Have not seen caterpillars, Melanie, but have you checked for snails? Go out with a flashlight after it gets dark in the evening, or early in the morning. They hide very well during the day.

I had some green caterpillars eating the leaves of my brugmansias, and they are right there shading the orchids in the summer, so if they had wanted orchids, they would have had plenty. Never saw a one on an orchid plant. Again, I spotted them when I was outside with the flashlight hunting snails. They were bright green and showed up great in the light at night, but were impossible to see in the daytime.

I have never seen a caterpillar on any of my orchids. The only thing that "messes" with my orchid buds, and only occasionally, are squirrels. Of course they are of the rodent clan but I just hate to shoot them.

with Elaine. I'll bet it iis a snail/slug problem.

Jim

Just so we're clear, I was referring to my new orchid being chewed by the mysterious bug. I've never actually seen a snail (or evidence of one) in the shade house. I have slugs, but always by the front of my actual house. I guess it gets wetter there? Still, I have that bait stuff if I ever have problems. I have enough problems as it is!

The vanda was definitely eaten by a rodent. You can see the teeth marks. I suspect mice because the lattice is too small for the squirrels to fit through. Dad had offered before to wrap the sides of the shade house with the screen and we might be heading in that direction. I wouldn't be able to hang orchids on the outside of the house anymore, though. I started doing that after I went crazy at the Byrd's Orchids sale (part of it was to keep them in quarantine). Everyone would probably fit inside; I just might need help from someone with longer arms than me. I was also thinking I need to spray the orchids anyway and I think my 3 in 1 stuff is the one that smells like fish (fish oil or fish emulsion is one the main ingredients). Maybe it will temper the "yummy" smell to the rodents and if I get lucky maybe the neighbor's cat will get curious and come over and take care of my problem. The cat is always hanging out in my yard anyway; might as well make itself useful.

Rat, mice, and squirrels can easily chew threw screening. It takes some pretty tight weave and heavy metal to prevent that. My squirrels only get to my plants then they are all outside, under the oak trees. They have never gone into a GH as far as I know. Poison is probably the best way to go but beware that cats/dogs can ingest that stuff as well.

I don't think a cat or a dog could fit through the lattice; it's pretty small. That's why I suspect mice, not squirrels. I haven't seen any tears in the screen either so I suppose that's a good thing. I actually tried rat traps for a while and all I caught was a Cardinal (the bird). That made me feel really guilty - and what was a Cardinal hopping around the bottom of my shade house for anyway? - so I opted for the poison.

Melanie, you got my sympathy!
Reading this all along and it brings back years of fighting Squirrels and Rabbits during the Summer. The only way to keep out these critters was then to built the cage. Luckily, although the smaller Mice, Chipmunks and small birds can enter the cage, they have never bothered my Orchids, so far.
Don't remind me of that chilly Spring with the Slug invasion a few years ago. Slugs do tremendous damage and one might mistake it for Rodent damage, but you would see a slime trail.

I have waged a war on my many squirrels, not so much because they bother my orchids (they rarely do) but because they empty my bird feeders. I have tried every trick in the book, - netting, thin monofilament fishing line, wire (greased!), positioning my feeders further from the tree trunks and further off the ground, anti-squirrel cones above the feeders and even greasing the cones. I would win one war, but each time the squirrels figured a way around my deterrents. It might take a day, it might take a week, but squirrels are cleaver and they are patient! I would watch how they got to my feeders and would do something more, perhaps adding another, expanded layer of netting. I kept winning battles but they kept winning the war. After three years I have waved the white flag. Yesterday I took down all my netting (some of it was six layers thick! LOL). It literally took me all day. I had hundreds of square feet of netting. I will now either just let them have at the feeders or simply quit putting bird seed out.

Usually the only time squirrels bother my orchids, other than jumping from one basket to another, was when some of them were in bud. They would chew through the canes, dropping the buds to the ground. Now, when I see an orchid in sheath, I will either put in one of the GH's or on my porch. I enjoy the budding and love the flowering anyway, I just start that process earlier.

I've had relative success with my squirrel battle regarding the bird feeders. My kids bought me an expensive "Squirrel Buster" bird feeder a few years ago and it works! But I still had problems with all the seed falling on the ground under the feeder, as the small birds would feed on the ground, and my cat thought that was just dandy . . . ! So I suspended a net made of screening about 15in. under the feeder and it collects most of the seed that the birds spread around. The squirrels get in there and eat the seeds out of the netting so it doesn't need cleaning or anything. A truce of sorts.

