I’m so proud– I’ve finally managed to get an orchid to rebloom after years of trying. In fact, the house is decorated with several of my little projects right now. I have a reblooming amaryllis lighting up the kitchen with four fiery red flowers on one stalk, and another amaryllis in bud that should bloom in another month or so.
Phalaenopsis orchids are so inexpensive these days, I love to have them around in winter when my garden is under ice and snow. (Literally under snow today in fact. We were shoveling three inches of sleet yesterday morning.) Since you can buy a blooming orchid at the grocery store for about twenty dollars you might well decide it’s not worth the bother of keeping a plant around in hopes it will rebloom. But I love a challenge and I decided to give it a try.
I’ve failed at these reblooming projects with orchids in the past. I’ve wound up frustrated with plants that survived my attentions but refused to bloom. Orchids without blooms are pretty boring, I must say. This time the plant I bought last winter in February 2006 benefitted from benign neglect over the summer. I left it outside in filtered sunlight under my rose arbor throughout the warm weather, which seemed to agree with it. I brought it inside when night temps dropped below 40 degrees and fed it once or twice with your basic plant food. By Christmas it was putting up a big, promising-looking spike from the base of the leaves. Sure enough, by January the spike was forming buds, and now look at it! Gawgeous! If these blooms last half as long as the ones it had last winter, I’m in for flowers until April at least.
Amaryllis are even easier and more dependable rebloomers. The red one I have blooming right now I’ve had for four years. Same routine as with the orchid. I stick the boring-looking plant outside all summer and basically forget about it. See my detailed instructions here, from a post last year.
So okay, I’ve saved myself all of twenty dollars, but hey. It was the challenge that was the point of it. So I’m easily excited, what can I say?
Orchids can be tricky. When we lived in Manhattan, we had several beauties we bought over the years at the Orchid Show. We had them on a big north facing drafty window ledge in our historically correct but definately chilly apartment, and they LOVED it there! They all bloomed heartily. When we moved and relocated them to a what I though of as a warmer and kinder location – they stopped blooming in protest. They never bloomed again and died one by one. Go figure.