Get the most from your orchids
Help your pot plants thrive – and bloom again
Long gone are the times when orchids were only for rich landowners with a tropical hothouse. These days they make excellent houseplants that can last for months in bloom with very little attention. However, if you’re choosing an orchid for a gift or have received one yourself, it’s worth thinking about where it might be grown to make sure it has the most suitable position, depending on whether it’s a cool-temperature, intermediate or warmloving species.
Cool-temperature orchids
The coolest orchid types prefer winter nighttime temperatures of 10C (50F), so they’d suit a cool spot in the house such as an unheated bedroom or landing. These include Dendrobium nobile types, which have clusters of flowers along the length of their canes, and cymbidiums, which are popular winter-flowering orchids with long, strap-like leaves.
Intermediate orchids
Orchids that thrive in intermediate temperatures need a winter drop to 12C (54F), so a slightly warmer room would suit many oncidium types (often marketed as cambria), brassia (spider orchids) and miltoniopsis (pansy orchids).
Warm-loving orchids
Flourishing in our modern, centrally-heated homes (15C/59F or above) are phalaenopsis (moth orchids), paphiopedilum (slipper orchids) and ‘hard-cane’ dendrobiums.
Growing an orchid in the wrong temperature zone could prevent it from flowering if it’s too warm, or plants could become sickly if too cold. Cooler orchids especially need that drop in temperature in winter to give the seasonal change they need to initiate flower production. If they’re kept too warm all year round, they’ll just produce more leaves and fewer flowers.