BLOOM or BUST
Is it just me, or is getting orchids to reflower a big green thumb bummer?
Have you ever noticed that for all the times you see a potted orchid in the background of a scholarly TV news interview, on a Zoom call or in Rebecca Welton’s office on “Ted Lasso,” never is it not blooming? ⬤ I have. ⬤ Just once I’d like to see one all catawampus in a pot with its roots poking out willy-nilly, its leaves droopy and wrinkly and a barren, brown stem jutting up from the center like an antenna that hasn’t been able to get a signal for years. ⬤ Then at least I’d know I’m not the only one. ⬤ I usually have a half-dozen or more orchids in my possession, which, by the looks of them, is maybe six too many. One or two appear relatively healthy and happy (for now), but the rest look sad and forlorn, like they wish they could go back to from wherever they came, maybe that nice humid spot in the jungle. I bet even the back of the truck that brought them to the grocery store is looking pretty good right about now. Anywhere but with the experienced outdoor gardener who obviously has a ways to go when it comes to indoor orchids. ⬤ Yet, here we are.
In a house that is already overwintering Louella the lemon tree, Lou the lime tree, elephant ears, hibiscus, mandevillas, scented geraniums, Spanish lavender, ivies and tuberoses, do I really need orchids, too? Of course not, but that’s hardly the point.
Stop me if you know how this goes ...
You make a quick dash to grab something mundane, like a paintbrush, or overpriced, like a refrigerator water filter, and somewhere between the batteries and the ant traps, there’s a colorful display of exotic blooms. You slow just to casually admire them. Then you stop. Then you’re rifling through them to find the one with the most unopened buds. Next thing you know there’s one riding shotgun in cellophane with you on the way home, because even the brownest, mildest Wisconsin winters can get long without flowers.
Like a lot of relationships, it’s sheer bliss in the beginning. You look at them lovingly every time you walk in the room. You marvel at how long the flowers last — weeks, even months. You know you had absolutely nothing to do with their beauty, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like you’re suddenly some kind of orchid whisperer.
“Hey, look at me,” you think to yourself. “I should have more of these.”
Then one day it happens. The last flower finally lets go, sadly falling in slow motion as Andrea Bocelli sings — or something like that.
Now what?
Convinced you’re going to be able to get that orchid to bloom again, you repot it in orchid bark mix in an orchid pot with orchid holes. You hang on to the support stake with the Barbie-sized hair clip, because surely you’re going to need that once a new flower spike shoots up.
So you wait. And wait. And wait. Years go by. Hope begins to diminish and so do your orchids. Forget about getting them to rebloom, now you’re just trying to keep them alive, because you will not treat them like an annual and simply toss them when the flowers end, as some barbarians suggest. Gasp! You’re a gardener. You live by the motto that no plant will be left behind. So, like I said, here we are.
Rather than continuing to suffer in silence, I turned to orchid expert Chuck Acker in Fitchburg for some help. He’s been growing and breeding orchids for decades and has a long family history in the orchid business. He specializes in phragmipedium orchids. The new hybrids he has bred and sells to commercial growers and “crazy hobbyists” like himself through Flasks by Chuck Acker have ended up all over the world.
He was gracious enough to talk with me about phalaenopsis orchids, also called moth orchids, which are the ones commonly found in flower shops, big box stores, grocery stores and my house. He was also kind enough not to judge a hopeless amateur like me.
I knew we were going to hit it off as soon as he said some people get “wigged out” over trying to grow orchids. He was speaking my language.
“A lot of people are intimidated, or they want to do right and then they overdo right,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is an orchid.’ I think that really gets people wigged out a little bit and they end up over-caring for their plant and killing it with kindness, so to speak.”
Overwatering vs. underwatering: Always lean toward the latter
As simple as it sounds, watering is one of the more mysterious things about orchids. Go online to see why your orchid leaves are going limp and you’ll learn your plant is either getting too much water or not enough water. Gee, thanks, Google.
In all his years with orchids, Acker has seldom seen one in an ill state from being underwatered.
“I always saw issues with orchids coming in that were overwatered, people pampering them to death,” he said. “They thrive on neglect. If you’re skeptical on whether or not to water it that day ... just skip it. I just couldn’t stress that enough.”
Even though orchids look delicate, the jungles where they grow are “fairly hostile environments,” so they have to be resilient and tough, Acker said.
They like to dry out between waterings. It keeps their root systems healthy and the plant active and moving as it searches for water. If the bark-based or sphagnum moss-based mix they’re growing in is wet all the time, the roots get lazy, Acker said.
Well, there you have it, I’m that plant mom who has raised lazy kids, not to mention lazy cats. Great.
Also keep in mind that a planting medium that is constantly wet decomposes faster.
