Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Love Orchid

Our first orchid was a Phaeleanopsis hybrid that is yellow with a pink throat. We started calling it the love orchid as a joke because of the love fern in the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. We've had a lot of success with this orchid. We keep it in Sphagnum in a clay pot, and it has very happy roots. We water it when the medium drys out most of the way.We regularly use Dyna- Gro Grow fertilizer and Dyna-Gro Bloom when it starts putting on a spike. This fall and winter the lower leaves started slowly turning yellow and dropping off. We thought it might have a bacterial rot or fungus, but that didn't seem to be it. We read somewhere that Phal leaves can turn yellow if it's getting too much light, so we moved it to a spot with less light, and it's cured! We read a lot of things online that not getting enough light can often be the problem for a lot of plants. But living in Florida, that was not our problem. We had several plants that were sad from getting too much light. Right now it has two flowering spikes. We are super excited!