The second birdfeeder is on a metal pole, and as long as I remember to get out the Super Lube and grease the pole, they can't get to that feeder either.

Keeping the little varmints away from my mangoes in the summer, well that's another story! Fun with pellet guns - they scare the bleeps out of the squirrels but don't harm them.

Haven't had a problem with squirrels going after any of my orchids that are outside the pool cage. Most of them are fragrant at night, so maybe that's the key? I also do what Ken does, and bring in any that are in spike or bud.


New blooms on the purple Spathoglottis discovered this morning. I divided these plants and planted them all around the borders, and they have been sulking for months! What a nice holiday gift
The cream/ red/ yellow ones are still going strong.

OK, here's a mystery for you orchid experts to help me out with. A week ago I posted a picture of my Blc. Copper Queen with the distinctly yellow petal/sepals/lip and said it was far more yellow than when it bloomed back in June. The reason given was because my porch/GH's are a lot cooler now than in the spring. That made perfectly good sense. Now the mystery.

Here are pictures of that "yellow" Copper Queen" and the sister plant that bloomed a few days ago. They were all photographed this AM. They are both divisions of the same "Mother" plant. The later-blooming sister plant has that coppery color, nothing like the other plant. Though they bloomed a few weeks apart, they both got the same light, temperature, fertilizer, water - in other words, their growing conditions were identical. Why the variation in color?

P. S. I am showing a couple of photos of each, with flash/natural light.

Hm, just a guess here Ken, but we've had two (?) cold fronts go through between when the yellow one bloomed and when the more coppery one bloomed. When they bloom in the hot summer weather they are much more coppery, right?

Warmer temperatures on the days when the buds were opening, or the flowers were maturing might account for the different colors, maybe? Don't know about you, but we had 3 cold nights last week, and it's 83/70 for today through Tuesday. Such fabulous holiday weather.

They sure are pretty, both of them! Orchid Gremlins messing with us??

I just don't know Elaine. Since my GH's pretty much stay the same temperature, and I brought both plants in when they were just about ready to bloom, I don't think there would have been much temperature variation between the two plants. But yes, there was more "coppery" color with the June blooms, but about the same as this last one to bloom.

I wonder if even in the GH the temp diff - or more light? - between sunny days and cloudy days could make the color come in? Seems to me those are the only variables here.

Didn't you say there was a day recently that you got to turn on the fans?

Guess we'll know when the yellow one blooms again in warm weather, right?

All the fans in both GH's run from 9:00AM until 4:00PM. No variable there. I don't know. They have been growing side-by-side in the same GH since mid-October. The yellow one has been on the porch for three weeks, but hanging in a clear-vinyl covered, 6'x30' east-facing porch (window). The coppery one came in about a week ago. I would have thought that whatever influences color would have occurred long before they came in.

You are right, I will know whether this persists when they bloom again in the late spring/early summer. I just need to put a "yellow" tag on that one so I know the difference. Of course, I may not even have them both by then. That would not be a surprise. In that case, I will never know.

Unfortunately I lost my Copper Queen as a result of a division. ( too many intertwining roots which had to be cut to achieve a split)
But - just like so many other Bl Richard Mueller offsprings, it always started out very dark and coppery and then the background slowly faded to yellow. At least that's how they bloomed for me regardless of temperature. Potinara Hoku Gem does the same.
However I could imagine less intensive "freshly-open"/darker color under somewhat lower light condition - say during the Winter perhaps in a not as bright spot as it would be in Summer. My Copper Queen ( past tense) and now my Potinara Hoku Gem get so much light, that the leaves would be colored too.

Ursula, my "yellow" started out that way, and if anything, the yellow has intensified. The "copper" started out the same, and has slowed gotten more coppery as well. I will perhaps never know the answer as to why the two twins are so different. I guess these mysteries just make orchid growing that much more fun.

After years of belonging to orchid forums, I am always amazed by the blooms I see posted. And the last couple of months have been just spectacular. Thanx to everybody for posting.

Here are a few of mine blooming
Den. javierii (almost there)

Neolauchea pulchella

Jeweler’sArt “Waiomao Plum”

Nice ones, all, Ted.

Wow, Ted. Those are amazing but I can't wait to see the Den javierii once it starts opening all those flowers!

Ted, what temp do you grow your Neolauchea? I have mine in 55 degrees during winter and it looks bad this year. I only had one bloom on a large sprawler last year in the same temp. This year looks bleak. Tips?