- [Announcer] J Scwanke's Life In Bloom is brought to you by Albertsons Companies, with additional support from the following companies, the Ball Horticultural Company, Cal Flowers, Design Master Color Tool, Golden Flowers, Sunshine Bouquet, and theribbonroll.com.

(playful guitar) - Today on Life In Bloom, We'll take a look at the popular and exotic orchid, as a plant, and as a cut flower.

We'll visit an orchid grower.

I'll share my best care tips for orchid plants, create a wreath and an orchid bouquet.

I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to Life In Bloom.

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

We can all agree that orchids are beautiful, exotic plants.

And, sometimes they're shrouded in mystique, especially with their care.

This is a fun project, using a square hydrangea wreath.

This hydrangea wreath is made of paper, and it's mounted to a styrofoam back.

It comes in this green color, and it's available at a crafts store.

We're going to color enhance this hydrangea wreath, using three different colors of blue, to make it look like a fresh, blue hydrangea wreath.

We'll start with a solid color.

This darker teal is kind of the darker teal that we would see with a hydrangea.

And, we're going to give it hot spots.

The other two paints that we're going to use are translucent, which means that the other colors will show through.

So, we're just going to add those in large, sweeping motions.

I love how it subtly changes the colors.

You'll notice, I still want some of the green to show through, because that's what a natural hydrangea would look like.

Doesn't that paint make a beautiful difference?

And, because it's paper, I don't have to worry about it wilting.

This is going to look great as the base for this centerpiece.

Plus, I can use it again and again.

So, for our arrangement, we'll use a Cymbidium orchids, these green ones.

They look great with this hydrangea wreath.

And, purple calla lilies.

Both of these flowers have a high moisture content, and we're going to construct the wreath a little bit differently.

We're going to be using colored, pearl-headed pins to attach them to the wreath.

Our arrangement will last for several days, even though there's not an evident water supply.

We're going to take our orchids, and we're going to cut them flush, so that the stem's gone, and then, we're going to come in, and insert our pin, in between, right next to the throat, and into the wreath itself.

So, it's attached by that pin.

The great thing about calla lilies is, they also have a bendable stem.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to decide where we want these callas.

We'll cut the stem, place a pin in one end, and then I can bend it around, and pin it in another spot.

We'll weave these around the entire wreath.

I like how it has a serendipity shape, that goes all the way around.

It's a stunning centerpiece, and will really attract a lot of attention, because people will think that the hydrangea is real.

And, of course, the orchids and calla lilies are beautiful.

Even though these flowers last a long time, it's always great to follow up with an antitranspirant.

A misting will help these flowers lock in their freshness.

It's just like an antitranspirant we would use on a holly bush, or something outside.

What this does is it seals the flower so that it can't evaporate moisture.

When we're finished, we can unpin them, and save our wreath for another project.

I always like to add a candle to the center.

I've chosen a square vase, because it matches my square wreath.

We've dropped our pillar down inside and added some rocks.

That gives it a great natural look.

It's a perfect centerpiece, and the mechanics are easy.

You can change up the color to make it any color you wish.

Orchids and calla lilies both come in a wide variety of colors.

I'd like to thank my friend Mandy Majerik from Hothouse Design Studio in Birmingham, Alabama.

She was the first one who taught me how to do this, and I've always been inspired by her work.

It's a great way for us to use orchids, along with a few calla lilies to create a stunning centerpiece.

That's what Life In Bloom is all about.

- We cover about 600,000 square feet of greenhouse.

We grow potted orchids.

Specifically, we grow Phalaenopsis and Cymbidium orchids.

We grow a lot of different varieties.

We don't actually grow specifically by varieties.

There's a few select ones that our customers are asking for, but generally, we try to keep a real nice mix in colors, and always trying to get new things.

Okay, so what we've got here is a tray of Phalaenopsis plants.

What we do, we get these plants in from a laboratory.

They're all clones, so they're all genetically identical.

And, what we do is we plant about, this is 36 plants, we plant in this small tray here, in a mixture of bark, foam, and Sphagnum moss.

And, we grow them in here for about a half a year.

They start about that big, and over the six month, they've grown to this, which is really not that much, when you think about it.

