Good advice, Carol. Keep in mind the weather in you area as close to your house as you can. Carol and I live maybe 10 ish miles apart as the crow flies and we will get the low 40's here in winter. Some years it will be the high 30's. Humidity is another item to keep in mind when selecting a plant. Buy what will like you particular evironment. After you get that down you can be like me and get something that I know I will have trouble growing just because I like it!!

Rick, That's awesome... Hope mine look like that, when they bloom The one's I've gotten, are being treated the same as yours. Outside until the temp get down to 50. Will be in a window, when they come in... (that will be my challenge)

Ken, Bet those mini's mounted are gorgeous too...

Missy, Your not that far, and have kinda similar weather conditions as Rick and I do (all this lovely humidity). Although your winter may not be a cold. I have to tell you, this is my first time experiencing Orchids, and I'm loving them. And so looking forward to the BLOOMSssss...... May not next year if I can't get them to bloom again, and I've already made one dumb purchase and then another I've purchased off e-bay has been troublesome... (Should have waited for responses from the experienced folks on here before acting..
But I have to say, I got a bunch of Phalaenopsis from Lowe's marked down to $.47.. this spring. I had to trash a few right off the bat. But the rest have come around quite nicely. They appear to be getting ready to put up spikes again. So I'm really looking forward to what colors they will be... Best advise I was given for them was change their growing medium ASAP with orchid mixture for Phalaenopsis, being sure it has charcoal in it. Make sure it's pot is well ventilated. Run water through them for a bit each week so they can get the oxygen they need to flourish, and feed Better - Gro Orchid Plus & Orchid Bloom Booster regularly.... And that's been working really well for me with these.... If you get a chance to get any, I wouldn't hesitate to try them... And they hold their blooms so so long too..

Carol, In talking to local folks about orchids. (which are far and few between, until I get to the spring orchid shows and meet some of the folks in this region that actually have of them. I did reach out to some locals off the internet, but didn't get a response). Orchids don't seem to be so terribly popular here due to our extreme's in weather conditions, unless you have a temperature controlled greenhouse. Some folks I talked to say their orchids do well outside in the summer and in heated sunrooms in the winter. So, for now, I'm kinda sticking with the Oncidiums & Maxillarias (except for the Phalaenopis). From what I've researched they seem to be the most tolerant for beginners and home growing. So, I'm hopeful... Sounds like you have some real challenges out there with the dry air and weather conditions. We had a crazy spring here, my container plants & tropicals really suffered, because I didn't anticipate the continued drastic weather changes.

Ted, I'm really hopeful that the ones I've gotten will do well, we have horrid humidity here in the east. Plants love it though... My challenge will be keeping them going well through the winter, til they can get back outside in the humidity, and bright light... But we wouldn't be gardener's if we didn't love the challenges it brings.

Donna, I used to grow orchids when I lived North of Boston..They did go outside in the spring and came back in the fall...I had a great room with tons of sunshine and they were very happy on the window sill. There are many compact Cattleya that I find very easy to grow and bloom..but you do have to have good sun in the winter. They typically bloomed twice a year for me. I know Marble Branch Farms .com has a few and SVO.com has some in the compact category...and as you may have read from other posters..while you can get some amazing bargains on Phalenopsis plants ...they are challenging to grow outdoors for most of us. If you don't have great sun inside , many people rig up racks with lights and are quite successful . Good luck and above all, have fun!

Lindsey, Wow Boston.... way up North....that is very encouraging... All the orchid blooms are so lovely.... I'm really hoping to do OK with these and move on to others. The compact Cattleya's sound great. Ursla has suggested them before, and I'd looked into them, but I'm concerned about my winter lighting. I have a couple windows facing west and east that are rather large to accommodate shelves with plants. Plants have always done well at them in the past. Just never had any orchids. And I still may look into the plant lights if need be, thanks for reminding me.... I'm not suspecting that I'll lose them (well all of them anyway), I'm just wondering if they will maintain their stamina through the winter indoors to setup for blooming next year. Does that make sense? I'm not talking about the Phalaenopsis, I have a pretty good idea, they probably do well in this area, living in/out doors. That's pretty much all that's available here. I talking about the Oncidiums (alliance <- is that when it's a cross?) & Maxillaria's (I believe that may have been the old name for them). I must say, It really has been fun, and it is amazing how focused and driven you get about the blooms... who would have thought....

Btw the Potinara Hoku Gem 'Sunspots' which I popped yesterday into our August bloom thread, is truly one of the easiest Orchids to grow and flower. It also blooms several times a year, another bonus.
If you need more light inside during the Winter, how about getting one of those cheap clamp lights with a Grow bulb and place it on a timer. I have bloomed a Vanda that way for several years before I had a greenhouse. I still use those clamp lights wherever extra light is needed.

