I have some anthurium plants that will flower inside as a house plant (similar to the peace lily, but pink flower). I also have hoya cuttings, all sorts of pretty leaved calatheas. Phias Tankerville is a ground orchid that will flower inside. Let me know if you are interested.

Hi For a new orchid grower probably the best advice is to consider your grow area .How much room and what methood you want to use.?? Pot culture or garden plants?? What are your average temps, humidity,air circulation and select from species that fit into these conditions rather than the other way around. I'd suggest checking out Andy's orchids website. They have a wonderful feature that takes your data and eliminates all those that don't fit into your conditions. There are sooooo many kinds I think it's easier to eliminate those that won't grow. In 10 Cal you should be able to grow most anything with several different methods. One thing, it is impossible to grow just one orchid lol. If they do well you will be adding more so start with those that give the greatest chance of success. gary

Yep, unfortunately you have a case of root rot on you hands. The plants shriveled like they aren't getting water, and you are probably are watering them more because of the way they look. They're not getting water because they don't have roots to absorb water. This was probably started because the potting mix got old and began to decay. When this happens it won't dry out, and gets mushy causing the roots to stay wet all the time, and they rot. I would not water any of these plants any more until you can pull all of them out of their pots and check the roots. If any of them have fairly good roots, then you can repot them, but any that look like the two in the last two photos I would not repot. (the plant that has the dead leaf in the middle looks like it might have enough roots for you to try to repot it now) You are going to have to get better roots before they will survive being repotted. I would suggest.....Get some plastic bags...if the plants will fit, bread bags are good. Take a pencil or small knife and punch several holes up near the top of the bag....Put a handful of moist orchid bark, or Sphagnum moss in the bottom of the bag, and put the plant in the bag with the bottom end with the root stumps down next to the moist bark. Tie the top of the bag, and hang it in a bright, but not sunny place. If new roots begin to grow, let them get at least 4 inches long before you pot the plant. Go on line to the American Orchid Society's web site and get their culture sheet for Phalaenopsis orchids. This will tell you how to properly care for the plants once you have them repotted. If you have orchid bark mix ordered to repot these plants in, that's good. When you have a plant with a good root system under it, and want to repot it, here is what you do. Get a pot that the plant will fit into without too much extra room....Pour out enough bark mix to fill the pot, and then put it in a pan or bucket and thoroughly wet it. Put a handful of the wet bark into the bottom of the pot and sit the plant on that. Fill in around the roots with the remainder of the wet bark until the pot is full. Set the plant in a bright but shady location, and do not water it for at least a week or more. The bark will dry out and allow the roots that were bruised or broken in potting process to callous, heal and begin to grow again. Making the plant thirsty will also encourage faster root growth. When you begin to water the plant, take it to the sink and thoroughly wet everything in the pot. Put the plant back in its growing location and wait until the pot is almost completely dry before watering it again. After about a month you can begin to feed the plant.....fertilizer at half the recommended strength, twice a month. The time between waterings will vary depending on the light, temperature, humidity, and air circulation around the plant. Don't water until it is almost completely dry. Keep us posted on the progress of your plants. Bill

Polina, Volumes have been written to answer your last paragraph. ;Arthurm, you think they will give me enough room here to try? It used to be that there were two types of really expensive orchids. One group was rare, very hard to find plants that were brought out of the wild and only a very few of them were in cultivation any where in the world. The others were those plants that had been hybridized by man over sometimes many generations to create exceptionally shaped blooms, or blooms with exceptional color, or both. These plants had been shown to highly trained judges who were accredited by recognized organizations such as the Royal Horticultural Society of England, or the American Orchid Society, and granted awards recognizing their superiority. When two orchids are crossed (pollen from one applied to the stigma of the other) a seed pod may be formed that can contain nearly a million almost microscopic seeds. If these seeds are planted on a nutrient material (agar, something near the consistency of Jell-O) in a sterile environment (to prevent mold contamination), each seed can produce a baby plant. Each of these little plants are unique...some will resemble mom, some dad, and most will be somewhere in between. Some may inherit and exhibit a trait from some ancestor many generations back. After about 7 years these plants will begin to bloom, and experienced growers pick the finest ones out of the multitude of first blooming seedlings. These plants are usually allowed to bloom once or twice more to confirm their characteristics before they are entered in shows or taken to judgings. Once the plants begin to bloom, the cross can be named. The process looks like this...Cattleya Plant A X (crossed by) Laelia Plant B = Laeliocattleya John Doe. (Lc. John Doe must never have been registered before) Now all these little plants that came out of that seed pod have the same name. If, in America one of those selected little plants is taken to a show, and the American Orchid Society judges there agree that it is exceptional, they can award it. Lets say they give it an Award of Merit. Now, the owner has the right to give that individual plant a "clonal name"...It now might become Laeliocattleya John Doe Variety 'My Best' AM/AOS. Now, that one particular plant has been singled out as better than its siblings, and has a name that defines it from all its siblings. Before Cloning was perfected, the only way you could obtain a plant of LC John Doe Var. "My Best" AM/AOS would be to purchase it from the owner. That usually would not happen, but the owner might consent to selling you a division or part of the plant once it grew large enough to be divided. I have personally seen divisions sold for as high as $3,000.00. Once cloning was perfected, a piece of our pant in question could be taken into the lab, and multiplied many hundreds of times, producing exact genetic copies of the original plant, and now, blooming sized plants of this plant can be purchased for $15 - $20.00. If you wanted to, you could purchase at very reasonable prices two plants with excellent breeding records, cross them, wait for them (7 yrs.) to begin to bloom, and if your cross had not been registered previously, you could name the cross, and take the best of the bunch to shows and see if you could get them awarded, clone (could probably begin to sell plants in flasks in about 2 years) them and make your fortune selling them. Kinda changes a fun hobby into lots of hard work, doesn't it. Bill