But now, they've all got a nice healthy set of roots.

A good leaf span, and they're ready to potted up into the next size, into their individual pots.

The first thing that you'll notice is that the roots are green.

The roots actually photosynthesize.

The roots are also looking for light, not just moisture.

With the climate in here, is we're trying to imitate the plant's natural environment.

They're epiphytic plants, meaning they grow attached to things in nature, and they take advantage of the water that trickles passed them during rain.

So, people have this idea, "Well, orchids need a lot of water," yes, but they don't want to sit in water.

So, if they're sitting in water, they're going to drown, and that's the reason why we grow them in this bark, like this.

- [J] It's warm in here.

It's a tropical climate.

- Right here, we're in a climate that's about 85 degrees temperature, day and night.

- Wow.

- Yes, day and night, and it's also, you'll see, the curtains are closed, in the middle of the day.

That's not to keep the energy in, that's to keep the light out.

You'll see that there's no flowers at all.

Right now, everything's just growing.

These plants are only growing.

And, by keeping the temperature high, and the light level low, the plants are only going to grow.

It's all vegetative.

They're ready to go down to our next range, where they're going to flower, by cooling them and giving them more light.

And right now, what we're seeing here, is all the plants that are going down.

It takes about 18 to 20 weeks to get these guys to flower after we send them.

So, this is where we cool the plants.

As you can already sense, there's a lot more light in here, and it's a lot cooler.

After a few weeks, you'll already start to see the plant-- - Oh, wow.

- Making it's flower spike.

That's where the flower spike is coming from.

And, this looks like a real good plant.

Looks like it's going to make two flower spikes.

That's what we really like to see.

- And, you're planting, basically two years in advance of the holiday you're going to try and hit.

- For Phalaenopsis, I'm probably planting two years in advance.

Cymbidiums up to four years in advance, from the time I order plants to the time I'm blooming them.

And, as you can see, they're starting to develop further and further along, until we get to a stage over here, where we're starting to see the first flowers popping open.

Grab a nice plant from here.

You've got a real nice yellow.

Yellows, unfortunately, we don't get as many double spikes, but it's a really pretty color.

- Oh yeah.

- We've got about 10, 11 flowers on this, and first couple ones are open.

We do have some customers that like to ship like this.

But, generally speaking, we like to see about half of them open before we ship them.

When you're in the store, you do want to buy ones that at least have a few closed still, that ensures you the longest life.

So, here we are, in our production greenhouse for Cymbidiums.

This is where we've got all our young Cymbidiums going.

Cymbidiums, unlike Phalaenopsis take probably twice as long, so Phalaenopsis, from start to finish, is about a year and a half.

These guys are 2 1/2 to three years.

They're a larger plant, take a little bit more time, and grow with a lot more light, and a lot cooler temperatures.

And, each plant gets planted in its own, spongy.

It's a mixture of peat, bark, and glue.

These guys, we've get a big load of them in around this time of year, and then, 2 1/2 to three years later, they flower.

So, over here, we've got a range of about a quarter of a million Cymbidiums in here, that are all gonna bloom next year.

So, what we're looking at over here, for example, is a real nice plant for next year.

We see the original growth that we were looking at earlier.

Here comes another growth, and that's where your flowers are going to come from next year.

I bet if we can even pull back in here, you can see where the flower's gonna come from.

You see that guy?

That's your flower for next year.

- Oh wow.

- So, what we've got here, something that we're working with a lot these days.

We're trying to grow more compact Cymbidiums as opposed to the traditional, real big plants that first had.

You know, one thing about a plant is people end up having a relationship with the plant, especially an orchid plant.

And, they feel bad if it stops flowering, and they come to me, and they say, "Why did my plant stop flowering?"

And, they have almost a sense of guilt about it.

But, you know, if someone brings a bunch of flowers home, they last the weekend, so success is wonderful.

But, they don't ever have that relationship they do with a plant.

But, then again, no one's ever going to walk down the aisle carrying one of these, right?

So, there will always be a place for both.

- [J] Absolutely.

- [Twan] There's something about making and creating your own product that you can hold in your own hands that's fantastic, and I can tell you, from my friends who do different things, it's really nice to be able to pick something up and say, "This is what I do, this is who I am."

