Commercial growers wouldn't need to describe some orchids as 'reliable bloomers' if it weren't for the fact that some orchids are not reliable bloomers.

I feel that the most important information is what time of year the orchid normally blooms. During the spring and summer, most orchids are taking advantage of the longer days to put on new growth and store energy for the blooming season. I always keep a notebook listing when each of my orchids bloom.

If you want to induce blooming by stressing the plant, you will have better results if you do it at the time of year that the plant normally blooms. The traditional time to stress cattleyas for blooming, is October. Many cattleyas bloom in the fall and early winter so people either use a bloom booster or stop fertilizing and decrease watering to encourage blooming. Other cattleyas are spring bloomers and just a few in the summer.

Commercial growers breed plants specifically to bloom during the fall through early spring 'orchid show season'. They want plants to be in bloom for the shows so they can sell more of them. Early on I bought most of my orchids at the Fort Lauderdale Orchid show every Jan/Feb, so naturally I wound up with about 50 orchids that all bloomed in Jan/Feb. I try to be more careful now and buy orchids that bloom at other times.