If you could wake in the morning to see flower sprays like shimmering golden butterflies dancing in your window, would you? If you could pause during the day to be enchanted by the intricate formations of a ballerina-like bloom…
If you could have your window full of oncidiums, the “dancing lady” orchids, for weeks and months on end would you?
Well, you can! Fragile as their flowers seem, orchids are tough. Tropic-born and bred, they’ll adapt to your living conditions with some small pampering. And of all orchids, oncidiums give the most pleasure for the least care.
Actually, in summer the home-grower has the advantage over the greenhouse owner because it’s so much easier to keep the “ladies” as cool as they like to be. The main disadvantage is in winter when greenhouse air can more easily be kept moist enough. But humidifying home air is not too difficult – and it is just as beneficial to people as it is to orchids.
About The Oncidium Orchid
Oncidiums are not only relatively easy to flower in a window they also have some of the most charming habits. Unlike the cattleya, or “mink coat” orchids, with outsize plants about to bloom, the dancing ladies are always neat, compact, and attractive.
Their flowers hold well over an incredible number of weeks, sometimes even months. When cut and put in water, and tucked into the refrigerator for the nights, they may last for three months or more. Some varieties bloom at different times the year ’round, although late winter and spring when the house seems dark and drabóis flowering time for most.
And (welcome though) oncidiums cost no more than other good plants. Flowering-size miniatures can be had for as little as $3, up to $5; others, in four- or five-inch pots cost $7.50 or more.
Oncidiums are one of the general known as “spray orchids” for their multitudinous blossoms on upright or arching stems mostly yellow with stripes, clots, or blotches of brown, but also white, pink, purple, green, red, and many combinations of colors. The individual dancing-lady-like flowers range in size from a silver dollar to a dime; the sprays may be between two inches and two feet tall.
Miniature oncidiums may have from one to six or more flowers on a plant less than four inches tall and are quite happy in two-inch pots. More varieties grow well in four-inch pots, and some well-grown specimens may need eight-inch azalea pots or baskets.
Older plants produce several sprays at once and resemble a shower or “chorus” of dancers. Now, see how easy it is to grow these beauties!
Light
Most orchids, including oncidiums, require the same amount and kind of light as geraniums (1,500-2.000 foot candles, daylight). For comparison, African violets will bloom well with 1,000-foot candles; the full sun is 10,000 foot-candles. In summer, oncidiums thrive best in the morning sun and should be sheltered from burning midday heat by something like a thin curtain.
They’ll vacation outdoors in a lath house (in the South with 50 percent shade) – or hung on a light porch, or in dappled shade under an open tree. Some sun must reach them, to produce good flowering growth for the coming winter – but not the hottest sun. In winter, of course – except in tropical areasóthey’ll take all the sun they can get.
Humidity
Important as humidity is, don’t let it frighten you. It’s easy to provide, even in modern well-heated homes. Misting your “ladies’ ‘ several times a day (there are several squeeze-bottle and other devices available for the purpose) will help the plant flower even on an open window sill. Be careful to mist the plant not over soak the potting medium.
Or you can create a small greenhouse inside your sunniest window. The picture shows how a frame of eight-inch planks down the sides and along the sill can increase the depth of the growing area. A piece of plate glass (the second glass is the least expensive, and 1-inch thickness is least likely to break) in front of the frame forms the fourth wall of the greenhouse which is left open at the top.
The glass can be held up by hooks or any method of your devising. Best, of course, is a frame around the glass to create a door that can be hinged and opened and shut with ease to care for the plants.
Now, you need a watertight tray about four inches deep that fits inside your enlarged window sill. It can be made to order by a tinsmith from galvanized metal, or you can make it yourself from sheet aluminum, available at most hardware stores. Just make sure it fits in easily and is completely water-tight.
Aluminum may be eroded by fertilizers and water impurities. Rather than waterproof paint, which may chip or scratch, I make a liner of heavy plastic, like shower curtains, which covers the inside of the tray, up and over the edge, and down under the tray on the outside.
With this tray in place in your window, put your plants in upside-down squatty pots so that the plants’ pots are well above the water level. Or you can support a grill of some rust proof material on squatty pots. To create humidity, fill the tray with pebbles and water, or just water, or (best, to my mind) a moist medium like vermiculite or perlite.
With these, the evaporating surface is larger so there is more evaporation to create more humidity. As an experiment, I poured two cups of water into each of two identical trays – one with four cups of perlite, and one with water alone. In one week, I found that the perlite tray had evaporated off twice as much water.
It’s also more effective to have the water standing half the depth of the perlite, rather than to the full level. Temperature. Orchids can survive in temperatures ranging from 43 degrees by night to 90 degrees by day. The ideal for oncidiums has a 20-degree range-55 degrees night. 75 degrees day.