- There are four key ingredients that orchids need to be healthy, light, air, water, and fertilizer.

First, let's talk about light.

One of the things that people might think is that orchids grow in a jungle, and so we think about jungles being dark and humid.

Many orchids are parasitic plants, which means that they might attach themselves to larger growth in the jungle, where they can be in a high-light area.

It's the light that allows them to bloom.

Now, many times you might look at an orchid and there will be dark green foliage.

That's not the ideal situation.

We want more grass green, or bright green foliage.

And so, in that case, we would like to move our orchids to a place where they get bright light.

And, bright diffused light can be helpful too, because you don't want the leaves to get sunburned.

There's a fine line that we walk with orchid light.

We don't want dark green leaves, and we don't want sunburned leaves.

So, you might have to experiment in your home to find the perfect place for your orchids.

The next thing is air.

Again, so many people think that humidity is extremely important to orchids, but it's not.

An orchid wouldn't do well in a terrarium, because there's too much humidity and not enough air flow.

So, running a paddle fan in a room where you have orchids is helpful, because it helps move the air around.

Orchid roots, actually, are exposed, and can be available to air.

Orchids love water, so our next key ingredient is water.

Now, you'll notice that the orchid soil is different than other types of soil.

Most orchids grow in a nice, loose mixture, just like this.

It's wood chips and pulp, and again, we don't want our orchids to set in water.

When watering an orchid, we want to make sure we saturate the entire root ball.

So, for example, we'll use an excess of water, pouring it through, to make sure that everybody gets saturated.

So, you'll rotate the cup, making sure that all of the fibers inside there are saturated with water.

The great part about using a container like this is that we can pour that back in, and continue to saturate it.

Another great thing about flushing it with water, is that we can diminish the salts that can build up inside the soil itself.

Never set your orchid in a tray of water and have it soak up water.

You're damage the roots very, very quickly.

Another fun way to achieve great humidity levels for your orchids, is to create an orchid tray.

We can take a low, flat bowl like this, and add rocks to it.

Then, we can add water to the tray, and then, our orchid plant can set on top of the rocks, and not set into the water itself.

It provides additional humidity that can keep our orchid plants healthy.

Taking ice chips and placing them on the top of the soil allows the water to slowly get administered to the roots and the soil.

The melting ice provides a great amount of water, and it's assimilated to the plant very easily.

It's great for people who have a really busy schedule.

Our fourth key ingredient is fertilizer.

Fertilizing once a month for our orchids is ideal.

We open up a little drop, cut off the end, and do four or five drops, around the outside of the pot.

Another great trick is to water your orchids first before you fertilize.

That way, the fertilization can stay in the soil itself, and make sure that it's there as a reserve for your orchid plants.

Fertilization is also a key to having beautiful, blooming orchids.

Now, you've got some handy tips that will help you care for your beautiful orchids.

We'll be creating a composite orchid made out of Cymbidium orchids.

Cymbidiums themselves are extremely durable, so it makes it very easy to do.

The other thing that we'll be using today is cold adhesive.

We always use cold adhesive when we're gluing flowers.

We never use hot glue.

And, the first thing we'll do is create our apparatus.

So, what we're using is, we're using the back of a ribbon bolt.

So, what I did was, I took the ribbon bolt off of the ribbon, took an awl, and I punched two holes in it.

Then, I go ahead and thread a pipe cleaner through those holes.

Pull it down tight, and that starts to form a handle for us.

So, you'll notice, I did it three times, all the way around, so I've got a nice, good support.

Our next step is to take apart our orchids.

You're going to want to look for a perfect orchid too, because we're going to use that as the center.

That one's really pretty, so we'll set him off to the side.

Then, we're simply gonna remove the petals, by pulling them off the side.

We'll lay our apparatus on top of a vase.

And then, I'll apply the cold glue.

Because the cold glue is a lot like rubber cement, as it gets dry, it becomes more sticky.

And, we're going to apply the glue to both surfaces.

Both the cardboard back and the petals themselves.

You'll notice that I sorted them into two different varieties.

