Do you fertilize while in bloom??

[Orchid grower]

Hello everyone!!

All of my phals have been in bloom for the last couple months or so and I have not been fertilizing them. Once the spike had started to develop I stopped fertilizing and have not fertilized since mid january.

I believe I did this because I didnt want to lose any flowers by causing root burn and there was no active root growth at the time since the plants were focused on spiking.

As the weather warms I've noticed some root growth is starting. I can also see some plants are producing more flowers.

My question is do you all fertilize all year round? Should I start to fertilize my plants again or wait until the blooms have all fallen off??

Thank you all in advance and thank you for helping me for the last few years! I owe these blooms to the help of this thread!!

Here is a pic of some of my gorgeous phals!

[Fairorchids]

Plants need extra energy while blooming. As long as you use a low dosage, you will be fine.

[Roberta]

To elaborate a bit on Kim's comments, in general, orchids need fertilizing (very lightly) all year. There are exceptions - those that have a dormancy period, where both water and fertilizer are applied little if at all because the plant isn't growing. But whenever an orchid is doing anything that takes energy, it needs the "once weekly, weakly" fertilizing. Remember, take whatever the bottle says and cut it in half, or even 1/4 ... orchids are very light feeders. Think of fertilizer as "vitamins" rather than "food" - green plants make their own food though photosynthesis, but need very small amounts of the minerals in fertilizer to build new tissue and manage the chemistry of their cells.

[DeaC]

As usual,great advice. And I really like the ladder effect to display these lovelies. Good 4 U.