Orchids Outdoors

[Weebl]

I live over the hill to the south of San Jose and I grow a variety of orchids outdoors. Albeit my climate is a little colder than yours with day temps never going above 90 and night temps from 30 to winter lows, to the high 50s and low 60s at night in September/October. Laelia anceps is a bulletproof orchid for us outdoors, a few others I found to do exceptionally are Encyclia citrina, Den. kingianum, Den. speciosum var. speciosum and var. hillii, reedstem epidendrums, Zygopetulums, Oncidium flexuosum, Dendrobium chrysotoxum, Nobile Dendrobiums and of course cymbidiums.

I've heard Orchid Mania in San Francisco has a good outdoor setup, if you want ideas of what conditions are favorable. Also, the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate and it's neighbor Cal-Orchid are fantastic resources for growing outdoors and I strongly recommend visiting both if your ever down in Santa Barbara.