I've got the lighter ones on one side that are skinnier, and the fatter, darker petals together on the other side.

So, we'll start with the fatter ones, and work our way towards the center, so that we have a nice graduation of color that starts to occur.

And, we're going to create concentric circles all the way around.

We've created the concentric circles all the way around the outside, and layering them over the top of each other, graduating from bigger ones to smaller ones makes this look very uniform.

Now, we can finish the back.

We want to cover this up and do something that's attractive.

So, I've got this beautiful Calathea foliage.

Now, the back is beautiful, and we've got that wonderful, pink cast towards the front.

So, now it's time for us to put the center into the bouquet.

We're just going to use a single orchid and drop it right down into the center.

We're going to use a little bit of ribbon.

I loved this pink burlap.

And then, I'm going to attach a covered wire to my leaves.

We'll add our ribbon, my Calathea leaves, so that they continue with that great purple.

And then, all of those pieces, including our chenile stems, or pipe cleaners, have been gathered together in the back.

We'll tape those off.

It's a beautiful way for us to create a composite orchid, coming from a stem like this to a beautiful bouquet like this.

And, the secret is cold adhesive.

(upbeat, playful guitar music) Today's cocktail creation utilizes vanilla vodka.

Most people don't realize that the vanilla plant is an orchid.

(playful guitar and chimes) So, to give us a little zen with our orchids, I thought it would be fun for us to do a relaxation recipe.

We're actually going to make some bath salts that we can use that have an orchid fragrance, and we can use those in the bathtub and maybe even float a few orchids in there.

It will be a great way for us to relax.

So, the recipe for bath salts is really pretty easy.

We've got some Dead Sea salt, and we have some Epsom salt.

We're going to mix those together, equal parts.

And you'll want to get the ones that don't have a fragrance.

So, once we have those thoroughly mixed, then we can add our fragrance.

I chose some white tea and also some orchid.

We're just going to use the oil.

I'm actually going to use a straw.

Just go in and grab some, and drip it in there.

We'll mix in the white tea first.

Then, we'll add our orchid essence.

Again, we want to mix it all together.

The great part about this is you can make it any fragrance that you like.

If you wanted to add pigment, you could change the color, too.

A little bit of the pigment goes a long ways, but you could make it lavender or pink.

And, speaking of lavender, if you wanted to make this lavender, you could use lavender oil and little lavender buds, as well.

There's all sorts of ways that you can be creative with the Epsom salts and the Dead Sea salt.

It's all about the zen, and it's all about having fun with orchids.

(playful guitar) Today's featured flower is the lady slipper orchid, or Paphiopedilum.

You may be familiar with orchids that look like this, and sometimes, people call the Phalaenopsis orchid the butterfly orchid because it resembles a butterfly.

The Paphiopedilum orchid resembles a lady's slipper, so you can see how the throat itself looks like a lady's slipper.

It's beautiful, too, with its variegation.

I wanted you to see how unusual this orchid is.

Many times, orchid foliage doesn't look that pretty.

It's long, it's gangly, it bends, it curves.

But then, they send up these amazing shoots that have glorious flowers, just like this.

The Paphiopedilum orchid, or lady's slipper orchid, a beautiful addition to your orchid collection.

I hope I've taken the mystery out of the orchid.

For Life In Bloom, I'm J Schwanke.

See you next time.

Twan, what's your favorite flower?

- I love Cymbidiums.

They've got just amazing colors, and they're really easy to grow at home.

- [Man] But, uh, you know our.

- [J] It's humid.

- [Man] Getting fogged up.

Yeah it takes a while when we walk in.

- Now, this is J Schwanke, - Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you.

- Nice meeting you.

- Twan's taking good care of us.

Making sure we see everything.

- I teach them well.

(everyone laughs) - [J] J Schwanke's Life In Bloom is filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

- [Announcer] J Schwanke's Life In Bloom is brought to you by Albertsons Companies, with additional support from the following companies, the Ball Horticultural Company, Cal Flowers, Design Master Color Tool, Golden Flowers, Sunshine Bouquet, and theribbonroll.com.

Closed captioned funding provided by Chrysal.

For everything flowers, recipes, projects, and more information, visit ubloom.com.