Of course, you can grow orchids in a window! In the last few years, countless indoor gardeners have found to their delight that orchids will thrive and bloom in the home.
They’ve discovered that these exotic plants are not at all “difficult”—indeed, many of them have cultural requirements like those of our most popular house and pot plants.
Which orchids should you choose to start a windowsill collection?
Finding the really dependable ones can be a problem, for though the catalogs of orchid dealers offer a stunning array of fascinating plants, they rarely tell which ones are best suited to home culture.
However, by observation and trial and error, indoor orchid growers have found the most “comfortable” plants in the home.
The ten listed have consistently proven sturdy growers and faithful bloomers in various conditions encountered in the average home or apartment.
You’ll Need These Basic Facts About Orchid Culture
All of them have very simple cultural needs.
An east-or west window will suit them fine—they like morning and afternoon sun, but not the blazing sun of midday.
However, a south window will do perfectly well if a lightweight curtain filters the brightest rays in warm seasons.
The plants that like less light can be placed farther back from the glass or on the side where no direct sun strikes.
Watch the leaf color: yellow means too much light, and dark green means too little. So a light yellow-green is ideal.
Nearly all orchids are amenable to regular daytime home temperatures.
At night, give them a minimum of 55° to 60° degrees Fahrenheit, an easy range to maintain on a window sill.
On extremely cold nights, move the plants back from the glass unless you have double-glazed windows.
About 60% percent humidity is best. Luckily, this isn’t hard to supply, even in modern steam-heated apartments.
You can mist-spray or syringe your plants daily or set the pots on trays containing gravel and water.
Keep the water level below the top of the gravel, so no moisture touches the pots.
Fresh Air Is Important
Finally, orchids resent a stuffy atmosphere, so provide ventilation.
Occasionally opening a window slightly across the room will produce a gentle movement of air most beneficial. But never let a cold draft strike the plants.
Cattleya Skinneri Alba
First, there is Cattleya skinneri alba. This is a wonderfully free-flowering cluster-type cattleya.
It blooms in the spring, bearing from 5 to 10 snow-white flowers per stem.
Each flower is 4” inches or so across, with a beautiful sheen on the petals, and will last three weeks in perfection if kept dry.
The plant grows only a foot tall, an advantage to the windowsill grower with limited space.
Paphiopedilum Maudiae
Everyone loves the handsome lady slipper orchids, so our second choice is one of the best of these, Paphiopedilum maudiae.
It blooms twice a year, and the flowers last 6 weeks or more.
They are extremely waxy and often mistaken for artificial flowers when worn in a corsage.
The pouch is apple-green, the big dorsal sepal pure white veined with green. Lovely mottled leaves are another feature of the plant.
Paphiopedilum maudiae will grow well in either osmunda (a wiry fern root often used for epiphytic potting orchids) or in a very porous soil mixture.
It does not like any direct sun and needs always to be kept moist but not soaking wet.
Incidentally, paphiopedilums are often incorrectly called cypripediums—a name that belongs only to the wild lady slippers, not cultivated types.
Try A Butterfly Orchid
For a magnificent, easy-to-grow orchid that blooms almost continuously all year, the home grower needs to look no further than Oncidium kramerianum.
This spectacular “butterfly orchid”—the blooms are perfect mimics, even to the antennae—bears only one flower at a time at the end of the spike. Still, as soon as one bloom fades, another bud opens almost immediately.
The sepals and petals are golden yellow spotted with brown, and the big ruffled lip is yellow with a band of brown spots around its undulated edge.
This plant likes lots of light and never allows its fir bark or osmunda potting medium to become bone-dry.
Feed plants in bark a dilute complete fertilizer with every second watering. Plants in osmunda need no feeding.
Orchids Are Mimics
Cycnoches Chlorochilon “Swan Orchid”
The “swan orchid” (Cycnoches chlorochilon) is another fascinating mimic.
