Coelia is easy to pronounce; just ignore the “o” and say “Celia” like the woman’s name. In the wild, it grows as an epiphyte or a terrestrial in rainforests up to 5000 feet (1500 m) in elevation. In cultivation, it needs frequent watering, shady conditions, and winter dormancy. This species tolerates a wide range of temps. However, it doesn’t like repotting, and extra care is needed to avoid damage to roots.

The blooms can be as large as 2 inches (5 cm,) but this plant enjoying life on my back deck has slightly smaller 1.5 inch (3.8 cm) flowers. Besides this variety, another member of the Coelia genus in the final photo has tiny white flowers. This species, Coelia triptera, was on display at a local orchid show. Like Coelia bella, it’s also fragrant.

• Dendrobium victoria-reginae ‘Blues Brothers’ HCC/AOS (HCC/AOS = Highly Commended Certificate/American Orchid Society)
• Cirrhopetalum rothschildianum ‘Red Chimney’ FCC/AOS (FCC/AOS = First Class Certificate/American Orchid Society)
• Paphiopedilum rothschildianum ‘Golden Gate’ BM/CSA
  (BM/CSA = Bronze Medal/Cymbidium Society of America)

A sample of award abbreviations on orchid name tags includes:

• FCC = First Class Certificate
• AM = Award of Merit
• HCC = Highly Commended Certificate
• AQ = Award of Quality
• AD = Award of Distinction
• CCE = Certificate of Cultural Excellence
• CCM = Certificate of Cultural Merit
• CHM = Certificate of Horticultural Merit
• GM = Gold Medal
• SM = Silver Medal
• BM = Bronze Medal

Groups which bestow orchid awards include:

• AOS = American Orchid Society
• RHS = Royal Horticultural Society (UK)
• AOC = Australian Orchid Council
• CAOB = Coordenadoria das Associacoes Orquidofilas do Brasil
• CSA = Cymbidium Society of America
• DOG = Deutsche Orchideen Gesellschaft (Germany)
• JOS = Japan Orchid Society
• OCNZ = Orchid Council of New Zealand
• SAOC = South African Orchid Council
• TOGA = Taiwan Orchid Growers Association
• TOS = Thailand Orchid Society
• WOC = World Orchid Conference (preceded by the conference number, i.e. 20WOC)

The AOS keeps photos of all winning plants, and publishes a complete list in Awards Quarterly. The RHS has kept paintings of every winner since 1897. Expert botanical artists detail the prize flowers in watercolor. The Orchid: From the Archives of the Royal Horticultural Society reproduces hundreds of these remarkable illustrations.

Australian Dendrobiums, like the next 3 photos, are also popular. Many have rich fragrances. With their incredible diversity, Dendrobiums exemplify the deficiency of one-size-fits-all orchid care instructions. Some grow in hot, steamy jungles, while others grow on cold, windy mountains. As natives to a huge area, from India east to Japan, Australia, and the South Pacific, no single recipe can cover their care. However, they do share commonalities. Most want bright light with morning sun, good humidity, and winter dormancy.

Dendrobium plants come in many forms, but they most commonly have tall, thick plant stems called pseudobulbs or canes. In the next photo, lovely white and purple flowers bloom atop the canes of a Nobile type Dendrobium. Nobile types may drop all their leaves over winter, causing inexperienced growers to think a plant is dead and discard it. Ironically, some kinds flower after they drop their leaves, and their brilliant colors stand out on the bare canes. Other varieties have twisted petals or masses of brilliantly hued blooms.

There’s certainly no shortage of astonishing shapes and colors in the Dendrobium family. They’re true tropical beauties.

