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33 Orchids That Love Shade
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Dec 4, 2020
If you are thinking about acquiring an orchid for one of these darker spaces in your house, that get no light whatsoever, I’d strongly recommend against it. As long as there is light, even if artificial, then your orchid can make it. In technical terms, you should be looking for orchids that fall into the low light category. When you light a candle, the amount of light that it gives off the first foot is how we measure light capacity for plants, called foot candles, or fc. When you research, search for orchids that will fall into the 1200 to 2000 fc requirements (some authors mention 1,000 to 1,200 fc). Any of those orchids will be fine for the spaces that you have in mind.
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Sometimes your house doesn't have a good window that gets that morning sun that all plants need to convert light into energy through chlorophyll
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So don't give up buying orchids just because of that. There are 33 kinds of orchids that actually like these shadier conditions
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And in this article, I'm not going to talk about all 33 because that would be a humongous article
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but I am going to talk about the three most common. Throughout this video, post the names of these 30s down here so you can read them
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and pick which orchid best suits your conditions. Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews, and thank you for watching this video at Orchidaria
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So today we're going to talk about the three most common low-light orchids
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Low-light does not mean no light at all. All plants, all of them, need some form of light because that's how they get their energy
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It's not only through the root systems. The chlorophyll in the leaves with the help of carbon dioxide will transform this light
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into energy that helps them keep alive. So when you get an orchid that is a low light orchid, that means that you can put it in a corner of your living room that is still bright, that does not get direct light, but it still needs some form of light. Do not put it in a dark shelf or do not hide it away in a corner of your bedroom that does not get any light whatsoever. You will kill your orchid if you do that. So let's go on to the three
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most common low light orchids. Technically when you're looking for low light orchids, you're
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looking for an orchid that is in between 1 and 1 foot candles Now foot candle is how much light that will you light one candle how much light will be accessible in one foot if that light reaches one foot So orchids are
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divided into these three categories of high, intermediate, and low light orchids. When you look for
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an orchid online or in a nursery, you need to ask if it's a low light orchid. So you can have a
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parameter at the equator at noon during summer, the number of foot candles is in between
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5,000 and 6,000. In the continental United States during summer, during midday, at noon, all those
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things, is going to be between 3,000 and 4,000. If it's really cloudy and overcast and just a gloomy
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day, then you can get in between 80 foot candles. A home office that has just natural, just has
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fluorescent lighting in it can be between 50 and 100 foot candles. You can already tell that
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growing orchids in a home office with just the lighting that the office provides is not the best
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condition for your orchid. You'll need to be providing in between 1,000 and 1,200. Your cell phone
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has a app that you can download. It's not usually perfect, but it will give you an idea because all cameras
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that are in cell phones have to measure the light to get a better exposure of the picture
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So this app just reads what your camera, what your cell phone already does, your smartphone. So what
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What you can do is download these apps and just get an idea, turn on the app and it will tell
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you, oh, this environment has so many, and it will read it not in foot candles but in lumens
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And you can transform that with a mathematical equation. Right here. The first orchid that loves low light In fact if you put this orchid in high sunlight it will die It a phalanopsis orchid which is great because those are the ones that come in supermarkets and big box stores
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All nurseries have them. They are the most common orchid, sometimes called moth orchids
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To test if your phalanopsis orchid is in the right light, you need to, and you don't have
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a app to measure that, you can't put your hand on top the leaf
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shadow that projects onto the leaf, if you can see the perfect outline of your fingers
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that's too high. For phalanopsis, it needs to, you need to see that there is something in there
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giving off a shadow and you can see a blurry outline. That's the perfect lighting for your
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phalanopsis orchid. The second group of orchids that are low light are patho-pedalums. I don't
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have a patho-pedalum with me, but I do have a Phragmapedium and it's
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kind of related. It's the same kind of slipper orchid that will grow in these lower light
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conditions. Fragrimopediums are more similar to household plants and often a group of orchids
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that are forgotten as beginner orchids because they are terrestrial. They do not like soil
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Okay. They are terrestrial, but that just means that they like to sit on the leaf litter and on
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a layer of moss and the roots will dangle down into this moss layers. So don't get potting soil that
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you have at your house and just pot them in that. They're terrestrial orchids, not terrestrial
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houseplants. But they're the same kind of ideas. So they're easy to get used to. Also
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Phragmopediums will love high humidity. So if you want to keep them in the bathroom, and I do have
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objections with this on both sides there are good arguments on both sides of why to keep
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them in there and why not to keep them in there so pragmopediums will like higher humidity
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so they like the lower light levels and higher humidity levels Miltonias Now miltonias are also low orchids but there are two groups of them so make sure you buy the right group Recently well I say
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recently, but it's not that recent. The miltonias have been divided into miltonias and miltoniopsis
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There are two different types of orchids. One is a cool growing orchid. The other is
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a warm growing orchid. The temperature requirements change but also do the light
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requirements. So when you're going to buy miltonias get the cool growing miltonias
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Miltonias have cute little pansy-type flowers cute no beautiful pansy-type flowers and
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their right light requirements are exactly the same as the phalanopsis which is
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around 1,000 to 1,200 foot candles. Exactly like the fragment-pedium, the miltonias will prefer a higher humidity also
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So you notice these three have similar growing conditions. All these three orchids will burn, will sun burn the leaves if you put them
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indirect sun. Also, the heat will burn the leaves. It's not only direct sun that can cause the damage, it's the
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temperature that can cause the damage too. In this list of 33 orchids that you can grow in less
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light than most orchids do, I hope you find one that can fit your conditions because it's not
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because that your house doesn't provide the right conditions that you will give up on orchid care
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Like my house does not have one good window. All my orchids have to be grown under artificial
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light. If you did find an orchid on this list or if it provided some kind of information that
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added value to your knowledge about orchids, please hit that like button. That means so much to me
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and it's just a little feedback of what I should be doing or what I should not be doing. So I
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appreciate it if you do. Thank you so much for watching this video and happy cultivating
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