How to Get Your Orchid to Rebloom for Gorgeous Flowers Every Year

The tall, slim stalks and delicate, curved blossoms of orchids make them a popular and beloved houseplant. With their bold, vibrant petals and striking, architectural shapes, orchids are as much a part of your home décor as they are of your indoor garden.

While orchids are relatively low maintenance—requiring only gentle watering, infrequent trimming, and regular feeding—they rely on the correct care techniques to produce their annual array of beautiful blooms.

Too much water, too few nutrients, too little light, or too steady temperatures can prevent the plant from using its energy for flower production. Follow these expert steps to encourage your orchid to rebloom each year—and for troubleshooting a plant that isn't hitting its full flower potential.

Know Your Orchid's Needs

Experts have identified more than 25,000 orchid species that flower in habitats around the world. While each variety's basic needs are similar, getting your orchid to bloom its best means understanding its specific needs and growth season. "With orchids being as diverse as there are, there are many different orchids available on the market, with each group requiring slightly differing conditions for their growth and blooming," says Marc Hachadourian, senior curator of orchids at New York Botanical Garden. "The first step is researching the type of orchid you have to understand what conditions it requires for its growth and care." For this, he recommends using the American Orchid Society's reference guides. "A basic culture guide gives you the correct information on what your particular orchid requires in terms of conditions for proper growth and flowering," he says.

Provide Plenty of Light

Moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) are the most common type of indoor orchid. These plants produce blooms in shades of white, pink, purple, and orange, and produce the greatest number of blooms when placed in bright, indirect light. "Moth orchids are famous for their ability to tolerate low light conditions, but if you want to optimize their blooms, a bright spot is best," says Justin Hancock, horticulturist at Costa Farms. "Shoot for a spot within 2 or 3 feet of an east- or west-facing window if you can; if you’re in the far north, a south-facing window will do, too."

Water With Care

Keep your orchid healthy by watering when the potting mix feels dry, which will encourage reblooming. "A lot of folks find that means once every 10 to 14 days or so, but it really depends on your conditions—light, temperature, type of potting mix, how much water you use at one time, etc.," says Hancock. "If in doubt, it’s better to keep your moth orchid just a bit too dry than too wet."

Fertilize Throughout the Year

Help your plant prepare for its annual bloom by keeping it well-fed throughout the year. "Orchids require food for them to grow and bloom to the best of their ability," says Hachadourian. Look for a fertilizer specifically formulated for orchids, or dilute a general-purpose houseplant fertilizer by 25 percent, says Hancock. "If you have a pre-mixed fertilizer, rather than applying it full strength, mix it so it's three parts water to one part fertilizer," he adds. "If you use a liquid or powdered fertilizer you mix with water, use four times the amount of water as you’d normally do for your houseplants." The exact measurements may vary depending on the fertilizer you use, so always follow the instructions on the package.

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Track the Temperature

Some orchids require a rest period, during which the plant needs drier and cooler conditions in winter to help trigger the development of flower buds. "What triggers most orchids to develop flowers is a seasonal change in light and temperature that occurs naturally, as well as a differential between day and night temperatures," says Hachadourian.

Create a difference of about 10 to 15 degrees between daytime and nighttime temperatures, but don't let the orchid get too cold or too hot. "Moth orchids are naturally triggered to bloom when they’re exposed to nighttime temperatures around about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so giving your orchids a couple of weeks of cool temperatures can encourage them to bloom," says Hancock. "I used to keep my orchids on my sun porch; it stayed cooler than the rest of my house during the Midwestern winters, and I’d be rewarded with my orchids reblooming every January. Some varieties can be shy to bloom if the temperature gets over about 85 degrees Fahrenheit during the day."

Trim (or Leave) Post-Bloom Stalks

To trim or not to trim orchid stalks after they bloom is a matter of personal preference, say the experts. "As long as the stem is green, you can leave it on; if the stem has browned and withered, you can remove it down to the base of the plant, because it will not easily re-flower from that same spike," says Hachadourian.

Removing a stalk can redirect the energy of the plant toward next year's bloom spike, says Hachadourian, but it’s not essential for reblooming. "When it comes to keeping the flower spike or removing it, that's more a preference of the person growing the plant than it is a requirement to get the plant to re-flower," he says.

Common Reasons Your Orchid Might Not Be Blooming

If your orchid didn't rebloom this year, our experts say to consider the following potential issues.

The Light Is Too Dim

Orchids that aren't receiving adequate light often can't produce enough energy to make flowers. "Without enough light, it may not have the energy to form flower buds, or it may bloom, but not as much as if it were in a brighter spot," says Hancock. But don't relocate your orchid too abruptly—allow it to adjust as you ease it into a sunnier location. "You want to move the plant gradually to brighter sunlight to help induce flowering," says Hachadourian.

The Plant Is Stressed

Dehydration or overwatering, pest infestations, a drafty location, and root damage all put stress on an orchid. As it struggles to protect itself against these issues, the plant will conserve or redirect the energy it would have otherwise used for flowers. "If your orchid is stressed, it’ll put more energy into surviving than blooming," says Hancock.

Nutrient Deficiencies

Consistently skipping fertilizer applications may leave your orchid too hungry and nutrient-deficient to flower. "Making sure your plants are fed is a good way to make sure they produce the right amount of growth and have enough nutrients, both from sunlight and fertilizer, to produce the flower spikes that we expect from our orchids," says Hachadourian.

Lack of Temperature Difference

If you keep your thermostat steady year-round, you’ll prime the plant to produce leaves, but not flowers. The day-to-night temperature difference that tells your orchid to produce blooms is a key part of annual reblooming. "If you know that your thermostat is set at a certain degree day and night, you want to make sure that those plants get a change in temperature to help trigger flower spike development at the right season,” says Hachadourian.

It's Not the Right Season

While you can expect your orchid to bloom once a year, it's not necessarily going to be during the same time of year you bought it. Some plants are forced into bloom to hit the sales floor, even if the timing is outside their natural growth pattern. This means that a plant you bought in bloom in September may bloom again the following spring—and then not for another year.