Flowers in My Winter House

February 23, 2024

Houseplants and cut flowers bring life to any room, especially during the cold, dreary days of winter.

Whenever I am home, I like to decorate with an assortment of potted plants and cut blooms that provide color and interesting and expressive foliage. It’s an inexpensive way to add beauty and texture to any space. Right now, I have a cheerful selection of orchids, witch hazel, and amaryllis to enjoy in my kitchen, servery, and sitting room.

Enjoy these photos.

: I have some of the most beautiful orchids displayed on the counters and tables of my Winter House. Orchids come in a range of colors. Cymbidium, Phalaenopsis, and Dendrobium orchids come in blue, red, pink, white, purple, yellow, orange, and green.

: Orchids grow on every continent except Antarctica. They are native to the tropical regions of Asia, Australia, the Himalayas, and the Philippines. The orchid forms one of the largest families in the plant kingdom, with more than 25,000 species worldwide.

: Paphiopedilum orchids are often called ‘lady slippers’ or ‘slipper orchids’ because of their unique pouch-like flowers. The size of orchids depends on the species. They can be quite small or very large. However, every orchid flower is bilaterally symmetrical, which means it can be divided into two equal parts.

: Sitting in between two ‘lady slippers’ orchids is this blooming amaryllis. Amaryllis are large, flowering bulbs originally from the Andes Mountains of South America. They show off dazzling trumpet-shaped blooms for weeks on end.

: Here’s my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, bringing in two Dendrobium orchids into my Winter House. Native to Southeast Asia, the genus Dendrobium is among the largest of all orchid groups. There are more than 1000 individual species that vary in size, bloom color, and appearance. Dendrobiums grow in all climates, from hot, wet lowlands to high-altitude, colder mountains. All Dendrobiums are epiphytes, which means they grow on other plants. In nature, they grow on the branches of trees.

: These white Dendrobiums look great on this center table in my foyer. The evergreen canes are topped by a single three to five inch long inflorescence, each one producing four to eight flowers.

: Here is a closer look at the graceful floral sprays. The flowers are bright, showy, and fragrant.

: Dendrobium orchids also come in white, pink, orange, yellow, purple, brown, and green.

: Here is another Dendrobium in pink. Notice the roots on the outside of the pot – these roots creep over the surface instead of growing in the soil.

: Dendrobium flowers are smaller orchid blooms. They have a butterfly-like shape and are about three inches across.

: These cut orchids are in my Green Parlor. Once cut, keep them out of direct light to prevent them from dehydrating or fading in color.

: Fresh cut orchids have an impressive shelf life. With proper care, they can last for weeks.

: Here is a potted Christmas orchid. Rule of thumb – orchids that receive a proper balance of light, humidity, and temperature will have healthy bright green leaves. Too little light would make the leaves very dark. The size, shape, and texture of leaves depend on the habitat. Orchids that live in dry climate have large, thick leaves covered with wax, while species that live in warm and humid areas have thin, elongated leaves.

: The Christmas Orchid is a lavender-white flowering, tropical epiphyte orchid native to Columbia with succulent light green leaves.

: On the other side of the room is this bright yellow and magenta colored orchid. Optimum temperatures for potted orchids in winter are 45 to 55-degrees Fahrenheit at night and 65 to 75-degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

: These cut orchid flowers are on the coffee table.

: Each stem has about eight to 10 blooms, each light green with burgundy speckled markings.

: I also asked Ryan to bring in some of the blooming witch hazel. I have lots of witch hazel at the farm. The name witch hazel is a derivation from the Old English “wice” or “wiche” meaning pliant or bendable. Early settlers used the pliable branches to make bows for hunting. The same forked branches also became favorite witching sticks of dowsers, who used them to search for underground water. Nowadays, witch hazel is often used ornamentally as splashes of color during winter.

: When cutting witch hazel, Ryan slits the base of the stems vertically to allow more intake of water.

: The slits don’t have to be long – about an inch.

: Then he places like colors into a heavy vase of water to keep them sturdy. Witch hazel grows as small trees or shrubs with numerous clusters of rich yellow to fiery orange-red flowers. Common names include Witch hazel, American Witch hazel, Common Witch hazel, Winterbloom, Snapping Hazelnut, Striped Alder, Spotted Alder, Tobacco-wood, and Water-witch.

: Most species bloom from January to March and display beautiful spidery flowers that let off a slightly spicy fragrance. The flowers are able to curl inward to protect the inner structures from freezing during the winter. They unfurl again on milder days.

: Witch hazel is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae. There are four types of witch hazel – Hamamelis virginiana, Hamamelis vernalis, Hamamelis japonica, and Hamamelis mollis. All of these produce flowers with strap-like crumpled petals.