{"id":4836,"date":"2010-09-22T19:43:07","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T03:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=4836"},"modified":"2011-05-07T16:25:18","modified_gmt":"2011-05-08T00:25:18","slug":"equinox-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/22\/equinox-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Equinox"},"content":{"rendered":"

To celebrate the arrival of fall, here are some garden beauties:<\/p>\n

\"Swallowtail<\/a>\"Ansellia<\/a>\"Paph<\/a><\/p>\n

Autumn arrives in the Northern Hemisphere with a chill, shorter days, and some orchid chores. As temperatures<\/a> drop, bring warm growers<\/a> inside. Remove any dead leaves or weeds. Check for pests<\/a>, especially those hiding on the undersides of leaves. I spray orchid plants and potting media<\/a> with mild insecticidal soap or rubbing alcohol before bringing plants indoors. Many growers use Neem Oil<\/a> or other insecticidal oils<\/a>, which have the advantage of protecting leaves for several weeks.<\/p>\n

If your Phals<\/a> aren\u2019t in bloom, cooler nighttime temps can initiate flower spikes<\/a>. Cymbidiums<\/a> also respond to cooler nights with new flower spikes. Most varieties won’t bloom if they’re kept too warm at this time of year.<\/p>\n

Users of high nitrogen fertilizer<\/a>, like 30-10-10, should switch to a low nitrogen formula, like 10-30-30. No matter what fertilizer you use, start to taper off with weaker solution or less frequent doses. Many orchids are heading into dormancy<\/a>. Start to reduce watering for orchids with pseudobulbs<\/a>, like Cattleyas<\/a>, Cymbidiums<\/a>, Dendrobiums<\/a>, Epidendrums<\/a>, Miltonias<\/a>, Odontoglossums<\/a>, Oncidiums<\/a>, and Vandas<\/a>. Good humidity<\/a> is always necessary, especially to counteract the dry air of home and office heating.<\/p>\n

If lower leaves turn yellow or drop, don\u2019t panic. Some Dendrobium<\/a> varieties will completely shed their leaves in the next couple months, but they\u2019re just dormant, not dead. Continue to give them bright light<\/a> and good humidity, and they\u2019ll come back to life in the spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To celebrate the arrival of fall, here are some garden beauties: Autumn arrives in the Northern Hemisphere with a chill, shorter days, and some orchid chores. As temperatures drop, bring warm growers inside. Remove any dead leaves or weeds. Check for pests, especially those hiding on the undersides of leaves. I spray orchid plants and […]<\/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-4836","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\/4836","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=4836"}],"version-history":[{"count":65,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4906,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4836\/revisions\/4906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}