What should you do if an orchid sends up autumn shoots? Netizens say there is actually a lot of know-how behind this

Orchid growers all have two wishes: for orchids to grow into a bursting pot, and to bloom fragrantly year after year. From being collected in the mountains in spring to blooming the following year, orchids basically go through these stages: adapting to the pot, blooming, sending up new shoots, forming flower buds, and blooming. Among these, there are also cases of flower buds appearing out of season, for example in early summer when instead of new shoots, new flower buds grow. Good-shot Farmer has written before about how to handle new flower buds; this article mainly discusses another out-of-season phenomenon.

Normally, orchids send up new shoots after blooming, that is, in late spring and early summer. But there are exceptions: if water is not controlled after autumn and the humidity of the environment and potting medium is sufficient, new shoots will also appear in autumn. Good-shot Farmer calls them: autumn shoots.

What effect do autumn shoots have on the orchid plant? There are mainly two: first, the sprouting of autumn shoots consumes a large amount of the orchid plant's nutrients, making it difficult for flower buds to emerge. Second, if autumn shoots appear relatively late, when the low temperatures of winter arrive, the new shoots are not yet able to withstand the cold, thus causing the waste of stunted and dead shoots.

How do you control the sprouting of autumn shoots? Good-shot Farmer's 8-character motto for growing orchids: sun in spring, shade in summer, dry in autumn, cover in winter. Autumn should be clear and crisp, so in autumn you must control water and control environmental humidity. Only by controlling water well and controlling environmental humidity well can you effectively suppress the sprouting of autumn shoots and shift the limited energy to the emergence of flower buds.

What should you do if you discover it too late and the autumn shoots have already broken through the soil? This depends on what your orchid is like; generally there are two situations. For large orchid clumps with strong plants that have already sent up quite a few spring shoots that year, Good-shot Farmer suggests not keeping the autumn shoots of such clumps. There is no need to keep them; removing the autumn shoots lets the orchid bloom better.

There is another situation: if the plant was potted relatively late that year and did not send up spring shoots, then this orchid plant itself is still weak in constitution. If it sends up autumn shoots, care for them well and pay attention to care during the later low-temperature period. At the same time, do not let it sprout flower buds again, cutting off blooming that year, so that it can accumulate energy to send up more new shoots the following spring.

Simply put, if you want to smell the fragrance and see the flowers that same year, control water and humidity and do not keep autumn shoots. If the main goal is sending up shoots, then prohibit blooming and cultivate both spring and autumn shoots together. Only by doing these things well can you make the orchid shoots fill the pot and the orchids become more fragrant.