If you are growing your orchids indoors you may want to be more selective about the range of colours from your orchid blooms. With such a vast choice of hues and shades, it is possible to arrange your colour schemes to suit any room or personal choice. The following charts will give you some at-a-glance ideas for this.
Orchids that benefit most are lightloving, cool-growing types such as cymbidiums, odontoglossums, coelogynes, encvclias and dendrobiums, all of which have fairly robust foliage that may become a little spotted or marked throughout the course of several months but will not come to any harm. Those orchids with softer, wideleafed foliage, such as lycastes, anguloas and the deciduous calanthes, would very soon become notably spoiled by blemishes as a result of the effects of the weather.
The exceptions are the coolgrowing varieties among the pleiones. These plants always do better in a cooler environment for the summer, and any spotting of their foliage usually comes late, at the season's end, just before the leaves turn brown and are shed.
To make the most of your blooms, stand a plant where it will create the greatest impact, but remember that you will need to water the plant in the usual way.
Cattleyas retain their leaves for a number of years, and if they are spoilt at an early age, you have to live with a disfigured plant for a long time. Although they like the warmth, cattleyas can easily be burnt by direct sun, and for this reason are better protected from the vagaries of a temperate summer. In tropical regions, however, these orchids will excel under shade cloth, which gives them a constant supply of fresh air without exposure to direct sun. The hard-leafed encyclias and a number of Oncidium species, which include the tough, mule-eared species such as Oncidium splendidum, will take more light than most. The response of their foliage to any extra sunlight is a reddening of the leaves.
The richly coloured flowers of Zygopetalum max-Mare, for example, are strongly scented. Brassavola cuculaw, which is sometimes called the ghost orchid, has drooping flowers of a ghostly appearance.
These orchids are not suited to a temperate climate, even in summer. In a mixed collection of various orchids, it can be trial and error that decides those plants that will benefit from summering outdoors. Do not attempt to take outside very young plants, or those growing in particularly small pots. Exposed to the elements, small pots are extremely difficult to keep wet, and at best will be wet one day and dry the next. It becomes impossible to retain an even level of moisture at the roots, which is conducive to all good orchid growing. Small pots are also in danger of being blown over by the wind or even trampled by pets.
An indoor case can be a simple design fitted into an existing windowsill, or it can be quite an elaborate affair, with built-in ventilation from fans, and some lighting to stimulate the plants in winter. This can be placed almost anywhere in the home to provide an eye-catching display, with something of interest always flowering in the case. The larger the case, the greater the number and the size of plants that can be grown. - 15266
Orchids that benefit most are lightloving, cool-growing types such as cymbidiums, odontoglossums, coelogynes, encvclias and dendrobiums, all of which have fairly robust foliage that may become a little spotted or marked throughout the course of several months but will not come to any harm. Those orchids with softer, wideleafed foliage, such as lycastes, anguloas and the deciduous calanthes, would very soon become notably spoiled by blemishes as a result of the effects of the weather.
The exceptions are the coolgrowing varieties among the pleiones. These plants always do better in a cooler environment for the summer, and any spotting of their foliage usually comes late, at the season's end, just before the leaves turn brown and are shed.
To make the most of your blooms, stand a plant where it will create the greatest impact, but remember that you will need to water the plant in the usual way.
Cattleyas retain their leaves for a number of years, and if they are spoilt at an early age, you have to live with a disfigured plant for a long time. Although they like the warmth, cattleyas can easily be burnt by direct sun, and for this reason are better protected from the vagaries of a temperate summer. In tropical regions, however, these orchids will excel under shade cloth, which gives them a constant supply of fresh air without exposure to direct sun. The hard-leafed encyclias and a number of Oncidium species, which include the tough, mule-eared species such as Oncidium splendidum, will take more light than most. The response of their foliage to any extra sunlight is a reddening of the leaves.
The richly coloured flowers of Zygopetalum max-Mare, for example, are strongly scented. Brassavola cuculaw, which is sometimes called the ghost orchid, has drooping flowers of a ghostly appearance.
These orchids are not suited to a temperate climate, even in summer. In a mixed collection of various orchids, it can be trial and error that decides those plants that will benefit from summering outdoors. Do not attempt to take outside very young plants, or those growing in particularly small pots. Exposed to the elements, small pots are extremely difficult to keep wet, and at best will be wet one day and dry the next. It becomes impossible to retain an even level of moisture at the roots, which is conducive to all good orchid growing. Small pots are also in danger of being blown over by the wind or even trampled by pets.
An indoor case can be a simple design fitted into an existing windowsill, or it can be quite an elaborate affair, with built-in ventilation from fans, and some lighting to stimulate the plants in winter. This can be placed almost anywhere in the home to provide an eye-catching display, with something of interest always flowering in the case. The larger the case, the greater the number and the size of plants that can be grown. - 15266
About the Author:
Garden Orchids suitable for growing in a small growing case are Coelogyne corymbosa, Cirrhopetalum guttulatum, Dendrobium cuthbertsonii, Encyclia polybulbon, and Ludisia discolor.
