Orchid time of year

This is the time of year when the multitude of orchids on various windowsills in my house begin to flower like mad things. Here are are the kitchen orchids.

I don't know if it's the warmer environment, or the change of light - but I welcome it with great joy, whatever the cause. They are amazing.

I love their uncompromisingly stiff and glossy leaves, weird aerial roots, and long flower stems that need support but droop away from it to make their own shapes.

They are remarkably easy to keep. A light windowsill with little or no direct sunlight, some humidity ( a kitchen windowsill or a windowsill in or near the bathroom is good too), a little water, and regular misting. The results are fantastic.

When the flowers have fallen from the flower stem, don't cut it down until it has actually died and gone brown. Very often the next flower spike will grow from one of the nodes on this stem, so cutting it down means you have no possibility for flowers. And don't put your orchid in a ceramic or decorative pot.  Orchids like light on their roots, so keep them in clear plastic pots and enjoy the strange roots that drape over the edge of the pot, and sometimes turn into a flower spike.

When I am wealthy ( ha! as if being a poet is ever going to make that happen!) I am going to have a house with  massive North facing windows in the kitchen and the bathroom, and open shelves across them with row upon row of orchids, silhouetted against the light, and flowering like mad things.