What is your experience in making Cattleyas bloom?

[StanTheMan]

Hello, everyone. I am new to Cattleya growing (a little over a year now) and I grow them in home conditions. The plants I have are decent-sized and I know they might take over a year to adapt to a new environment (new place, new substrate, etc.). I was expecting blooms for the last growths I had, but that's how it rolls. Which is why, having new growths coming, I want to maximize my chances of a future blooming. What are your best tips in growing them?

What I do now: one of them receives direct sunlight from around 3 to 5 pm, the rest of the day it's phalaenopsis-like light. Another one receives filtered sunlight from around 11am up until 5 pm. I let them dry mostly (not completely because I had already a couple of dwarf growths for not watering enough) when they are growing. When they are resting I let them dry completely. I fertilized weakly with each watering (which has worked with other orchids) but now I added osmocote and just use plain water.

I saw someone saying how using the heater made their cattleyas all bloom after years of just growing, and a grower in my city told me the key is to have a plastic-like pannel filtering the light so that it creates a greenhouse effect (with the heat). Someone else on youtube said they don't bloom if they don't receive direct sunlight and have a temperature change between day and night.

What is your personal experience? I'm open to learning different perspectives.

Kind regards,

Stan