Just kidding, they are arbitrarily doing whatever, just like always, except this time it’s *blooming*.
My five phalaenopsis orchids have limped along for years, not doing much of anything, certainly not blooming, and the two that I rescued from Lowe’s out of pity have never shown much gratitude, (not that it will keep me from doing it again, like I’m going to turn my back on the next Velveteen Rabbit of orchids.)
My mother’s orchids bloom reliably, have for years, have never been fertilized or repotted and get two ice cubes dropped into them every Sunday, contrary to the advice you’ll find anywhere except the Just Add Ice orchid people, who seem to understand the indifference orchids appreciate.
I’ve worried over mine, put together special media mixes, set them up with Klieg-level grow lights and for years they have kept cheerfully going along, happy to not be asked to do anything deranged or flashy like send up a flower spike.
This year–bewilderingly– four of the five phals have spikes – one has both a spike and a keiki.
So what happened???
Some observations and theories:
All spent the summer outdoors, although not in the same places or conditions.
Three of the phals hung from pots strung from rhododendrons. One got a bit of sunscald, but the rest were mostly shaded all summer, but more “indirect outdoors light” than dense shade.
All three were in a bark/moss mix in clay orchid pots but two were using them as cache pots. Those two were tightly potbound and in plastic orchid pots.
One was living a free and easy life stretching out unconfined in a clay pot.
The other two phals hung on the north side of a maple tree, swaddled in moss only and mounted to a Mountain Laurel branch with wire. Those conditions were pretty shady:
It was a dry summer, and I would occasionally hose them down out of pity, but certainly nothing major. The mounted pair were in moss only because it seemed like they would more help holding water, plus bark would have been a mess. Still, though — not much, considering they went weeks without rain.
So available light, medium type, pot confinement were not shared characteristics, nor was temperature — the mounted phals beneath the maple sit were exposed to lower temperatures; the site is quite a bit lower on the property, and they were in more significant shade.
The main commonality is that all of them were in a very small amount of medium. Like maybe a handful of medium. I was playing around in the spring, frustrated, ready to try something different and hoping to mimic what they experience in the wild, where they grow supported in the joints of trees, hanging like from their toes like sloths.
All came back in the house September 28, when there was still equilibrium between outdoor and in-house temperature–not yet shutting windows at night. Started noticing spikes about a month later. Here they are in their possibly-arbitrary glory.