I use fluorescent fixtures to increase the hours of bright light in my greenhouses. I use the powerful T5 HO fixtures with six tubes, four tubes are 6500K and two are 4500K.

Donna, one of our members, Boojum, lives in western Mass. and has probably 10 million plants..well maybe not that many but she has a lot of orchids and she grows them in her house during the winter...without a greenhouse. She is in the midst of moving so we probably won't hear from her for a while...but I think its safe to say she grows a tremendous variety of plants. I think it is possible to grow pretty much anything you want in your conditions. If you look back at our ' What's in Bloom' threads specifically during the winter months you'll be amazed at the variety. . . and I wouldn't worry too much about a plants stamina to survive a long winter...one of my plants died...and I put it on the back stairs to take outside, the back stairs had no light what so ever and , of course, I didn't water it...a couple of months later I had built up a misc. pile of things on the back stairs to go out, and imagine my surprise when I picked up that orchid pot and it was growing...pretty impressively too!

Donna, your part of the country has amazing light in the winter. It really is different in other parts of the country. Being between the Bay and the ocean you have plenty of humidity year round. When I lived on the Eastern Shore I had a small nursery and also worked in the field for a large wholesale grower so I am very familiar with your growing conditions. If you have a sunny window or two you'll be fine, better than most even.

Thanks folks for your posts....

Ursula, I'll check that Potinara Hoku Gem 'Sunspots' out.. And didn't even think about the clamp lamps in a pinch, but that would be an easy fix...

Ken, Guess winter hours are just cut in general, green house or not.. Guess I always thought if you have a greenhouse then the plants would be getting all the light they need.... didn't think about less light in the winter...

Lindsey, That's good to here, and really encouraging for my newly acquired hobby. Good thing I'm single, don't think many folks want to live somewhere the window dressings are plants. hehe Love the come back to life story... I have Bonsai and they've done that in the past. Dropped their leaves and didn't do anything, thought for sure it was a goner... Glad it didn't make it to the bone pile, since then they stay around 1 extra year just to make sure they are really really dead....

Alice, Nice to hear from you...I do think your right... We do have great growing conditions here, and my tropicals come in and do well in my windows.. but ya know I'm really surprised that they don't sell or even promote orchids in this area.

I was looking at Pepper's online catalog recently and they only had an epidendron, a ludisia and a vanilla planifolia. I wonder if they don't have more at the nursery in Milton?

Alice, I wasn't aware of Pepper's or that it was so close. I bookmarked it, and will contact them, they may know other growers in the area.. Thanks

My pleasure.

Hi Donna, Thought I would share my blind luck with my 2. The second is a hand me down about 5 years old that give me huge 4" blossoms once a year. They last a couple of months. The first, an Onc. per the tag, was purchased in the Spring full of blooms. It adjusted poorly until about a month ago and now has cute little blooms. These guys live on my kitchen window sill year round; get misted daily; get soaked briefly in the sink once -twice a week and occasionally get some "orchid" fertilizer.



so Donna no reason you can't do as well a I do; same for any one new to it.

WOW Louise,

They are awesome...Your doing something right. And that's great that they
have bloomed again for you so soon.

Is the second one a Phalaenopsis? with the spikes grown naturally?
I really like that... I like that better than the spikes clipped up.

Thanks for the encouragement, my kitchen window box is full of old cactus.
But, Yeah I've went and bought more chrome shelving to go up to the windows...

So, I'll see if they bloom for me,
They really are so pretty in bloom...

Yes, that second one is a Phal, and I agree with you about the flowers cascading naturally rather than being made to stand at attention, Donna. The plants aren't naturally meant to grow with the leaves facing upwards either. They need to be on a slant so the leaves can hang down over the edge of the pot and the crown of the plant can drain. In the wild, they grow attached to vertical branches and trunks of trees, so both the leaves and flowers hang down.

They aren't meant to grow like that, but I think the mass growers that supply Phals can get a lot more of them in a box without damage if they stake the plants with the flowers up.

Bet that's something to see, is them growing & blooming in the wild, Elaine
I wonder what color they are in the wild?

I think that's the appearance I prefer for them, with their spikes just let go naturally...
That's really pretty...

But I suspect the folks that show Phalaenopsis, require the upright exotic look too.

I'm so amazed, every store in my area has them this year, and is keeping them in,
even the grocery stores... So, if other areas are like mine, probably be a lot more
orchid enthusiast coming along.

So right, Donna. We were getting so many questions about growing Phals, that's why we created a whole new "Sticky" thread - it's one that stays at the top of the list of threads - just for beginners with Phals. We had threads all over the place with different questions. So from now on when someone posts we'll direct them there, where they can find all the answers already written down and gathered together in one thread.

Btw, I do see Phals displayed at shows with the blooms cascading, as well as upright. Usually they're mounted on a piece of wood or cork, or in a hanging basket.