Recalcitrant Orchids, Indoors!

If you asked random people, especially people who aren't gardeners, what the most persnickety plants are, I'd wager that a prominent response would be "orchids" (I'm sure roses would be pretty high up there too-- but on to orchids for now, as it's summer and tropical-looking things match the current humidity).

I think a lot of this perception stems from those florist phalaenopsis, which are grown en masse under virtually perfect conditions, then rudely transported to a dim, dry, cool spot in someone's home. The flowers from the plant's happier greenhouse days wither away, and the owner is left with wilty-looking leaves dying a slow death on a bed of dry sphagnum moss. What to do with these plants, other than to toss them out and surmise that all orchids must be "hard to grow?"

B. 'Little Stars'

I was sort of in the same boat for nearly three years with an orchid of my own, the Brassavola nodosa hybrid 'Little Stars.' It never bloomed for years, although it did have interesting, healthy-looking leaves (better foliar interest than what phalaenopsis provides). Then, around this past Christmas, it issued an unusual growth from the base of a leaf-- a cluster of flowers.

The poor thing was in the arid air of a home in wintertime, when the humidity level is that of the Sahara. But it obliged me with a charming trio of greenish-white spidery flowers, each smelling like a lily, reminding me each time I walked into the room of those lily-heavy funeral arrangements. The flowers themselves, I suppose, have a little less appeal than the classic "moth orchids," but I have always liked green blooms.

Here is what a well-grown 'Little Stars' looks like. (CC)

'Little Stars' has not bloomed since, and I've yet to discern what exactly coaxed it into flowering last winter.