“Once that starts to happen, your roots start to rot and then your plant starts to go downhill and then you start fussing over it even more because it’s not looking good,” Acker said.
Wait a minute ... it’s like he’s been in my house and knows how I operate.
Poking a finger down in the soil like you do with houseplants to see if they’re dry doesn’t work with orchids, but Acker has two tricks.
Get to know the weight of your pot, either by feel or by putting it on a scale. When the planting material is dry all the way through, your pot will feel light and it’s time to water. You can also take a kebab skewer and drive it down in the pot for a few seconds and then see if the wood comes up wet or dry (sort of like the toothpick test when baking a cake).
Orchids you bring home from the store are growing in a sphagnum moss medium, which stays wet far longer than the bark mixes. They can go two or three weeks between waterings, Acker said, so don’t lump them in with the houseplants you water weekly. He prefers using the bark mixes, as his family did for 50 years in their former Orchids by the Ackers business in Waunakee.
Watering your orchids in the sink is good; ice cubes are not
We all have that friend who swears all they do is put three ice cubes in the pot each week and voila! This is also often the same friend who always eats dessert and somehow loses weight.
“Oh, not that!” Acker said when I brought up ice cubes, which I’d like to go on record as saying I’ve never done.
He points out that method was marketed by the Just Add Ice Orchids company specifically for the type of pot and medium it sells its orchids in. Acker prefers to take the word of his German friend who was a longtime orchid grower in Chicago and would tell him in his thickest, sternest accent, “There are no ice cubes in the jungle or nature.”
The best way to water is to put the pot in the sink and let the water run through it for 10 or 15 seconds. Let it set for a few minutes and drain any excess water. That flushing of water brings fresh ions and minerals to the plant. Do not, however, fill your sink half full with water and let your pots sit in the water. If one orchid has a root fungus or pathogen, it will spread to all the other orchids in the water.
It turns out I was doing one thing right: using rainwater for my orchids. Water quality is important. They love rainwater or a nearly pure water. Acker suggests using a mix of 80 percent rainwater with 20 percent tap water so your orchids also get the benefit of some of the simple minerals in the latter.
In Wisconsin winters, misting your orchids matters
I’ve been negligent when it comes to misting my orchids, mostly because I didn’t think it matters.
It does, especially during Wisconsin winters.
“When our heat is cranking and we’ve got 25 percent humidity in our house, misting is definitely advantageous,” Acker said. “You want to do that early in the day so the plant can benefit from it. Having wet leaves at nightfall is always a problem-maker. You’re going to end up with crown rot or something that’s going to set up camp on those leaves.”
I was also surprised to learn orchids like company — evidently not my company but that of other plants. Acker suggests grouping African violets, ferns or other plants in your house with your orchids to create a microenvironment in which the plants can feed off one another and, in my case, cheer one another up.
What to do with the stem after your orchid is done flowering
Once your orchid completes a bloom cycle, do you cut off the stem and start over or do you leave it there and hope for a miracle? The answer is somewhere in the middle.
An orchid can flower twice off the same stem. Once the last of the flowers have died, Acker recommends taking a razor blade or sharp knife that won’t crush the stem and counting three or four nodes up the stem from the base of the plant. Then cut the stem an inch above that node.
“That induces and helps promote a new flower spike to emerge out of that upper-most node. That will shoot out and about 60 days later you’ve got another stem of flowers coming out. So it will flower two times off of that main stem. That’s a trick not a lot of people know about.”
It doesn’t work 100% of the time, but Acker said there’s nothing to lose by trying it.
Phalaenopsis orchids set a spike after a drop in nighttime temperatures, which is usually in September through November in Wisconsin, and yes, they can detect that even in your house.
“For those people who struggle to get them to spike, that’s because they probably keep their place warm,” Acker said. “They start heating it right away and don’t have a nighttime temperature set below 65 degrees, so the plant is just going to continue to grow and won’t set spike.”
He recommends putting it in a spare bedroom or pushing it closer to a window or drafty patio door where the temperature will be closer to 58 to 60 degrees for four to six weeks in the fall. You still have to be mindful that they like bright, indirect light, which means an east or west window or semi-shaded south window.
For advice on growing orchids specifically in Wisconsin, including photos of where to cut your stem, Acker recommends the Madison-based Orchid Growers Guild Inc. website ( orchidgrowersguild.
For frustrated growers like me, he reminded me of their long blooming periods, usually two to four months, and if you’re lucky, maybe even twice a year. That’s hard to beat.
“Even if you don’t get it to reflower again, you get a lot of bang for your buck,” he said. “They’re great plants. They’re coming out in a plethora of different colors and color combinations and spots and stripes and bars.”
That reminds me, I think I need to run to the store this weekend to get another paintbrush.
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. If you have a trick for keeping your orchids happy and healthy, she’s all ears. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert .