Today, houseplants are a regular part of home decoration. If you have ever successfully grown a houseplant, or enjoyed a flowering potted plant, you can grow orchids. The good news is there are plenty of options to give yourself a beautiful display of flowering orchids year round. 

Orchids grown in the home during the colder months will respond wonderfully well to being summered outdoors in a protected area.  This will also extend the range of plant selections available to you. Be sure to read the companion sheet Orchids in the Garden and on the Patio.

LIGHT
No flowering plant will do well without sufficient light. In the home, where most available light is incidental (that is, at an angle, and therefore less intense), plants will need to be fairly close to an east or west, or lightly shaded south, window. A north window will rarely provide adequate light. If light is too intense in a southern exposure, a sheer curtain could be hung to diffuse the light. Extra hours of light will not entirely compensate for poor light quality.  Indeed, extending daylength artificially to more than 16 hours can be detrimental to the plants' health and often will prevent flowering.

TEMPERATURE
Orchid plants will be comfortable where you are comfortable. Typical home temperatures of 55º to 60ºF at night and 75ºF during the day are fine.  Guard against excessively low or high temperatures immediately adjacent to glass windows. Some leeway for seasonal fluctuations is allowed, and in some cases, is beneficial, as some plants prefer an autumn chill to induce winter flowering.

HUMIDITY
Rugs, drapes and some furniture can act as giant wicks that absorb the home's humidity, as do heating and air-conditioning systems.  Also, it is not advisable to have the home's interior be too wet to accommodate the plants.  Solutions: Group plants to take advantage of their collective transpiration (exhaled moisture) or place them on gravel-filled humidity trays to raise the humidity (don't let the plants get "wet feet" by sitting in the water).