I thought I would post the official Tampa Orchid Club pictures from their visit here the other day. The lady with her arm around me in the first photo is the club president.



Jim

Pretty large group! I am sure, they loved the OC.

Fred posted about his set up here:
http://garden.org/thread/view_...
And here
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

On the subject of hanging orchids . . dh and I went for a quick shop at Home Depot last night. (it's our secret, Saturday night is an awesome time to shop at the big box stores, everyone's gone).

Found these nice little metal hangers that fit some of my smaller clay pots. I think they look nice hanging by themselves but you can hang two lengthwise and have six orchids on one hook! I think I could set some of my cork rafts on the little rings and that might look great, too. Have to fasten them so they won't blow over, of course.

Elaine, those hangers looks very nice!!

Jim

Hi,
This are my growing areas...
Our climate here is in the Mid 80's during the day, low 70's or lower during the nights
I live in the west part of the island near mountains, the humidity is high because it rains almost everyday.
Overall we have a good environment for growing orchids.



I have here the small dendrobiuns and various paphs


Adult dendrobiums



Cattleyas, Catasetums, Cycnoches, Cycnodes, Bulbophyllums, among others


Epidendrums and encyclias


Oncidiums alliance


Vandas and Grammatophyllums


Phalenopsis and other bulbophyllums

The other areas are more under trees and on the patio deck. I will post them next time!!!

Hope you had a great day...

Amazing! You truely do have the ideal conditions for orchids.

Well done, Noel. That must be orchid heaven.

Jim

Very jealous of your warm climate at this time of year, Noel. Most of the year we have good conditions here in Florida, too. But at this time we get cold fronts going by that dry up the air and drop our temperatures into the 40's at night.

Tonight is one night I've had to bring a lot of orchids and other plants into the house, and cover a lot of my tender tropicals outside, too. It does feel pretty tropical in my office with a dozen orchids hanging from the window frames.

Noel, your growing area looks absolutely wonderful!! You have beautiful plants and so much in bloom. Surely people ask to move in with you!

Jajjaja, you got that right Ursula!!!

Noel, I am second-guessing myself here. It is driving me crazy. We get into the nice 60's but then down into the 30's. Grrrrrrr!

Love your growing area Noel!

Here's my growing area outside this morning. We had low 40's last night, and might get below 40 tonight. Note the candle/clay pot in front of one greenhouse shelf unit. One old pillar candle kept it above 60 all night in there last night. The candle is in a metal can, and covered with an inverted wet clay pot plus a foil diffuser over the top to keep the heat from rising straight up out of the drain hole.


Rest of the orchids are in the house, in fact I have a makeshift OC going on in the shower area of our bathroom which, fortunately, has 3 wonderful south-facing windows. The Vandas are loving it right in front of those windows. I had orchids in the bathtub while I was away, and will have to clear a space under the shower because Marsh is coming home next Tuesday (he's been away for a month, lucky for the orchids!) They all get a warm shower each day.


The rest are in the dining room and get schlepped outside for some light in the warm part of the day. Not sure about today, though! The tile floor lets me spread wet towels and placemats under the plants to raise the humidity up nicely. Happy orchids! But I'm so ready to get them back outside, let there be spring!!

Elaine, it looks like you have it perfectly under control there, your Orchids look happy. It must be a bit of a job, to move them around like that, but I always think of stuff like that like good exercise!

Happily, not too many go in and out any more. Now that I have the heating for the little greenhouse shelf units, I'm just shuttling the big NOID, a 3 tier stand with 4 orchids on it that moves as a unit, and the big trellis which moves 9 orchids all at once. I hose them with the warm water from the hose in the middle of the afternoon, and yes, everyone seems happy, including me.

Agree with you about the exercise, we all need a little more in the cold weather, and I have a 'rule' that I must get up from the computer at least once per hour, so having a nice little job like that makes it easy to get moving. Plus, you know how it is once you get out into the garden, there's always some little job staring you in the face . . . It is absolutely wonderfully sunny today, with a very nippy breeze and not quite 60deg.

You have spurned me to get away from the computer, Elaine. I think I will go out to the greenhouse, pick out a couple of my brand-new B. nodosa varities, and mount them on some cork. It is only 43F now and that's about as "warm" as it will get today, but it should be toasty in the greenhouses. By the way, our forecast now calls for sleet, freezing rain, and snow Monday and Tuesday. Yikes!

The temp might be close to 60 but there is a cold north wind coming off the lake that makes it uncomfortable. It's laundry day so I am keeping busy.

Jim