You're Not Killing Your Orchids: They Have a Natural Season of Looking Super Dead

by Laura Fitzgibbons

Don't feel bad! This is something that happens to so many people. You find a beautiful, blooming orchid at the store, bring it home, and meticulously follow the care instructions. Mist it gently, sprinkle it with the allotted amount of orchid food, maybe lower a single ice cube in each week while singing a soft melody.

And then, inevitably, the beautiful flowers wilt. Soon the sturdy green stems start to look stiff and brown. Next, the tiny leaves and petals fall and you're staring at what looks like a petrified spider of twisting dead branches. 

The plant stays like this for what seems like forever. You try giving it extra water, and that just makes things worse somehow. You move it closer to the sun, into a different window, and nothing. Not a single hint of life. 

What is happening to the orchid is actually a very healthy and important part of the process. You haven't killed it. In fact, as long as you keep up with the same basic care you started with, your orchid will be blooming again in no time, with even bigger, more beautiful flowers.

Why do orchids experience long stages of dormancy?

Orchids lose their flowers as a regular part of their growth cycle. The plants are simply resting, taking a break. Dormancy in orchids takes a long time, but the wait is all worth it. The long periods of rest that the plants go through are part of what make them able to have gorgeous blooms when they start to bounce back. A regular dormancy period for indoor orchids could last 6 months or even close to a year. This long period of dormancy is why you so often hear people say “I can’t take care of orchids–I always end up killing them!” They are Romeo and Juliet plants, sweetly snoozing and feigning death with dangerous plausibility.

How can you prepare your sleeping orchid for its next flowering season?

Believe it or not, the new flowers will not grow from the stems where they grew before. See those spongy, squishy, spiderlike green stems poking out from the bottom of your pot? Those are future flower-wielding branches. 

Most store-bought orchids come with tiny clips. When you see the spongy green stems poking out, simply lift them up onto the plastic stick and clip them into place. By training the new stems to grow upward, they will transform into the woody spikes that flowers grow on. 

Your despair about orchids reminded me of science!

When it looks like not much is happening, way down within the dormant, sleeping brown stick you are able to see, a tiny green meristem is preparing for its greenest season. 

Next come the long branches that will later hold clusters of flowers--these are known as inflorescence branches. Soon the tiny, rubbery flower-serving-trays that hold each flower will pop free, and finally, after exactly the right amount of time has passed, the flowers will unfurl in glorious color.

Go ahead! Grow those beauties and love them whether they are asleep or in flower

Like everything amazing in life, the wait is worth it. When your orchid has returned to its blooming stage, it will be even healthier and happier than before. 

Orchids don’t need extra care compared to other household plants–they actually thrive in a bit cold environments with slightly diffused light. They require very little water. 

They don’t need much–all they really need is for someone to believe in them, to know that even when they look stiff to the touch and dead, all their magic is still forming way down below the surface, and their time to bloom will surely come around again.