Orchids bring a really tropical feel to any home and garden, and the cymbidiums suit almost any climate. These are one of the hottest outdoor plants around, and they're great for bringing indoors too.

Orchids are one of the most spectacular flowering plants around, but they're so difficult to look after right? Wrong. They're actually very hardy, especially the Cymbidium orchid, it's ideal for Australian conditions. Now if you follow a few simple tips, you'll have hardy plants flowering every year.

What are the signs to look for to know if your orchids need repotting? Well take a look at the bulbs at soil level, if they're really crowded, with roots coming out over the edge or the bulbs are starting to squeeze outside the pot, it needs repotting. On the other hand, if there's plenty of space right the way around the bulbs, it could go for another two possibly three years before it needs repotting.

To repot your orchid, remove it from the pot, lay it down on the ground and remove about a third of the roots from the bottom, mainly for ease of handling. Get rid of any old dead ones too. Then simply take a garden shovel and push it through the plant to divide it into several small clumps. There's no need to be too light-handed here.

Now you've got your plants ready to pot up. Make sure you plant your orchids into pots providing plenty of room for them to grow for quite a few years. Now if you're potting up native orchids, the dendrobium, you'd use orchid bark, but for Cymbidiums we use orchid compost. It's really important not to use ordinary potting mix as it holds too much moisture and has too much fine material in it. Orchid compost is nice and coarse, and that's going to give you lots of drainage yet good support for the roots and enough moisture held to keep the plants good and happy.

There's a couple more tips yet!

1. Make sure the bulb is sitting up on top of the potting mix and feed - one feed now after repotting and another one when they're coming into full flower, to really bring out those blooms.

2. Your repotted orchids need to go outside, but into a very special position. After repotting, you must put your orchids in the shade. The sort of shade that throws a shadow when you hold your hand out.. under an arbor or jacaranda or gum tree is ideal. Then after Christmas, when the sun's a lot softer, start to bring your orchids into full sun, because it's the sun hitting the bulb that produces those beautiful winter flowers. (Young plants won't flower for maybe two possibly three years, so you need plenty of patience).

The miniature cymbidium is perfect if you do all your gardening on a veranda or balcony. And when you've mastered these, have a look at the moth orchid, or the Phalaenopsis, they need a bit more heat but they're so easy to grow with fabulous flowers. Well there you go, a weekend coming up full of beautiful orchids, and don't forget to get the kids involved, they'll love it.

Source: Better Homes and Gardens TV, 25 August 2006