{"id":13986,"date":"2013-01-12T22:27:31","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T06:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=13986"},"modified":"2013-02-18T19:17:34","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T03:17:34","slug":"winter-dormancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/12\/winter-dormancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Dormancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many orchid beginners are afraid of winter dormancy<\/a>. Withholding water<\/a> seems like a risky proposition, a surefire way to kill a plant. But don’t worry — dormancy actually mimics normal seasonal changes for orchids in the wild. Humidity<\/a> and light levels<\/a> stay high, but rains become infrequent. Many orchids take advantage of these dry spells to bloom, so that heavy rains don’t damage their flowers. Orchids with pseudobulbs<\/a>, like the Oncidium<\/a>, Cattleya<\/a>, and Dendrobium<\/a> in the pictures below, won’t bloom without a dormancy break. Reduce their water to once or twice a month, waiting until their pseudobulbs start to shrivel. Cut back on fertilizer<\/a> also. Always keep humidity levels high.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Oncidium\"<\/a>\"Cattleya<\/a>\"Dendrobium<\/a><\/p>\n

Popular varieties like the Masdevallia<\/a>, Moth Orchid<\/a>, and lady slipper<\/a> pictured below don’t have pseudobulbs. However, with winter’s weak sun and short daylight hours, they don’t need as much water either.\u00a0 Cut back slightly on their watering frequency, but don’t let them dry too much. Increase watering to normal levels when temps<\/a> warm in the spring. And don’t be scared of winter dormancy.<\/p>\n

\"Masdevallia\"<\/a>\"Phal<\/a>\"Lady<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many orchid beginners are afraid of winter dormancy. Withholding water seems like a risky proposition, a surefire way to kill a plant. But don’t worry — dormancy actually mimics normal seasonal changes for orchids in the wild. Humidity and light levels stay high, but rains become infrequent. Many orchids take advantage of these dry spells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,3,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dormancy","category-fertilizing","category-growing","category-photos","category-watering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13986"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14027,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions\/14027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}