Glad you like them!!

The Ron Williamson is sequential, hence the long bloom season.

Kathy, my lens is a AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 85 mm f/3.5G ED VR..what a mouthful!

Here is my Paph. Marshmallow a la Cerise taken with the lens..hand-held

Thanks for the info Todd. I'll try hand holding at 85mm and see how it goes.

Todd,
my D300s is somewhere enroute via UPS. It was shipped 3/26 with est, arrival date on Tuesday.
fred

Great!! I look very much forwards to dueling Nikon 300s!!

We all benefit!

Great minds think alike Fred!

Well, if you look in the Pages you will see my own videos about watering at my house which I made yesterday. They are a bit embarrassing, but hey I'll do anything for my orchid friends! Hope the videos give you a sense of what a nut I've become when it comes to orchids!!
http://cubits.org/orchids/page...

Kathy, well done! I really enjoyed your videos! Nice to see where you have them all tucked in too.

Thank you Daniel and Kathy!

I watched the videos and am a bit perplexed by the watering you do. It actually answers some of my questions about how you water orchids indoors without flooding the floors - sparingly. I move all my phals which are still indoors to the outside and then flood them with water until it runs out the bottom. I then let them dry out a bit and move them indoors. I do this once a week. You water daily. Wow! I don't know if I'm willing to devote that much attention and time to just my orchids. There is so much else to do.

I also water my outside orchids in similar fashion by thoroughly soaking them. I don't spray the leaves except as part of the soaking process. Maybe I should do a similar thing and do a sprinkle in between? I only do that (when I think of it) to the vandas.

Fred, we do what we have to! I'd love to take them outside to spray, but it's 10-20 degrees out there in winter!!
I water much more till they leak out water every Sat. AM, Fred. My daily routine takes about a half hour, so it doesn't seem like much. It's very efficient now.

I forgot to show my clean up process (maybe another video). I use towels to mop up any water on counters and linoleum floor remnants (under the trays). I have trays under the shelving and I empty the movable trays (without shelf feet stuck in them) into a bigger container which I carry to a sink and dump daily. On weekends, I use a towel to soak up the trays with the feet. A few years ago I used a wet vac every two weeks but the quick daily method keeps the room free of mold.

I would only mist the vandas if the leaves get shriveled if I were you. You might have enough humidity there between waterings. Are they complaining?

Kathy, I enjoyed your videos, nothing to be embarrassed about with those! You've got a good system that is efficient and works for you and your plants. It was helpful to see how low tech it can be..
very creative!

NOID, supposed to have been Astral Waif, in discussion with SBOE as to its' identity......

Kathy,
I'm not criticizing your procedure. I'm just surprised that you do this every day. I also wondered what good a little spritzer to the top of the medium really does if the roots are down below. My instinct tells me to leave them alone most of the time. With all the flowering you get you're obviously doing something right. I still don't understand how you can soak them - ever - inside the house. I've asked this question before when I was faced with having them all inside because of the cold.

Is everyone here watering daily? The best I've ever done is maybe twice weekly.

With my vandas outside in the trees, I water the roots as they are exposed to the sun and wind all the time. I haven't bothered in many weeks though as it's not been very warm yet and we've had our share of rain. Normally it's much dryer here in the winter. Crazy weather this year. They look fine at this point despite the cold.

Many orchid growers here use only aliflor which dries out quickly as the summer water runs right through. They need to water often if it doesn't rain all the time. I use a mixture of bark, aliflor, charcoal and perlite with plenty of packing material in the bottom of the pot. In the summer rains I have the orchids under some kind of cover otherwise they'd never dry out and rot. (I've been there) So I guess I'm adverse to too much care with watering and rather have a medium which retains some moisture. It's all a matter of preference I guess.

I have an orchid here which MUST have a wrong label. Take a look maybe you recognize the plant. It is labelled Lc. Lorraine Shirai x Blc. Oconee 'Mendenhall'. Or am I wrong? I tried to get a better dark red by editing as the flower is a real burgundy but doesn't show in the picture. Reds seem to be a problem with my camera skills.

Fred, I am new at this with around 60, but I water only once a week. That is why I took the plants that were mounted and into pots they went.

Janice,
since you're from NC you must have a greenhouse or some indoor place where you can thouroughly water, right?

Hi Fred, no offense taken! I water once a week deeply with water flowing out into the trays. I will have to do a short clip sometime to convince you that I don't need to be moving them and that they do get very wet. Ursula suggested I use her method (although my plants don't dry out here as quickly even though almost everything is in aliflor. I don't have her glass ceiling!). So as far as I know, Ursula and I are the only ones who "water" almost daily. I think of it as misting though, not watering. My goal is to get all the aerial roots.

I bet you will get truer color with the new camera. My DSLR is much truer in color than my point and shoot.

Thanks Lindsey. I wish I had videos of what we all do!

Yes, Fred, I have a huge sink. They get taken there for a good soak and their weekend 'bath' and beauty treatment. I am from Massachusetts. Been in NC 5 yrs.

Kathy, now you are scaring me just a bit....
I do whatever seems to fit my plants!! (Hopefully most of my stuff...) It's just that watering my greenhouse in Winter is probably very similar to your set up. Our Orchid areas are part of the living quarters ( in your case work too - ) and one has to water differently than if it were outside or a greenhouse with "natural floor". Something like that.