Beautiful day here in Paradise...sunny and 70s.

Jim

I've been outside re-potting orchids from our haul at Apopka. Feels like Florida weather out there for sure!

My Rhyn. David Sander has been indoors since mid-November and here it is blooming! First time I've had a bloom from him other than in summer. Noid Den and Enc. Green Hornet keeping right on. The Green Hornet has surely had flowers going for the last 6 months! It is a bloomin machine.

I am jealous of all you folks. So many blooming plants right now. My Blc. Mary Jo McNerney 'Exotic Orchids' is getting ready to bloom. This will be the first time I have seen her bloom. OK, Jim, I fell sure this is NOT the correct name now. My huge, NOID Dendrobium is loading up with inflorescences. So far I see six stems. Lots of Phal./Dtps. also have inflorescences.

We had another cloudy day with more snow and less than 20 F. I didn't leve the wood stove all day.

I keep pouring water into the humidity trays below Confetti and the other potted plants and peeking and the mystery plant. Those yellowish bumps don't seem ot have changed but at least they are still there. Poor plants, no privacy for them in this house (I'm too used to intruding on the privacy of goats and sheep after they are bred).

Definitely a Dendrobium. Will have to wait for the flower to know which one.
This group generally blooms in the spring. Those bumps will become flower spikes.
Since it is mounted you can water it frequently. Mounted plants dry quickly.
You can feed it frequently too. Just use a soluble fertilizer at half strength.
Look for "Orchid Food" the nitrogen should be ammoniacal or nitrate form.
Bright light is good and water more as the temperatures rise.

What are the numbers on the food, like 10 10 10 or what? Some of them say things about flowering booster and so on, on the packets, should I use one of those for it? It's hard to believe that it will ever bloom, I've had it for years without a hint of a flower, and the little bumps have not changed even a tiny bit since I first noticed them! I do hope it will bloom, I'm so worried because it has been so cold and the heat is on on the house,it's hard to keep any humidity at all. I was thinking of getting a humidifier for the room.

Thank you.

10 10 10 on a bag of fertilizer tells you the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the mix. Bloom booster fertilizer will typically have a higher level of phosphorus. The bag may also say "no urea" which is a source of nitrogen. There is a school of thought that thinks nitrogen derived from urea is not effective on epiphites because it cannot interact with soil. I don't buy that but then that is just me. The bag may also list minor elements like magnesium, boron, ect., and tell you if some of the nitrogen is slow release. There is lots of good information on a bag of fertilizer.

Jim

In my opinion, Jim, as usual, is absolutely right. I probably use (at least) a half dozen fertilizers and I have not seen a difference whether I use non-urea or urea fertilizer. I would purchase something like 20-20-20 ORCHID fertilizer though. The three numbers you see would be the same ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium regardless of the brand of fertilizer but the micronutrients found in ORCHID fertilizer is the key. IF you put your plants on a regular schedule of fertilization now, this might just stimulate your plants to bloom. Do follow the adage: "WEAKLY-WEEKLY". During the winter months I will reduce my dilution to 1/4 tsp. per gallon and then during the spring/summer, I will dilute mine to 1/2 tsp. per gallon. I typically will water between every fertilization though, just to wash any salts out of my media.

Do you think that I should spray the plants with the fertilizer-water mix or do they have to be immersed in it? Spraying iwould be an awful lot easier because its a lot of plants for only 3 buckets!

When they were outdoors, I gave them some fertilizer that I had bought years ago and not used because it smelled so bad - " Neptunes Harvest" I think. I don't thinkit had any numbers on it. I mixed it up in the watering can and poured it over them. Is that a fertilizer that you should alternate with the other fertilizers?

Thank you for the advice. I really didn't know that Orchid fertilizer was any different than all purpose. I thought it was just a marketing thing!

Lore, if that fertilizer was smelly, it perhaps was fish emulsion or something similar. You almost need to hold your nose to mix and apply it. That's one reason I don't use smelly fertilizers, but many people swear by these fertilizers.

