Paul, what kind of orchids do you have? I live in zone 5 and all of mine go outdoors from late spring to early fall. I don't have a huge collection (less than twenty plants right now), so it's not such a pain to move them back inside if the weather is predicted to get a little crazy (example: that nifty hail storm that Ross mentioned). I mostly have medium-to-high light demanding species (aerides, cattleyas, dendrobiums, etc.), and they all seem to do quite well with in an eastern exposure location during the warm months. To avoid but problems, I use a product called tanglefoot on the legs of the benches. I think it was originally designed as a bird deterent. But it's also effective at keeping anything from crawling over it (and it's not toxic and doesn't wash away from rain). My only suggestion would be to be careful when you start exposing your plants to higher light levels. Even high light demanding plants don't tend to react well to being suddenly exposed to lots of direct sunlight after having become accustomed to the lower indoor light levels of a long and dark winter.
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