Your plate glass will keep the greenhouse cooler than the house inside, at night. If your thermometer tells you it’s too cool, you can simply remove the glass for the night. Or a soil heating cable with thermostatic control will regulate the temperature for you. It’s also useful to have a maximum-minimum thermometer hung on the inside wall of your orchid house, at plant level but out of reach of sunshine.
Watering
Orchids of this type are epiphytic; they naturally live and grow on tropical trees where they are exposed to hard rain squalls followed by drying winds and sun. If their roots do not get plenty of air, they die. Let the pot dry out completely between waterings until a dry pot feels warm to the touch and then water thoroughly.
The best way is to plunge the pot, plant, and all in water until it is thoroughly soaked: drain off excess water, then replace it in the growing area. Orchids need a rest period when less water is given. With oncidiums, this is just before flowering, in late fall (most bloom in winter and spring).
Let the plant stay dry for three to four days, which may give you a watering schedule of once every ten or 14 days. Then, as the new shoot comes out and roots begin to grow again, water when the pot is dry. During the peak growing season (usually mid-summer) you can water even more often, to encourage good growth.
Over-watering causes black rot and is the most frequent cause of lost plants. When buds are forming, the plant wants plenty of water. After the flowers have opened, you may cut down watering and slow the plant down, which will prolong flowering.
Don’t use water from a chemical water softener. Usual amounts of chlorine in drinking water are probably not harmful, but rainwater is best if you can get it and get it clean.
Plants During Summer
Plants spending the summer out of doors under a tree are easily watered with the hose, and usually, dry out fast enough to take care of their drainage.
Feeding. Like all plants, orchids should be fed but with a half-strength solution of regular fertilizers. Of course, directions for orchid fertilizers are in proper proportion for orchids. Feed every two weeks during the growing season (spring and summer), and do not feed at all during the rest period in fall.
Once a month, flush the pot thoroughly to rinse away accumulated fertilizer salts.
Potting. For many years, the dried roots of the osmunda fern have been the favorite medium for growing orchids. It is black or brown, fibrous, and tough. Wash it thoroughly and soak it overnight to soften and saturate it.
Then cut it into chunks from walnut- to fist-size, depending on your pot. In the bottom of your clean pot, enlarge the hole to about twice its size by chipping off pieces with a hammer and nail.
Now, put a curved piece of broken pot over the hole, and add about 1/3 pot-full of pea-sized gravel and charcoal. Prepare your plant by picking off most of the old osmunda from the roots, and trimming off dead roots. You can tell them by their brownish, stringy, dry texture.
Spread the good roots over a chunk of osmunda like a tent, and place the plant in the pot. Most orchids “walk across the pot,” making new bulbs in front of a rhizome-like stem. This type should be placed so that the oldest part of the plant (the back bulb) is backed up against the pot side, aiming the newest shoot for the other side of the pot.
Hold the plant in place and jam osmunda down around it so tightly that, as the old-timers said, “you can lift the pot by the plant.” With scissors, clip the ends of the osmunda sticking up, place the label, and this is important: don’t water the plant for a week or ten days, until the roots have healed.
Then soak thoroughly. From then on, increase your watering schedule as outlined above.
Many growers today pot orchids in fir bark that has been soaked for a day or more. It may be in pea-sized chunks or larger, depending on the size of the pot and plant. Enlarge the hole in the bottom of the pot, put a piece of broken pot over it, and then holding the plant in place, pour in the bark and firm it so that the plant feels secure.
Stake it, if necessary, or use pot clips that are jammed over the edge to hold the plant down. Water the plant often for the first month or two, until the bark is quite waterlogged. As a general rule, the bark is watered more often than osmunda.
Fir bark will also use up some nitrogen. Use a high-nitrogen fertilizer (like 30-10-10) at the beginning of the growing season in spring, until its peak in August. Then switch to a 20-20-20 formula to build up the bloom.
Oncidiums come from Central and South America down the East coast and some, like pretty little O. lucidum, are native to Florida. Among the hundreds of varieties available, these are easy for beginners: spring-bloomers, O. altissimum, lanceanum, ampliatum, Ensiferum, cabbage, sphacelatum, splendidum, stipitatum, and cebolleta. O. varicosumRogersii is a fall-flowering variety, and O. flexuosum has varying times for bloom.
Most of these miniatures are easy to grow: Oncidium pulchellum, triquetrum, cheirophorum, tetrapetalum, viridifolium, and variegatum. These “collector’s items” are sometimes hard to find, but worth the hunt: O. Powellii, Kamerianum, Papilio, onustum, sarcodes, and peguanum.
44659 by Kari Bergorav