The two that refused to bloom - miniature Phalaenopsis orchids.

I have 5 miniature Phals. They take much less space than the regular big ones, the flowers are equally pretty (though much smaller too) and the care is about the same.

So I got myself 3 different colours and two I received as plants to be rescued. I have seen their flowers (except one rescue) only when I bought them. The little shits refused to bloom ever since! And I just checked my photo folder and it says that it was 4 years ago!

I repotted then, gave them fertilizers and I could not figure out what was wrong. Why don't they bloom?





Last year as the last resort I changed two things:

1. I added more sphagnum moss to the pots. They were potted in pure bark, but smaller bits. The bark that generally do not hold too much water + small pots was drying out way too fast especially in our very hot and dry summer. I had a bag of moss and I thought it could help. If they rot and die - fuck it. They don't bloom anyway.
   I noticed that they did like it and the leaves were keeping nice and hydrated. The roots were growing much nicer too. Nice... but still no flowers!

2. Second thing I did was moving them to a windowsill, but a protected part of it. So they hardly get direct sun, but it is a much brighter spot than the one before. And I think this move made the difference. The simply needed more light.
   
   
   
   
   

And look at this :)
They little brats started to bloom for the first time in years!
Here are just two that already opened. Two more are still growing the buds. One still refused to bloom, but now I know there is a high chance she will.

The first, peachy one I took from my mum. She got it as a gift, but she was never good in keeping orchids, so after a while it just looked miserable. I took it with me it did recover. There are actually two plants in the pot. The second one was a tiny basal keiki when it was purchased. Now they are the same size. I could split them at this point, but I like how they look growing together. Each has grown a flower spike this year.





The dark pink one I got myself and this is the second time I see the flowers. Lovely, intensive colour with white edges. It only has two leaves now and I am quite surprise it did manage to grow flowers.





I didn't train the flower spike on this one. It arched in such cool way on its own. It doesn't even need any staking.

Here they are together. The pink one has smaller flowers and much shorter spike. I am not sure if it will always be like that, or it's just because the plant is generally much smaller right now.


Furry inspector on duty :)





Bonus:
One of my favourites is in bloom again: Cattleya Little Lemon Drops x Cattleytonia Why Not. I have shown it a few times already as she can bloom few times a year. Usually with 2-4 flowers. I am still waiting for the multiple canes blooming in the same time to have a better show. Then I will show it again :)