I need help choosing between cooler or warmer growing orchids

[Jo Ann]

I live in central Florida and I grow all my Orchids outside which would I be better off choosing the warmer growing orchids or the cooler growing ones? Since I’m still learning the basics I really don’t want to shell out a lot of money for an orchid that’s going to croak because of the summer heat or one that can’t take the temps in the 40’s during the winter. I’m hoping someone here can lend me some of there experience to help save my sanity and my money…

[cb977]

Since the majority of our weather is warm, those are the 'chids you need to focus on. On the rare occasions that we have cool weather, you'll need to take some precautionary steps but if you got cool growers, you'd have to work very hard on getting your temps in the right range...all the time

[khill]

I also grow outside in SW Florida and I stick with Intermediate-Warm growing varieties. The cool orchids probably can't take the summer heat.

I sometimes have to bring in some of my orchids overnight when we have a cold snap, but the cooler growing ones I don't think would do well with our 90+ temps for 6 months of the year.

[Jo Ann]

Thanks Sue and khill...

That will save me some aggravation and disappointment…

[cb977]

There's another side to this:

if you're planning on moving to Colorado, you might want to wait before getting more 'chids...the conditions will be much different and at that point, the cooler growers would probably be the way for you to go