• Orchids with pseudobulbs are entering dormancy. If they sport swollen stems like those in the first photo below, they may only need water once or twice per month over winter. Too much water can cause rot, or mess up the plant’s flowering schedule. Cut back on fertilizer, too.
• Orchids without pseudobulbs, like Phals, Paphs, and Masdevallias, don’t go dormant. However, with seasonally lower light levels and cooler temps, it’s best to reduce their water and fertilizer slightly.
• All orchids need good humidity, but home and office heating can dry the air like an arid desert. Low humidity can cause blooms to wilt, and invite pests like spider mites, mealybugs, and scale. Find helpful tips to raise humidity here.
• Consider adding extra light to compensate for the weak winter sun.
• Members of the Cattleya family, like the red and yellow hybrid in the second photo below, may be affected by too many hours of artificial light. They require long, dark nights to trigger flowering. Keep them away from any artificial light at night.
• Remove dead leaves or flowers. This helps limit hiding places for unwelcome pests or disease.
• Don’t panic if a few older leaves wither and drop. Some varieties of Dendrobiums, like the cool grower in the final photo below, lose all their leaves. Other types, like Cycnoches, Epipactis, and Thunia, are also deciduous. Continue to give them bright light and good humidity. Water when their pseudobulbs start to shrivel, only once or twice per month.

One trick to help Cymbidiums bloom is to give them nightly temperature drops of 15-20°F (8-11°C,) especially in autumn. Without this day/night temperature difference, they won’t form flower spikes. Here on the coast, they can grow in full sun. However, growers in warmer areas should provide morning sun and afternoon shade. Plants need enough light so that leaves are light green, not dark green. Cymbidiums enjoy regular fertilizer, and they love compost. They can survive a light frost, although temps below freezing usually damage flowers.

For orchid growers in warmer climates, miniature Cymbidiums like warmer temps. These small varieties are best for growers where summertime temps stay above 70°F (21°C) at night.

As bog plants, most need moist soil. Unlike orchids, carnivorous plants like to sit in trays of water. Only use rain water or purified water, since they cannot survive with tap water chemicals. Artificial fertilizer can kill them, too, so be careful not to splash when fertilizing orchids. However, compost is safe for them. Do not feed them meat like hamburger or poultry since they cannot digest it. All they need is pure water, a few bugs, and bright light. Remove old traps that brown and die. Some types go dormant over winter.

Besides Venus Flytraps and pitcher plants, there are many varieties of sundews, whose leaves have sparkly tentacles of deadly glue. Butterworts (a.k.a. Pinguiculas, or Pings for short) don’t appear lethal, but their broad leaves have tiny, sticky hairs, and act like flypaper.

Indoors in my orchid collection, I’ve made room for a small sundew and a Ping. They’ve been efficiently digesting little pests like gnats, aphids, and other inadvertent hitchhikers from the back garden. Our 2 pet cats love to hunt larger insects, so these small-insect eaters round out my pest control team. Creepy carnivorous plants are indispensable for many orchid growers like me.

To learn more and select the best carnivore companions for your orchids, check these resources:

• The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants by Peter D’Amato
• The International Carnivorous Plant Society
• An online natural history article
• Wikipedia’s carnivorous plant article

This species is native to a vast area of the Amazon Rainforest, across Brazil, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The flowers may look delicate, but they’re thick and waxy, and can hold up for months. This type typically blooms in fall and winter.

Thin leaves without pseudobulbs mean this orchid has little capability to store water. It needs daily watering and high humidity. Mine grows in shady conditions, and receives only a little morning sun. The name is easier to figure out than the captivating flower shape; to pronounce Cochleanthes, say “coke-lee-ANN-these.”

There’s no formal height rule, but generally mini orchids are plants sized half an inch (1 cm) to half a foot (15 cm.) Some types have taller flower stems, but they’re still considered minis. Many of these compact plants have relatively large blooms, especially compared to their small leaves. There are also varieties with tiny flowers which can be tough to appreciate without a good camera or magnifying lens, like this Lepanthopsis. When growing minis, it’s extra important to water thoroughly and maintain high humidity, since they can quickly dry out on hot or windy days.

Whether you grow minis or not, you can enjoy great books about them. Miniature Orchids details hundreds of petite hybrids and species. Author Steven Frowine includes useful care info, beautiful pictures, and helpful lists of minis by light requirements, ease of culture, fragrance, and more.

Miniature Orchids and How to Grow Them is a classic book by famed orchid author Rebecca Tyson Northen. As a biologist, she was one of the first to simply explain orchid care for amateurs when orchids became mass-marketed plants in the 1960’s and 1970’s. She wrote several care books, and this one helped to popularize these tiny orchid treasures.