Subscribe to our blog to get articles delivered directly to your inbox

Suggestions for Dressing Your Just Add Ice Orchid

February 28, 2011

Just Add Ice Orchids are so beautiful and provide such long-lasting displays that the naked stalks left when the flowers finally fade and drop from the stem lead many novice orchid owners to believe that their orchid plant has died. Unaware that their Just Add Ice Orchid has simply entered a necessary period of dormancy between bloom cycles, they throw the plant away. Unfortunately, they do not realize that with a bit of orchid care and patience, their lovely Just Add Ice Orchid will send out new shoots and bloom again in a few months.

Most flowering plants, including Just Add Ice Orchids, go through a dormant period of several months. Dormancy allows plants to soak up nutrients and replenish lost energy before they bloom again. While dormant, the stalk of your orchid will remain bare and the leaves of the plant will flatten and lose their lustrous appearance. During this period, some orchid growers simply place their plants where they are not easily seen and wait it out. Other orchid growers embrace the change in season and “dress” their orchids to disguise their lost beauty.

The easiest way to dress your Just Add Ice Orchid is to carefully clip or wire to the bare stalk a silk flower imitation of a Phalaenopsis orchid in full bloom. This provides the allusion of a blooming plant, allowing you to comfortably display your orchid plant any where you please. Incorporating the bare stem of your orchid plant into a larger arrangement is another way to “hide” the bare stalk of your Just Add Ice Orchid. Particularly effective at hiding naked stalks are oriental designs and floral arrangements that make use of stark stems and twisted branches. (Click here for directions on Creating an Oriental Design to Dress Your Just Add Ice Orchid.

How do you dress your Just Add Ice Orchid? We’d like to know!