I finally got my orchid to bloom again after 18 months of trying

I have this moth orchid I got as a gift, and it was beautiful for a while. Then the flowers fell off and it just sat there, green leaves but no sign of a new spike. I tried moving it to different windows, changing my watering, even talking to it, which felt silly. The big thing was the temperature drop at night. I read online it needed a 10-15 degree difference to trigger blooming, so I started putting it on my cooler porch every evening for about six weeks last fall. Nothing happened. I gave up and just left it in a spot. Then, just last week, I saw a tiny green nub poking out. It took a year and a half of messing with light, food, and finally just the right chill to get it going. What's the longest you've waited for a plant to give you a sign of life?

3 comments

3 Comments

mitchell.daniel21d ago

Oh the temperature drop thing is so real! I tried that exact method with my own phalaenopsis and got nothing for ages too. My record was a jade plant that just refused to grow for over two years, it looked like a plastic fake plant the whole time. I almost threw it out, but then one spring it suddenly popped out a bunch of new leaves. Sometimes they just do things on their own weird schedule!

morgan41020d ago

Yeah, that jade plant story hits home. I had a snake plant that did the same thing, just sat there like a green brick for what felt like forever. Makes you wonder what they're waiting for, right? Is there some secret signal we're missing, or do they just have a totally different sense of time?

brookef732d ago

Maybe they're just waiting for us to stop watching.