I think I will downgrade my collection - Page 2 - Orchid Board

Leafmite · #11 08-24-2018, 05:13 PM

I hope you keep at least a few of those beautiful Phals!

rbarata · #12 08-24-2018, 05:35 PM

My main difficulty is that I've been able to grow well most of my orchids, which makes everything more difficult.

greenpassion · #13 08-24-2018, 05:46 PM

Leafmite I'll definitely be keeping quite a few. I think I'm going to cut my collection down to half so if I pass a few on it'll be around 12 or 13. Are you interested in late winter early spring? I have no idea how to ship them but I'm sure I could learn.

camille1585 · #14 08-24-2018, 05:48 PM

I can imagine how that feels, I love all my orchids, even ones that are a bit of a pain to keep happy... Parting with orchids is never easy.

I'm assuming you're spending all of that time watering in the summer because of the heat? I don't know how your set up or cultura conditions are, but my apartment gets very hot in the summer, even up here in the Netherlands. All the windows are south or west facing, and there's no shutters or roll down blinds to keep out the sun. As a result, during an average summer it's 28C in the living room. This summer with the heat wave and drought it was 34C. Probably still cooler than at your place! To avoid near daily watering a few years ago I started leaving each plant sitting in a saucer of water when watering, which dried up in 3 days, the media took another 2 to dry, meaning I was watering every 5 days instead of every other day. (my plants are nearly all in bark). It works wonderfully! I started doing it year round (leaving far less water in the winter), and rarely soak the plants anymore. Watering went from a 2 hour ordeal to 15min once or twice a week.

Leafmite · #15 08-24-2018, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenpassion

Leafmite I'll definitely be keeping quite a few. I think I'm going to cut my collection down to half so if I pass a few on it'll be around 12 or 13. Are you interested in late winter early spring? I have no idea how to ship them but I'm sure I could learn.

I love your Phals but I am trying to DOWNSIZE.

Thanks, though. I am so glad you will keep many of them.

I am really excited for Phal season.

Mountaineer370 · #16 08-24-2018, 08:22 PM

Even though I'm trying to be realistic about what I can bloom here (which seems to be not much of anything), I don't want to get totally out of orchids. In the few years I've been involved with them, I've come to like them very much. Not to mention that this is a great forum and I don't want to have nothing at all to talk about with everyone here! Once I rehome the ones that need it, I'm thinking about occasionally allowing myself to purchase a nice orchid in bloom/bud from a show or even a grocery or big box store and then enjoying it until the flowers fall off, then I would donate it to the raffle table for someone else to bring it back into bloom. It would still be a nice plant since I have no trouble getting leaves and roots to do well. I'm not sure how that would work, though, because I do get attached to them.

Leafmite · #17 08-24-2018, 10:39 PM

I would like to have just a few less but I plan to keep most of what I have.

Ray · #18 08-25-2018, 08:37 AM

I "downsized" from 500 or so to zero when my greenhouse heater failed in 1994. Ouch.

I downsized from about 1000 to about 12 before moving. Disturbing, but but not nearly as painful as the previous event.

rbarata · #19 08-25-2018, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by camille1585

I can imagine how that feels, I love all my orchids, even ones that are a bit of a pain to keep happy... Parting with orchids is never easy.

I'm assuming you're spending all of that time watering in the summer because of the heat? I don't know how your set up or cultura conditions are, but my apartment gets very hot in the summer, even up here in the Netherlands. All the windows are south or west facing, and there's no shutters or roll down blinds to keep out the sun. As a result, during an average summer it's 28C in the living room. This summer with the heat wave and drought it was 34C. Probably still cooler than at your place! To avoid near daily watering a few years ago I started leaving each plant sitting in a saucer of water when watering, which dried up in 3 days, the media took another 2 to dry, meaning I was watering every 5 days instead of every other day. (my plants are nearly all in bark). It works wonderfully! I started doing it year round (leaving far less water in the winter), and rarely soak the plants anymore. Watering went from a 2 hour ordeal to 15min once or twice a week.

Not so much about the heat but low HR instead, although both combined increase exponentially the problem.
This summer we had temps over 45ºC outside (113 F) but inside it never went up 30ºC (86 F). It usually is around 28ºC (82 F).
I guess construction here is different from where you live.

But these temps combined with HR as low as 13% crestes a much bigger problem. When I do my laundry, clothes dry in less than an hr, sometimes less than 1/hr for smaller pieces (in a shadowed place).

If I don't wet the medium everyday, it starts to get too dry. A water try could attenuate the problem but not for more than half/day.

rbarata · #20 09-30-2018, 07:09 PM

Gave away my first orchid... the first step of the downsize project. It was a Catt, an hybrid of Gurianthe, it always bloomed with lots of flowers. It was growing so well that is started to become a problem. Unruly plant, with a lot of aerial roots.

The lady to whom I gave it wanted to offer me an orchid (I've been helping our national orchid association doing the update of their site) so I proposed a tarde: my orchid for her offer. I think it was a good deal.

Next one is my Den nobile....it is promised already. As soon as it stops growing I'll give it.