Keeping humidity level up

[RenéeS]

Hello everyone

I'm wondering what others do about trying to keep humidity level high.

I am growing in the livingroom and a coldroom in my house, where it can get pretty dry in the winter (average of 40-50 % but can sometimes drop to 30 ). I try to create a micro climate around the plants by placing them in humidity trays, misting them twice a day and placing green plants like ferns around them. Not sure if this helps much though. My humidity meter doesn't seem to be very accurate.

What do you do to keep humidity on a decent level? Are there any other things I can try out? Looking forward to reading other experiences!

[kinknstein]

I have alot of trouble with humidity in my grow room as well. What I have noticed is that even though the humidity does drop significantly during the day to as low as 28 or 30%, it can climb as high as 65 - 70% during the night. I worried alot about the levels though during the day, but have not really noticed any detrimental effects on my collection from the low humidity. Then again I have about 140 chids now of many different genera, so there is quite a little microclimate going on.You may want to invest in a Minimum/Maximum Thermometer with humidty guage, and this will be able to tell you what the highest humidity your plants might be getting.

[Dorothy]

Check out this thread from the archives
One man's way to help with humidity

[wtamuboi]

Well, the way I currently keep my humidity up is by living in Houston. That seems to work pretty nicely, actually.

I used to live in West Texas, and that presented a whole host of issues with humidity. I used a simple room humidifier (the cheap kind you can find at any superstore) with R/O water. I've also place pothos growing hydroponically practically everywhere, which does make a difference. With that, you want to make sure that the opening of the vase/container is wide enough to allow for evaporation.

[slipperfreak]

I have had similar experiences as Nick, and I agree that a min/max digital thermometer/hygrometer is an invaluable tool for serious orchidists.

I have two growing areas, one upstairs and one in the basement of my house. The area upstairs gets dry during the winter, down to 30%, even though I use humidity trays. I used to use a humidifier to correct this, but I have found that the plants don't suffer from it. In the basement, where I now grow most of my plants, I am finding that the microclimate is sufficient to keep the humidity up.

Of course mounted plants need higher humidity to avoid tons of watering, and I grow them in terraria quite a bit, but I am planning on setting up a wall in the basement with a humidifier for some of them.

[camille1585]

Renée, I think it also depends on what orchids you are growing there. Ones that don't care too much about humidity are fine in 40-50%. I usually have a minimum of 50% (up to 80% at night) in the winter, once in a while it's lower. I have a few orchids that like high humidity, and some that are mounted, so to compensate for the lower humidity I place those so they are surrounded by other plants, and will also mist the mounted ones more often, and added an extra layer of sphag to their mounts.

[jkofferdahl]

I use trays under the plants (as much to catch water run-off as anything), but when the furnace is running I also use an untrasonic humidifier in my grow room. I've never measured the humidity level, but my Phals all grow thick, healthy aereal roots and the mounted plants all have excellent root systems, indicating that they are happy. If they are then I am.

[Donald]

I have found that like most things orchids can, and will, adapt to the setting they are in. I will say the ones requiring tropical levels of humidity aren't going to adapt to 40 to 50 percent levels. Outside of growing what I have outdoors during the spring and summer my small varied collection thrive here in Massachusetts in a sunroom where the temps vary from the high 50's at night to the mid 70's during the day. I even have two Vandas but because of the low humidity level I have not been able to get them to bloom All the plants are in copper humidity trays with lava rock and get misted twice daily. Happy growing.

[Doc G]

I guess I am fortunate that I have forced air heating with a humidifier attached. All the air is humidified before it gets circulated. I can turn the humidity down to "my skin is cracking" level or up to "look at the walls drip" level. But I have everything on humidity trays as well.

[camille1585]

Renée, what kind of heating system do you have? I have those big radiators with hot water circulating in them. The advantage is that they don't dry out the air as much. One thing that really works to raise humidity is to put either wet laundry or wet towels on it. I do that whenever the humidity gets low during the winter, and since the radiator is right below the orchids windowsill, they sometimes end up having 80-90%!