Orchid expert Kate Santos offers her best tips for keeping moth orchids (Phalaenopsis sp. and its hybrids) happy and blooming.

Orchids are often planted in bark or sphagnum moss. When the bark or moss is dry to the touch, water your orchid until water comes through the drainage hole in the bottom of your pot.  Never leave orchid roots in standing water.

Orchids like bright, indirect light.  North-facing windows generally won’t provide enough light.  An east-facing window is best; western or southern light is fine as long as it’s indirect.  Normal home temperatures are good – about 70 to 80 degrees in the daytime and above 60 degrees at night.

Ask your local  nursery for an orchid fertilizer, and apply it according to package instructions.

Once the orchid has stopped flowering, you can cut off the bloom spike at the base of the plant.  Keep fertilizing.  Leave the pot in bright, indirect light.  Your orchid should rebloom within a year.

You may want to repot your orchid every few years.  Do this when it’s not blooming, because repotting can stress an orchid and cause it to drop its blooms

Featured above is Montclair King “Splash”.  At right, Tying Shin Cupid “Montclair”.  As seen in January 2012 issue of Southern Living.

From the well-known lifestyle photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo and Nicolette Owen of Brooklyn’s Little Flower School, Bringing Nature Home presents a portfolio of unique and original floral arrangements directly inspired by the seasons and the local environment.

Unlike most flower-arrangement books,  this book presents an alternative that is in line with the “back to nature” movement.

A how-to section offers advice on the selection, trimming, and care of the arrangements, making this book practical as well as inspiring.

Designer Tom Simmons, of bbrooks member Three Bunch Palms in Palm Springs, displays 22 pages of gorgeous floral design in Flowers & magazine - May 2012 issue.

Featured here  are a variety of Roses – light pink Majolika, lavender Blue Moon,  red-flecked pink Minou, creamy coral pink Chablis and darker Pink Sensation – bundle wrapped with dracaena leaves and nested amongst river  stones in a clear glass square.  Simple & quite tasteful!

Tucked within a 220-plus-acre family estate north of Brussels, the entrance to the Moorish pool house is  framed by lush foliage and climbing David Austin roses.

The property’s owner moved into the estate’s converted orangerie as a young bride in 1962.  At the time, she was preoccupied with the rigors of raising a family.  After twenty years she has created a pleasure garden with calm, simple lines in the English manner.

From the May/June issue of Veranda magazine.  Landscape design by Jaccques Wirtz.  Photographs by Alexandre Bailhache. Written by Jean  Bond Rafferty.

Flora Grubb,  “yes, I’m a real person and that is my real name and gardens are my life”, shares her ideas for letting your green flag fly!

Urban Hedgerow, a collaborative team of instigators, artists, creators, thinkers, conservationists, ecologists and bug lovers,  located internationally yet are all connected through our invertebrate friends. Their intention is to shift perceptions and the world’s ability and desire to integrate, tolerate and interact with our environment by transforming our relationship with the wild around us.

In ”The Nature Principle”, authour Richard Louv  shows us how tapping into the restorative powers of the natural world can boost mental acuity and creativity; promote health and wellness; build smarter and more sustainable businesses, communities, and economies; and ultimately strengthen human bonds.

Epiphytic plants, which derive nutrients from the air and thus thrive on virtical surfaces with little or no soil.

Mount Davidson,  with an elevation of 928 feet,  is located in the geographical center of San Francisco, CA.   An “unexpected urban escape into a cloud florest”, it is the highest natural point SF.  It is one of SF’s 44 hills, and one of it’s original “Seven Hills“.

Takashi Tomo-oka, a Tokyo-based photographer, updates both botanical  imagery and Japanese traditions in his striking flower portraits.

His minimalistic images of fragile-looking flower blossoms, plants, and branches recall the Japanese Edo-period paintings he studied in art school.

His pictures are often printed on handmade washi paper and mounted on silk to reember the temple scrolls Tomo-oka liked to examine while growing up in Kyoto.

As seen in Elle Decor June 2012.

Every year in late July and early August, the streets and parks of Medellin erupt in a 10-day celebration of flowers.

Antioquia, the department in northwest Colombia that counts Medellin as its capital, is one of the largest cut flower-producing region in Colombia, and the annual festival blends culture and color in an explosion of fresh blooms.

As seen in the summer 2012 issue of Flower Magazine and Joobili.com.

Designer Beverly Farrington of Accents of the South, in Huntsville, AL sets a simple elegant table for the Fourth of July Holiday.  Lush Mounds of white hydrangea are set in rope-adorned glass cylinders and line the center of her party table set on the waterfront.  Bring on the fireworks!

Bromeliads range from prickle-top pineapples to skeins of Spanish moss to yucca like, desert-loving dyckia.  Native largely to the South American tropics, where they swing from trees, cling to rocks and cliffs, and hug the rainforest floor.  Only one, the pineapple, is grown for food.

Many of the 3000  bromeliad species thrive both indoors and out and bloom for months at a time.  They often have splashy, eye-catching leaves, and quite a few are epiphytes that don’t need soil and instead use their roots more for grabbing somthing to grown on than for feeding.

The most familar bromeliads are aechmea and billbergia; both are “tank” types that store water in the cupped centers of their leaf rosettes.  Neoregelia and vriesea, also tank types, feature vividly colored and patterned foliage.  Tillandsia – called ” air plants” – can resemble curly legged sea creatures and contentedly live on a driftwood perch with occasional spritzes of water and food.

As seen in Garden Design magazine, January/February issue.  Written by Susan Heeger.  Photography by Jack Wolford.

Long-time member Jun Pinon was featured in a series of exclusive floral design courses, ” Arranging Happiness“,  at the In Water Flower School in May.

In Jun’s own words,  “My moto is: floral design is not only about arranging flowers, but arranging happiness.  With this in mind, my goal has been to inspire, share, innovate and lead through the magical world of flowers.  Aside from running a successful business in San Francisco, I wanted to create a way to share the skills I’ve acquired throughout the years. There is so much to learn in this business, I learn something new every day, and think that evolving with the latest trends is the best way to stay current. I hope to bring this knowledge and experience to a larger community while providing honest recommendations of tools and tips that have worked for me in the past.
I have always believed in promoting a healthy living through floral design. My philosophy surrounds promoting wellness and empowering budding floral designers with the skills and tools to bring their visions to life.  While life itself can be complicated, you can always find ways to simplify it.  My eight-year-old niece says that floral designing “calms your mind” and she is right! ”