The flowers have all dropped off my friend's Cymbidium orchid. What should she do?

Question

I recently bought a large Cymbidium orchid for a friend. After less than a couple of weeks all the buds and flowers fell off.

The florists where I bought it from gave me the following care instructions. Water the plant by spraying the soil to keep it moist. Never let it dry out, and don't spray the flowers. I was also told to feed the plant every two weeks with orchid plant food.

My friend placed the plant in her living room during the day and moved it to the cooler kitchen in the evening. The living room was occasionally warm, and sometimes humid as it's just off the kitchen.

After the buds and flowers fell off my friend searched the internet for some advice and was told to move the plant to a cooler room. It has now been placed on the windowsill in a cooler room where is it left day and night.

Can anyone help explain why this may have happened and what I should tell her to do to get it to flower again?

Thank you

Thanks for the answers so far. Some additional info - The plant had three stems of flowers. One had had open flowers, one had small closed flowers, and the other had small buds. I would imagine that the closed flowers and buds should have opened in time, but all the flowers and buds dropped off at the same time (before opening).

Answer 1

Dynamite Plant Food is the very best timed-release fertilizer because the nutrients are gradually and consistently made available to the orchids

A few basics on nutrition: First, you need to fertilizer your orchids on a regular basis. People have told me they just hang their cattleya in a tree and never feed it and it has 20 blooms. My response has always been "If you fertilized it, you would have 40 bigger blooms!" Orchids, for some reason, tolerate us!


Second, weekly, weakly. Smaller doses on a regular basis produce more consistent growth and healthier plants. Consider only eating one meal every other day. If your schedule only allows you to fertilize monthly, at least do it every month. Make sure that your orchid is slightly damp when you fertilize and don't over-compensate the fertilizer concentration.

Answer 2

decrease the flowered stem back to a joint interior the stem, it particularly is going to spring yet another flower stem from there. Feed it weekly with an extremely susceptible plant nutrition, or get a ideal orchid nutrition, and spray it on a daily basis or as oftentimes as you may with undeniable water. in no way permit the compost get moist, interior the wild they stay linked to the facet of wood and stay to tell the story drips so the roots rot incredibly particularly. It in all risk won't flower back till next year, yet you need to be fortunate if it likes you. solid success with it.

Answer 3

Orchids don't like being moved around. Make sure to keep the soil moist, just mist-spraying it won't do.

All plants loose their flowers. It's the natural progression. If she wants flowers that don't fall off get silk flowers. The orchid will bloom again next season.

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Answer 4

It may be time for the flowers to fall off.