During the fall/winter, since I have so many orchids and they are all "crammed" into two greenhouses, I fertilize by spraying. I just wet leaves, roots, and media with the spray. I do try to water everything well before spraying them with fertilizer though. I know some "experts" will say never to wet leaves (and there's a strong contingency who say that about Phal.), but I seem to get away with it. About the only plants I ever lose are those tiny, "baby" ones and I never know why. Once I have an established plant, one NBS or BS, I just don't ever lose one. Of course, I have 2-3 fans running from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM during the late fall/winter, and then from 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM spring/early fall. I am a big believer that air movement prevents many problems when it comes to growing tropical plants.

Fertilizers that are labeled "Orchid" should have specific micronutrients suited for epiphytes. I hope that's right and its not just a marketing scam. Often, those micronutrients are listed, but not always. MSU (Michigan, not Mississippi) has developed specific orchid fertilizers, and I trust that these fertilizers are on the up-and-up. There are other well-known companies that produce orchid fertilizers as well.

You probably shouldn't expect your plant to bloom until spring, Lore Lisa. If it was outside last summer, cooled off a little in the fall before you brought it in and is now only getting weak winter light in your window, it "knows" it's winter now. Be prepared to gradually ramp up the fert and watering as the weather warms up - Days are getting longer already,

On the fert question, I'll chime in with my U of Florida story: the co-author of my favorite orchid book 'Orchids to Know and Grow" is Tom Sheehan, a lecturer in Botany at UF. After reading through that book at least twice and not getting much fertilizer info at all, I e-mailed him directly and got an answer almost immediately. He and I had a nice exchange in fact. He said he's been growing orchids for nearly 70 years, has a large greenhouse full of big specimen orchids that bloom like crazy, and his fert regime is "spray them down with a hose-end sprayer of Miracle Gro every second week, and every week during the summer".

Yup, plain old "evil" blue Miracle Gro. That story convinced me that the non-urea idea is . . . well let's say poppycock! (my mother would be pleased that I didn't say bull . . . . ) Your Neptune's Harvest would probably be great for orchids too, Lore Lisa. But I'm with Ken, can't stand the smell of it. Plus it would probably attract the raccoons to my garden, the last thing I want.

That being said, I don't have Miracle Gro around, so I buy a little 1lb. bag of Better-Gro Orchid Plus and add a teaspoon of Epsom Salts to the mix in my 2gal. sprayer at least once a month especially in winter. The bag lasts me over a year, at the weak rate I mix. Yes, by all means spray the fert mix on your plants! Pretty sure that's what most of us do.

How about that. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been "blasted" by knowledgeable orchid growers because I once posted on DG and ATP, and tell my Garden Club members when I lecture, that (in a pinch) it won't hurt your orchids to spray/water them with Miracle Gro. Now I feel better.

Thanks, Elaine. I will remember that an "expert" said it is OK to use Miracle Gro.

Fantastic info!!! I mean it! I never had many orchids until this year, and it was easy to mix up whatever the fertilizer was (I had a small tub of stuff, Peters or Jacks or something) in water in a bucket and the just drop the plants in. It would be a full time job now, not to mention I would have to get a lot more buckets. I water the same way and am having a lot of trouble keeping up with watering, but I just don't know if spraying with a hand spray bottle is enough. What I want is the automatic sprayer that they use on the vegetables in the grocery store!

That fish fertilizer was disgusting and think, even dilute, I doubt it would get through the holes of the sprayer. I wouldn't have the stuff in the house and can just imagine the dogs' reaction, can visualize them rolling on the plants. But, when I was working, I used to used the dirty fish tank water on my plants and it seemed to be good for them. I used to have a bug killer that was put on the surface of the soil of houseplants that smelled horrible too.

Thanks again. I would never have thought of Epsom salts, either.

Pretty sure Ursula uses her fish tank water on her orchids too. People say it's fantastic. Hmm, maybe I need some fish!

Elaine, yes, I sure do!!
I used to run years ago a couple of 125 gallon tanks and let the dirty fish tank water run into the garden in Summer. The plants seemed to thrive on that, so I do nowadays the same thing in the greenhouse. The species above the fish tanks get regularly doused with the stuff and it is easy to just dump it on others. My Phrags grow better with it, I think.