You seem to know a lot about orchids and Vandae. As I see, that You are
from Belgium and I'm in Germany, the light conditions are the same.
So do You use artificial light? What kind of artificial light? Does a
vanda need lots of light all over the year in order to bloom?

Do You advise to use any chemicals?


Andreas,


We grow all our plants in a greenhouse, so we do not need any
artificial lights in the darker winter months.
That is not to say that the plant might not like it.... just that we
feel that it is not economically viable to put up artifical light
throughout the greenhouse.
I know in the past my father recommended some 300 Watt of cool white
tubes per square metre to be beneficial to the plants and that would
be a lot of tubes in a 700 square metre greenhouse :-)
Of course nowadays you have special growth lamps, but stil they are
not cheap.

Since you had the plant for a year now it should flower soon (or even
should have flowered already).
From your reponses I gather that you grow it indoors ? Right ?
If so, do you grow it at a east, west or south facing window ? And
close to the window or a distance away from it ?

Concerning the chemicals, I assume you are talking about fertilizer.
Yes, orchids and plants in general do like a bit of food once in a
while.
The comparison that I always tend to make is one bnetween a human
running a marathon and a plant producing a flower. To survive we as
humans need to eat regularly, so... if producing a flower (growing new
leaves, roots etc) is a heavy exercise for the plant... then yes, it
needs food as well.
Which orchid fertilizer that you use depends on your own choice really
(and on what you can find locally of course).

We use 2 types: an NPK 10-4-7 and a 4-8-8.
Why 2 ?
Because seasonal changes do have an impact on the growth of the plant.
In spring and summer they get 10-4-7 with a higher N-concentration
(10) to give extra food to produce new growths & roots, in autumn and
winter howvever days get darker, the light intensity is decreasing
rapidly and too much N(itrogen) in a fertilizer would result in "weak"
growth/tissue which in turn would be more prone to bacterial and
fungal infections. So we switch to a formula 4-8-8 where we give more
P(hosphorus) and K (sodium) to strengthen the plant to get through the
darker winter months.
That is the reasoning that we follow and therefore we use 2 formulas.
Are the other formulas therefore bad ? No, I'm sure they are not.
Anyway always follow the instructions on the label !

If your plant is grown indoors then try to increase light intensity
(hanging outside in the sun doesn't seem necessary for me) and see how
the plant reacts.
And then to be honest all you can do is wait, talk to your plant,
threathen it with the prospect of being turned into compost if no
flowers are produced and wait some more...

Plants can be stubborn and even a slight change in position may be the
trigger for flowering;


kind regards,

Kenneth Bruyninckx
Akerne Orchids, Belgium

http://www.akerne-orchids.com