I agree about Dyna-Gro ProTeKt--it's a great product and it does toughen leaves. Pale leaves can be a result of micro-nutrient deficiency or imbalance (chlorosis). If leaves seem pale, try epsom salts (magnesium sulfate). It's a quick green-up for many acid loving plants, such as jasmines and gardenias. Leaves of these get chlorotic over a long hard-water winter indoors here. A couple of doses of epsom salts makes an enormous difference, keeps the leaves green. Chelated iron also works. For orchids? Yes, I've used both epsom salts and chelated iron many times on orchids, including catts, oncids, encyclis and phals. I use it when I get a new plant with flabby leaves whose color isn't quite "right". With orchids, the old leaves don't always change, but new leaves come in tougher and a better green. You can mix epsom salts in the water, app 1 tablespoon to the gallon. Or since it's usually just one or two plants, I just add a pinch to the pot, and it gets watered in when I water. If it doesn't work to produce a greenup, no harm is done.

I grow plenty of orchids - dendrobiums, cattleyas, phalaenopses, oncidiums, paphiopedilums and vandas. I still have dendrobiums but have lost interest in them--- too much work in replacing rotting media and in regularly dividing them. Besides, they look ugly when not in bloom especially when you have plenty of back bulbs. Cattleyas are beautiful but alas, they only bloom once a year for me... sometimes even none in two years! Phalaenopsis flowers can be gorgeous but oh they rot so easily during our daily monsoon rains in July. I'm tired of spraying fungicide on them and giving them special treatment. Oncidiums are as maintenance free as vandas in my climate but the flowers are just too small and unexciting. Paphiopedilums can be exotic with their slipper shaped blooms but like cattleyas, I'm lucky if I can make them bloom regularly even just once a year. By now, you will have guessed my favorite... vandas! :) I can toss away all the rest and give them all to my neighbors and friends, but not my vandas. Vandas are so easy to grow and are practically maintenance-free and spray-free in our climate. Just tie them to dead tree trunks, place in full tropical sun and viola! Large, beautiful, blooms the whole year. You don't even need to remember to water them because mother nature can take care of their watering needs. You can also afford to cut the blooms and place them in your flower vases. You know they'll bloom again anyway in a very short span of time. They come in all colors of the rainbow and may be with or without fragrance. Just take your pick! :) tropical

I agree with ginnibug, diversity in leaves is what really makes the plants attractive since most of the year they don't have flowers. I have one of the miniatures where the entire plant is no more than an inch-and-a-half tall. Variety is Seiryujishi. But my problem is that although the plants grow very well here in north Florida, the hot summers tend to prevent it from blooming except just occasionally; my Neo falcata plants can go years between blooms.

Hey, Tuezday, in case it would be helpful, I constructed a lathe house that folds flat for winter storage in the garage. It's about 75"L x 26"W x 75"H and cuts light by 50%. I built a "double wide," but it would be easy - and less expensive - to make it half the length. You could also make it 36" longer easily. W/ the plexiglass weighted by bricks on the top, you can have overhead rain or not. Whole thing cost about $250 w/ everything from HD. Mine faced E/SE, and the orchids loved it. Caveat: Plants needed intermediate light or low light, not high light. So, that's the summer setting. Inside for winter - Orchid room, intermediate conditions: Living room, cooler temps: Dormant Cycs and Ctsae in cooler living room: Unknown is if the plants in the cooler LR will like the setting. For most of them, this is their first winter there. Last winter, the Ctsae and Cycs made it fine, but the others may turn up their noses. As always, "it will become known." Whitecat8