How to Care For Moth Orchids

I’m trying to make these guides more concise and tailored around my actual experience so I’m not going to explain where they come from etc etc and just tell you how I got mine to bloom incredibly spectacularly with minimal effort.

Look at this:

This is a Phalaenopsis orchid. They’re the ones you can buy super easily in supermarkets.

Other orchids are trickier to care for – this guide is specifically about phalaenopsis.

The one picture above was discounted in Tesco for £5.

If you’d rather listen to me than read me, watch this:

Let’s get into the care:

Light/placement

Mine is on my coffee table. The window below is south-facing, it’s about four feet away. The plants in the window will block out some of the light, but it’s still a pretty bright room.

I have a mini moth orchid in my hall, which has a HUGE east-facing window.

I don’t think brightness is a factor so much as volume – somewhere where it gets long hours of light is much better than somewhere where it gets a few hours of intense light.

I’m not gonig to lie to you and tell you that this will be ok in low light. Most plants aren’t. You might be lucky and get an overachiever, but I NEVER recommend keeping plants in dark rooms.

It stays there year round. I don’t do anything to artificially change the light.

Temperature

There’s a lot of information online about doing interesting things to the temperature to induce flowering.

I did nothing.

The room is hot in summer. It’s colder in winter.

Orchids come from tropical places where it doesn’t get that cold, so don’t feel the need to tinker with the temp.

By the way, some orchids compe from cloud forests, so they may need fancy temperature changes, but moth orchids don’t (in my experience).

Humidity

The humidity in my living room oscillates wildly between 30% and 65%.

Moth orchids have been bred to be houseplants for decades. I don’t think humidity is make or break thing for them. If your humidity is over 25% they’ll be fine.

I keep my little one in a cloche though, which is an option if you think your home is too dry.

How I water my orchid

I soak mine once a week with tap water. I’ve recently moved on to using aquarium water, but that’s purely because it would be wasteful not to.

I keep my orchid bare root in a vase. I fill the vase with water (try not to wet the leaves), water my other plants, then empty it when I’m done, about twenty minutes later. I have forgotten about it and left the water overnight before. It was fine.

This is back when I kept it in a kilner jar:

The tapwater here is fine. My general rule with whether you can use tap water is that if you’re happy to drink it, your plant will be too.

The American Orchid Society advises against using distilled water, and they seem like they know their stuff. Not that I’ve ever used distilled water, but if you do for your orchids, don’t. (source)

The roots photosynthesis (which is why people keep them clear pots) and turn from silver to green when hydrated.

I don’t recommend watering with ice cubes. It’s like misting – won’t hamr healthy plants but will kill unhealthy ones.

How to fertilise your orchid

The AOC (link in the section above) have a whole list of things to look for in an orchid fertiliser, which you may like to check out.

I used the General Hydroponic fertiliser…sometimes. I go through phases of always adding fertiliser, and phases of not.

Fertiliser will not make or break blooming. If you never fertilise but make sure it’s getting enough light and water your orchid will bloom BUT adding fertiliser will result in bigger blooms.

Pests common to orchids

Orchids are often on sale in garden centres, and you NEED to check them.

About 50% of the time, the plant will have mealybugs. Check the bloom, at the back. They so often have colonies living there.

I know it’s hard to pass up the opportunity of getting a beautiful plant for £2 but it isn’t worth it, I promise.

Orchids are prone to lot of bugs and ailments – certainly all the main ones like mealybugs, scale, thrips, and aphids.

Like most plants, stressed plants attract more pests than healthy ones, so making sure it’s got good light and is well-watered is half the battle. Keeping the leaves dust free is most of the rest of the battle.

Potting mix for orchids

Moth orchids* are epiphytes, so they grow on trees, rather than in the ground. They like to have light and air around their roots.

I’ve had no luck with keeping orchids in ANY substrate – even specially formulated potting mix.

Keeping mine in a glass jar on my coffee table was a game changer. I can see when the roots go silver and need watering, and because it’s on my coffee table between me and the TV, I can’t forget about it.

Sometimes if it’s looking a bit grey in the roots I’ll tip the dregs of my water glass in their to perk them up.

*Orchids are the second biggest plant family out there. They’re not all epiphytes so won’t all do well growing bare root.

Are orchids toxic?

No, not really.

I mean, don’t give them to your pet as a tasty snack, but if kitty accidentally snaffles a gobful, she’ll most probably be absolutely fine.

Bear in mind that they haven’t all been tested for toxicity though.

Notes

• Vanilla is an orchid. That’s one of those facts everyone once heard but never remembers. You’re welcome.
• The whole putting-an-ice-cube-on-the-soil is bollocks – don’t do it. Would you like to have someone pop an ice cube in your mouth rather than just get you a drink? No! Don’t do it to your poor, unsuspecting orchid then.
• The name of the genus ‘Orchis’ means testicle in Ancient Greek. Lol lol lol.
• Owl orchids are about the best plants ever. Click here to see why. It’s not clickbait. They LEGIT look like owls.