Whether you are growing your orchid collection in a limited area indoors or in a spacious greenhouse, sooner or later the plants will outgrow their accommodation or become too large to handle easily. This does not usually apply to the monopodial phalaenopsis, however, whose vertical growth is self regulating.

As gardeners, we are simply trying to get the best of both worlds and to produce a strong, healthy-looking plant with a good display of blooms. By carefully controlling the temperature and light, it is possible to produce flowers on all your orchids in their regular season. It is harder to achieve this in a mixed collection because individual plants will vary in exactly what they need to induce flowers.

Often it is easier to find space indoors than in the greenhouse, where the temptation is always to cram a few more plants in, which is not always the best idea. Growing to specimen size is not always possible, however, with large growing orchids such as cymbidiums.

The alternative to keeping your orchids whole, but containing their growth, is to divide them up into smaller pieces. This is regularly done with orchids and is a most successful way of reducing the size of a plant. However, with the smaller-growing species, it is often not until they reach a certain size that their full potential and true beauty can be seen.

A single bloom on a small plant very often cannot convey what the same plant would look like when enshrouded in a multitude of exquisite blooms. Specimen plants will also remain in bloom for a much longer period, as not all the individual flowers will open at once.

Sometimes plants have to he divided where they have grown out in various directions, leaving a dead centre in the middle of the pot that cannot be disguised. When this happens, the best remedy is to remove the whole plant from the pot and divide the pieces into single plants, discarding the dead pseudo bulbs at the center. You are then left with several plants, each of which is probably the size of the original purchase.

These orchids can be grown on without too much disturbance for many years without taking up any more room than when th first arrived. Where you suspect that the comports (growing medium) has deteriorated. gently pushing down new growths tha are growing proud of the pot surface.

More importantly, you need to be able to identify the damage done, which is often the first indication that you have a problem. Over the years, many dangerous chemicals have been used to eradicate pests, but today less drastic controls are available, which do much less harm to the environment and to ourselves.