I love the color of the purple one. The way it's curved is so elegant.

Thank you!

Regarding the curve, I wanted the stem to rest on the stick without using a butterfly clip, so I just rotated the orchid every couple of days. The flower spike just kept growing toward the sunlight, wrapping around the stick.

Growing up, my Grandmother always had a table covered with very happy looking orchids. She would brag about getting one or two to re-bloom, and how long the blooms would last. I've had some re-bloom, but I've never had all of my phals re-bloom all at once. I have a large oncidium under the desk, and I'm wishing I would have put it in a window as well to see if that would have bloomed this fall as well!

I can't even remember what color the other ones will be when they flower.

Hey, did I see you at the Cactus forum? If so, nice job on your jades!! I am still trying with mine.

Now, can you share your growing practice with the Phals? Do you use rain water? Do you soak the roots? Do you have them in direct south facing windows? East? West? What kind of light all winter? What kind of in door temps? How often do you water? Do you mist them? Just getting a feel...

Mike

Hi Mikerno,

I do post in the cactus (and bonsai) forum. I posted there recently because I noticed my jade was flowering the same day I saw these spikes on my orchids! Exciting day because I'm a novice - I started collecting plants several years back, and I'll try to answer the questions you asked, but I can't say I know the trick to getting these to flower. I'm just excited all my phals, and my jade, started putting out flowers at the same time!

I also moved in December, so something about the new arrangement is making these plants happy.

Water: I water 2x / week, which is sometimes too much if an orchid is not near sun or moving are. I try to keep my orchids in terra cotta, which is great for drainage: maintains humidity but not wetness. I just water until I see some come out the bottom (which is just a little water really). I don't really soak them - but I do occasionally, at least 2-3 times a year, run quite a bit of water through to wash out any excess salts. I do add Dyna Gro Foliage Pro to my water (what do they suggest, 1/4 tsp / gallon?). No misting - probably fairly dry actually. I don't usually even soak the pine bark when I repot! They usually come from the store in a plastic container so soaking wet and overwatered, I let them dry out a bit for a day or two, then water heavily (and often rinse with hydrogen peroxide, just in case before I repot).

Sunlight: All those orchids are within a couple feet of 3-windows in an arched part of the wall. It's actually North-facing, but it gets a lot of sun since the wall is arched. It gets the best sun during the morning (East). During the winter, most of those orchids were actually probably further from light because my favorite plants are outside during summer, and they get the windows by the arched wall in the winter. My wife puts the orchids in places with almost no light, like our fireplace mantle, dinner table, wine/beer fridge. One was on a West-facing window sill in our kitchen for part of late winter.

Temps: Our temperature ranges from about 68 in the winter (possibly colder by the window) to 78 in the summer (our house always feels cooler than it is, and we haven't been using our AC much at all the last month).

Hope this helps! If you have any idea what made the orchids flower, I'd love to know!

I must say you are doing a good job!

I found the roots which I am mainly concerned about getting brown and drying out out of my greenhouse which led me to be concerned..So I collected rain water and soaked the roots once a week which made a huge difference but still not as happy as a greenhouse with moving air and lots of humidity...Now I am going to resort to bringing them inside since I have run out of room in there and I feel that since you and many others here can get them to grow well, it's very encouraging...If you look at the roots of yours closely, notice there are some brown. Mine in my greenhouse do not do that, in fact they are all green and get plump when I water...With tap, a different story.

Since your doing a great job, my only suggestion would be to use distilled water more often or rain water collected and the roots will thrive along with the plant..I always feared loosing roots to tap water....Tap water stinks in my opinion...

Taking them to the sink for a good rinse is great if all you can use is tap.

Seems like the one in the Clay Pot is very happy, roots and all!

Again, great job!