Turn its flowers upside down, and you’ll see a perfect swan, the lip forming the body and the column the head and neck of the bird.
The plant grows in soil and has thick, fleshy bulbs. It needs plenty of light, water, and fertilizer when growing.
Up to a dozen 4- to 6-inch waxy, fragrant flowers of chartreuse shading to deep green are borne on a spike in late winter.
After flowering, the plant loses its leaves, and the bulbs need to be dried off completely until new growth starts.
It can be propagated every year by dividing the bulbs.
Epidendrum Fragrans
Epidendrum fragrans live up to its name, having a strong spicy fragrance.
Its flowers are small, but several clusters are produced on each stem. They are creamy-white with a peppermint-striped lip and appear in summer and early fall.
The plant grows like a weed and quickly makes a large decorative specimen.
Like many other epidendrums, it will tolerate more neglect, drafts, and drastic temperature changes than most other orchids.
The Exotic Lady Of The Night
An unusual orchid that has many merits is Brassavola nodosa.
It will bloom in a bright window for months, staying in flower from early October through January.
A very compact plant, it has fleshy, pencil-like leaves that grow close together but in great abundance.
A stem bearing from 2 to 6 greenish-white flowers with a relatively huge heart-shaped white lip springs from the apex of each leaf.
The flowers are incredibly fragrant at night—Brassavola Nodosa is called dama de la noche or lady of the night in Mexico.
A plant in full bloom will perfume several rooms. The interesting point is that the more light the plant is given, the shorter will be its leaves (although flower size is not diminished).
It will stay under 6” inches in height if given considerable sun.
Odontoglossum Schlieperianum “Tiger Orchids”
For a showy summer bloomer, you’ll want Odontoglossum schlieperianum.
One of the “tiger orchids” bears from 3 to 8 bold flowers of vivid yellow-green barred with orange and brown.
Each flower is about 3″ inches across and lasts several weeks.
Give the plant bright light but no direct sun, and keep it cool by frequent mist-spraying and ventilation in hot weather.
Lyceste Skinneri
Lyceste skinneri is another striking species that deserves to be in every windowsill collection.
Its 6-inch flowers are very waxy and long-lasting. The sepals and petals are rose-tinted, the lip white spotted with crimson or purple.
It blooms in late winter and spring, and there are wide named varieties whose flowers range from pure white to deep purple.
Phalaenopsis Need Moist Air
A warm, bright but not sunny window where the air is very moist—such as in the kitchen or bathroom—is an ideal spot for a Phalaenopsis hybrid.
There are scores of these hybrid “moth” or “dogwood” orchids available, and all of them will thrive where the temperature doesn’t go much below 60° degrees Fahrenheit at night, and there is ample humidity.
They prefer about 50% percent shade; never allow one of them to go completely dry.
Their flowers, from 3″ to 6″ inches in diameter, are borne in graceful, arching sprays and come in all shades from purest white to yellow, pastel pink, and dark rosy tones.
A well-grown plant will be in flower 3 or 4 months of the year.
Seedlings grow to maturity very quickly, so you’ll save money by buying them rather than mature plants. Phalaenopsis do best potted in osmunda.
Miniature Cymbidium
Last, you’ll want one of the new miniature types of Cymbidium.
Developed within the last few years, these plants reach only a foot or so in height, much less than the large cymbidiums whose flowers florists use for corsages.
But they are every bit as showy: A plant in a 5-inch pot can produce 3 to 5 spikes, each bearing from 10 to 20 flowers up to 3″ inches in spread.
The colors range from white to yellow, pink, and bronze, attractively marked and spotted with darker hues.
‘Bo Peep’ and `Flirtation’ are two fine varieties, but new ones are constantly appearing.
All of them will stay in bloom for 6 weeks to two months or longer.
Miniature cymbidiums are usually grown in mixtures of soil, bark, and peat and need as much light as you can give them and plenty of water.