We were in our local Chinese supermarket the other day, picking up some groceries, and my wife made an impulse purchase: a small orchid plant.
I know there are hundreds of varieties of orchid, and i’m no expert, so i was wondering if someone could identify this one for us.
The flowers are about 1.5 inches across, and are a slightly deeper purple than they appear in the pictures (i didn’t do a very thorough job of color correction).
It’s a moth orchid - a Phalaenopsis hybrid.
They like bright light (but no direct sun), good humidity (50% or better) and to have a moist growing mix that never dries out.
That last part can be tricky - the growing medium should drain rapidly and never be soggy.
Once the flowers have dropped off the stem, you can sometimes get a new flowering spike to grow by trimming the stem a little ways above an internode (it looks like a focal sheathed area on the stem that may have a slight bulge). If no spike appears after a few weeks, just trim the stem off and keep the plant growing until new flowers appear, probably in winter or early spring of next year.
These are the easiest orchids for most people to grow.
Thanks! That’s very helpful.
My wife is the gardener in the family, so i’ll pass the information along to her.
