.  You will have the confidence and the green thumb to keep growing.

Phalaenopsis Hybrids

There are a lot of ways you can describe a Phalaenopsis orchid.  Some people call them the “Yews” of Orchids.  (Meaning, they are so common, like foundation plantings of yews, that they aren’t interesting.)  Their common name is the “Moth Orchid,” because the flowers look like moths.  These days, you can get these orchids at anywhere from Smith and Hawken to Home Depot.  They come in every imaginable color.  Here are the details you need to grow them.

Light:  Bright, diffused light.  NO direct sunlight.  (That will burn the leaves)

Water:  Water consistently when growing media dries out.  Do not leave it in a swampy soil.

Temperature:  Can tolerate temperatures as low as 55 degrees.  A cold night/warm day alternation will help spur blooming.

Humidity:  Does not like a drafty location.  Likes high humidity, but not wet leaves.  Sit pot on top of tray with pebbles and water to evaporate.

Feeding:  Feed with a dilute liquid fertilizer while plant is actively growing (pushing a flower stalk or new leaves)

Pruning:  Keep an eye on roots.  When you re-pot the orchid, trim off any brown roots.  Healthy roots will be fleshy and green.

Growing Medium:  This depends a lot on your individual watering habits.  If you tend to over-water, you will want to plant your orchid in medium sized bark.  If you under-water, you can pot in moss, which retains moisture.  Because the moth orchids are epiphytes (grow on trees), they do not like to sit in wet soil.

Dendrobium Hybrids

Dendrobiums are one of the other easy care orchids that you cand find almost anywhere.  If you properly care for them, they will reliably bloom.

Light: Overhead light source, full morning sun, shady mid-morning to mid-afternoon

Water:  Needs to dry out between waterings.

Temperature:  Prefers 80 degrees during the day, and 65 degrees during the night.

Humidity:  Likes 60% humidity, making it an ideal houseplant

Feeding:  A high nitrogen fertilizer  (25-9-9) can be used at one teaspoon per gallon, year-round

Pruning:  Does not need to be pruned frequently.  You may prune off flower stalks that are completely brown, but leave stalks that are still green so that they my photosynthesize and feed the plant.

Growing Medium:  Dendrobium orchids thrive in finely ground bark.

Ludisia discolor (Jewel Orchid)

Jewel orchids are grown more for their foliage than for their flowers.  They have lushly velvet textured dark green leaves with red veins.

Light:  Low light

Water:  Regular watering, when soil dries out

Temperature:  Likes temperate conditions (between 60 to 80 degrees)

Humidity:  Likes high humidity

Feeding:  Is not a heavy feeder

Pruning:  Grows like a weed!  You can divide this plant like you would divide a perennial and re-pot

Growing Medium:  Can grow in almost any soil.

The above three orchids are the perfect houseplants.  They are well adapted to the growing conditions of the home, and are impressive to visitors!

The merest mention of the word “Orchid” is enough to send some people running for the exit at the garden center. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way!  Tissue culture techniques and hybridizing have made lots of easy-care varieties available.  But first, a little bit of the mystery and magic behind orchid fever. . .

The Orchid Thief

Susan Orlean, a writer for the New Yorker, wrote the book The Orchid Thief after spending two years following orchid enthusiast (and, unfortunately poacher) John Laroche through the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve in southern Florida.  She attended the Miami Orchid Show (the end-all, be-all of the orchid shows), and generally hung out with some very intense creatures.  She lived to tell the tale and thus peeled back the curtain on one of the strangest “secret societies” that is not really secret:  Orchid Lovers.

When I lived in Sarasota, Florida and worked at the Marie Selby Botanical Garden, a word-renowned orchid, bromeliad and epiphyte research center,  I got to go to the Miami Orchid Show, as well.  For several months, I lived and breathed the craze that all orchid and bromeliad lovers live by.  I attended all of the plant society meetings.  The orchid fanatics were just as fanatical about orchids as the fern fanatics were about ferns.  (Now that I live in the South, I attend the Camellia Society meetings.)  I have this to say about plant fanatics:  regardless of their chosen plant, each group is just as fanatical as the other re: their plant.

The popularity of the book The Orchid Thief, ridiculous upside-down picture of Phalaenopsis orchid notwithstanding, caused a surge in popularity of orchids as houseplants.  Orchids were suddently available for purchase at high-end chain garden centers like Smith and Hawken and at Home Depot (for a fraction of the price-though the varieties were not as interesting).  Where do you go when you don’t know a Dendrobium from a Paphiopedilum?

The Hoosier Orchid Company

Indianapolis Monthly always does a feature about the “Best of Indy.”  One year, they featured The Hoosier Orchid Company, an orchid breeding, research and boarding facility.  Yes, you read that correctly–a boarding facility.  Much as people board their pets when they go on vacation, you could board your orchids at the Hoosier Orchid Company while they were out of bloom.  The HOC would tend to them, re-pot them, and coax them back into bloom.  While I traveled to Seattle, Washington, I boarded my orchids there and they came back to me in tip top shape.  The owners were always so nice to everyone, and let people wander through their jungle of greenhouses, overtaken by gigantic vanilla vines, and impatiens growing under the benches.  It was there that my interest in orchids ignited.

I read, with sadness, while researching this blog post, that the Hoosier Orchid Company closed in the summer of 2008.  They could no longer sustain the business with falling prices and rising shipping costs.  The owners bred and researched a wide variety of species orchids, cultivating them from seed in their tissue culture labs and growing them on to maturity for orchid collectors.  From the Hoosier Orchid Company, I bought my first cucumber orchid.  The leaves looked like mini-gherkins.  Heaven.  An orchid that looks like a pickle.  Two of my favorite things, combined.

Next up: So you want to grow an orchid?  We’ll show you how!

During the short days of winter, the Northern gardener can help to bring spring a little closer by using artificial lights. Many gardeners turn their basements into a tropical oasis with plant life that is induced to grow by being under artificial light. Some people prefer to have their light-garden where they can enjoy it in their living area, and for these people there are many attractive ready-made, wood or metal light units.

For the person who is handy with a saw and a hammer, the cost of constructing a three shelf light can be as little as $50 to $100 for lumber and light fixtures. Although much has been written promoting the use of special light bulbs for proper balance of different light waves, many growers have found a combination of these with cool or warm light bulbs will produce the number of flowers they want.

The gardener, with lights set up where they will receive some natural light, can even use all cool white bulbs which are very inexpensive. However for those just starting to grow plants under lights, I recommend using the lights which come with the units before investing in the more expensive plant growth bulbs.

Light intensity and the amount of light needed will depend on the plants you are growing. Most foliage plants we grow do fine with light from two 40watt fluorescent bulbs. For ferns or begonias, this amount of light is adequate. The plants can be as much as 24 inches from the light source. Begonias being grown for flowers ( such as those with fibrous roots) however, can be placed closer to the lights .

Many lists are available from gardening centers that will give you the light source required for plants that do well in low, intermediate, or bright lights.