Light: Morning sun  or bright filtered light is preferred .

Water: When watering, it is a good idea to take your plant to the sink and allow the water to run through the pot freely, let drain and wait until the pot feels dry and light before watering again.

Temperature: Day temperatures should be between 60-90 degrees Fahrenheit and night temperatures between 50-70 degrees.

Humidity: Keep your plant on a water-filled saucer with pebbles; do not allow the pot to stand in water. Misting the leaves is beneficial.

Fertilizer: Feed every 2 weeks with 20-20-20 fertilizer diluted to half strength.

Repotting: Reed-Stem Epidendrums do best when root-bound.  Allow them to fill the pot for about a year to two years before repotting. The best time to repot is after flowering.

Air Movement: Air movement is important as these orchids in their natural environment are used to gentle breezes. A small whisper fan nearby is a good way to generate this gentle air movement.

Spider mites are common pest problems on many plants around yards and gardens. Spider mites, like all mites, are not insects. They are related to spiders and therefore fall into the class of arachnids, which have eight legs, not six.

These tiny creatures cause injury to foliage as they feed, bruising the cells with their small, whip-like mouthparts and ingesting the sap. Damage to the foliage gives a speckled appearance to the damaged tissue sites. They also leave a cottony web material between leaf stems.

Spider mite infestation tends to occur during periods of dry, hot weather and hit plants that have not been well watered. A good lesson to learn from this would be to keep your plants healthy and watered at all times, especially when hot, dry weather strikes your gardens.

But if you still have spider mites, even after your best precautions, what can you do? Because spider mites are not insects, insecticides will not work on them; and worse, such a spray will just kill the beneficial insects coming to the plant to eat the spider mites.

Fortunately, the spider mite, like other pesky bugs on our plants, has several natural predators. One important one is the ladybug larva. You can purchase live ladybugs at Orchard Nursery. Other less well-known predators of the spider mite are pirate bugs and predatory thrips.

Another easy physical control is simply to spray them off the foliage with water. Sound familiar? That is also a treatment for aphids, mealybugs and other garden insect pests. If the natural predators haven't come to the rescue, or the improvement of plant health and water control techniques is not solving the spider mite problem, talk to one of us and we will further direct you to a spray oil or miticide product. For example, if you have mites on your tomatoes, sulphur dust will work to kill the spider mites.

But remember, if you decide to use an insecticide or miticide control, first double check for the beneficial insects coming in to gobble up the mites!