Hi there. I live in Ft Lauderdale and I've put many orchids in my trees over the last several years. The cattleyas have never bloomed, but the oncidiums look beautiful. The only problem is that they seem to only bloom once a year - around November. Am I doing something wrong? Or do all orchids bloom only once a year? I'd really love to find out if there are varieties which will bloom more often and, if that's not possible, then find out if different varieties have different seasons so that I can put multiple varieties in each tree and have one of them in bloom each season. Is this possible? I've just recently started spraying them with orchid fertilizer and previously did nothing at all for them. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!
Bloom Seasons for Outdoor Orchids in South Florida???
Hello, could you post some pictures of your orchids? Do they have tags with their names? That might help us to advise you better.
I'm trying to grow my orchids outdoors in my garden (in Sarasota), too. While it's nice to think that you can park any orchid plant in a tree and it will grow and bloom, in actual fact orchids do survive in the wild this way, but they probably aren't ever going to grow and bloom like you see in an orchid greenhouse unless you give them some help. Good, regular care in fact. Even then, they are at the mercy of the wind and weather, animals and birds, insects and fungal spores floating around outdoors so they have it tougher than the coddled babies of a dedicated orchid hobbyist.
Fertilizing your orchids may help them to bloom more often, as it will stimulate them to put up new growth. A good 'rule of thumb' is misting orchids with a weak solution (about 1/4 the strength recommended on the fert package) every week. During our hot, dry weather in spring and fall, it's probably a good idea to mist them with plain water a couple of times a week, too. If they are mounted directly on the trees (without a pot or any medium) they would dry out really quickly and might need misting every day when it's hot and dry.
But it really depends upon the individual type of orchid as to how often they will bloom. Your cattleyas might not be blooming because of a lack of fertilizer, but they also need brighter light than oncidiums do, so try moving one or two of them to a spot that gets some early morning sun, or more peeks of sun through the tree canopy and it just might move it to bloom. Beware of letting direct sun hit the leaves in the middle of the day, though. The leaves will get big, black blotches of sunburn if they get too hot.
You may want to try some other types of orchids that are suited to growing in the conditions you have in your trees and yard. What kind of trees do you have? If for example you have oaks, you have dappled shade to full shade, if palms, you might have morning and evening sun and shade in the middle of the day. I have quite a few Brassavola types and just mounted 4 of them to a big old oak branch. They have wonderful, fragrant flowers and one friend of mine says hers - a Brassavola nodosa aka 'Lady of the Night' - blooms 3 times a year! Like the cattleyas, they like some fairly bright light. I mist them every day, as well, (at least I will until they are well established) and set up an automatic mist system on a timer when I'm away.
Hope this helps, but let's see some pictures!
Elaine
"Growing Orchids In Your Garden" is a good book to check out by Robert G. M. Friend. He gives a lot of advice on what varieties grow well outdoors and how to care for them. I believe he is located in Florida. Cattleyas mostly bloom once a year, but there are many others that bloom two and three times. My Epidendroms (species) pretty much stay in bloom year round. I have a Gerberara 'snow ballet' that I call the weed because as long as the weather suits it, it's blooming and spreading. Here in So. Cal. we have very low humidity, and temps range from High thirties to occasional triple digits, so I have learned to stick with mostly Mexican orchids for outdoor plants, but you can grow many that require high humidity. I have to put those in a green house environment. If you read the stickys at the top of this forum, you will find a lot of good research sites. Good luck!