HELLO!

Welcome! Do you grow ony phalaenopsis or other genera as well? How do you grow them? Window, Under lites, greenhouse? Do you have any species phalaenopsis or just Hybrids?

Not my favorite orchid to grow, not because I find them ugly nor uninteresting but more because I find them boring to see them flowering all the time........but I do like to grow a few and will be added to my collection, if nothing more then to give away. I am interested in how other people grow them and think more people would grow them if they knew they could!

For 30 years I grew them in my Windows in NYC. Now I live in the NE coast near from the beach with 150 feet elevation, 5 miles from El Yunque Rainforest in Puerto Rico, a tropical island with a winter low so far of 69 degree one night 3 weeks ago but has average nites of 71-73 until mid March when they start to get warmer and rarely below 75 for 2 months then 6 months of lows of 79-81 at night. The winter high are 80-85 with good air movement and\d a constant 60-80% humidity. Grow them inaLath house with shade cloth (with 60% shade) & water them daily in the early morning, mist them a hour or two later in the early morning and if temperatures go over 85 will mist after 2pm and again at about 4pm to make sure they dry out before sunset and they do well. Have a few species, maybe 4 and about 6 meristems of Awarded phales in different colors. They are always getting fresh air, the lath they are growing gets good air movement all the time. They are potted in wire baskets hung one layer below the Catts & Oncidiums and Anthuruims using coconut fiber liner, charcoal & treefern. Most are budded now, some of the violencia/bellini hybrids bloom sequentially and almost everblooming. Buy them out of flower at half price at Walmart & Home Depot and give them away most of the time. Had a schilleriana for almost 25 years before a hurricane took it to Compost heaven.

 

I want to get some mini's, had 2 but gave them away for 3 Kings. I think they're beautiful. Since Walmart & Home Depot here in PR only cell Meristemed Orchid Plants, they may offer about 10 clones per shipment of about 100 plants weekly (they do not sell hybrid crosses), I really have gotten some nice Phales from their out of bloom selection (also some are being sold at half price because they are damaged or have a broken spike), often correctly labeled, but have gotten a NOID Dend or Oncidium, but will not buy any of the Catts they offer if NOID because too many of them are not to my taste. Like you PhalGirl, I like it when I am surprised at my NOID flowering! I recently got some Tolumnias for $5.00 that were in good health, but not in flower and 4 months later have tripled in size, look wonderful,with many spikes and are all NOW correctly labeled, Many were mislabeled!

 

Have grown Phals mounted on half a coconut and also on tree fern, they have grown well. There are about 140 native orchids in Puerto Rico. Oncidiums, Epidendrums, Encyclia, Lepanthes, Pleurothallids, Maxillaria, Cyrtopodium, and many terrestrials. The majority of them grow in higher elevation and I am near the beach and do not get a significant temp drop of maybe 10 degrees which is not enough to keep them alive. Many Beautiful species are 5 miles away in El Yunque rainforest at elevation of 3,000 feet equates to a 15-20 degree drop at night and much higher humidity then I can provide.