Bloom Again Orchids: 50 Easy Care Orchids that Flower Again and Again and Again

This is my type of book. Judy White has managed to distill all the pertinent facts for choosing and growing the orchids that give the best bang for the buck, into a quick and surprisingly thorough reference book. The amount of detail included is impressive and it’s all bulleted so you can find what you need quickly. Full page photos of each orchid are sumptuous. There should be a book like this for every plant group.

It's hard to remember a time when orchids were as rare as they were expensive. Nowadays, author Judy White points out, you can even find orchids for sale in the supermarket. As White explains it, once breeders figured out how to grow orchids from seed and then to clone them, it became a lot quicker and less expensive to get them to market. Lucky us. An orchid plant can stay in bloom for months and many are as low maintenance as a plant can get. So how do you know which orchid to buy? That's the beauty of this book.

White starts with orchid basics, since orchid growers seem to have a language all their own. There's even a chart for "Decoding Orchid Name Abbreviations". She also includes 10 tips for growing orchids, from how and when to water, fertilize and repot to handling insect pests.

The bulk of the concise "basics" section is devoted to outlining how orchids are grouped and categorized, so that when you go through the 50 profiled orchids, you'll understand the more detailed notes White gives on each plant. For instance, temperature is divided into 3 categories, telling you which orchids like warm days and nights and which like to chill out in the evening.

By page 25, you’re into the meat of the book. Each orchid is profiled, starting with how to pronounce the tongue twister names. There's a bullet point list that includes the size and type of orchid, its preferred growing conditions, temperature and light requirements, when to repot, when to expect it to bloom and features and tips, like "Grows on sunny windowsill" and "Noted for fragrance". White also talks about each orchid's qualities and there's quite a bit of background info throughout the book.

If you've shopped for orchids in big box stores, you've probably noticed they're not too well labeled, if at all. White offers a bit of help in identifying what you’ve brought home. In the write-up for Dendrobium nobile Hybrids she notes that Dendrobium orchids are so commonly unlabeled that growers have given them their own pet name, NOID (no id).

If you're interested in learning more about growing orchids, this is an extremely accessible reference book that will most certainly whet your appetite for growing more.