I hate to be an old fuddy-duddy (I am old), but many of these people I talk to don't know whether their orchids are thriving, holding-on-for-dear-life, or are dying. That's just the nature of who I deal with. I cannot tell you how many orchids I re-pot for people (did one today), simply because they don't know how to do the simplest thing with their plants. I have a feeling that if we could quantitatively categorize the orchid growers, 90% who have them have always wanted to grow an orchid and have no idea how to go about it. The vast majority of we who successfully grow and bloom orchids, learn far more from the actual growing than from what we learned from reading about how to do it. I have killed my fair share, and I am sure continue to do so, but the vast majority of mine that don't make it are really tiny ones, those that I call "baby" orchids. Blooming size orchids are really simple to grow and really simple to bloom. That's my experience anyway.
