I tried to find the actual paper, but Dr. Wang was or is at Texas A & M and has done extensive research on this topic. Last go round I tried this and it works ! You must have enough light and enough was 750 on my light meter. Commaercial growers have two tricks to preventing phals from spiking 1) heat 2) light If you are hot then you need to cool the plants to initiate. This is a reprint Diana in Houston nicely shared her notes under a thread called "Phal Insider Growers info." Arthur and others added information and had questions. The following is primarily Diana's editing of that original post. Thanks Diana! I just came from my orchid club meeting where we had a local wholesale commercial phalaenopsis grower as the speaker. It was interesting but nothing special until he and Dr. Wang, our mentor and reknown orchid researcher, started talking about what was required to make phals bloom, and have more flowers, (a specialty of Dr. Wang's). Here's the scoop: 1. A phal NOT blooming can be determined by temperature AND light. A commercial grower can KEEP PHALS FROM BLOOMING until a particular time by keeping the temperature above 82 degrees. However, a cheaper way is to shade the greenhouse with 50% shade cloth. 2. To initiate spiking, the temperature must remain consistantly below 82 degrees. A temperature of 90 degrees, even for a short time, will prevent spiking. 3. To have more flowers on a spike, from the time the spike is 2 inches, until it is 8 inches, the temperature must remain consistantly between 65 degrees and 77 degrees. Day and night difference is not involved. This commercial grower gets the phals as 4 to 6 inch bare root plants from Taiwan. He pots them in 4 inch pots and grows them on for about 6 months, at which time they go into 6 inch pots. He then keeps the benches of phals he wants to spike under plastic with an air conditioner (on 24 hours a day) at each end until the spikes are 8 inches tall (approximately 6 weeks). He then moves them out until they have 4 or 5 flowers open, then delivers them to jobbers. Believe me this works !! I spiked about 300 phals I was growing under lights one year - all seedlings -- all novelty -- I gave 290 of them away and to fund raisers for charity. Prior to that I grew only in a greenhouse but I lost not one bud in my air conditioned light room. He also did a study on why that happens -- I wish I could find the study but this little article sums it up very well

At least it's not in the "god" category and "other" instead :D You made my afternoon. I just had to pick up the orchid that would be a challenge :) and agree, there probably isn't much right or appropriate for its culture here. The "general info" I've been able to get about it so far is it needs a bit of water and a high level of filtered sunlight during active growth - well, it's had a lot of rain (to the point I was bringing it in to dry often) but the sun wasn't very cooperative this year. Give it a 30 degree temp swing, down to 40 in fall. No water from mid october until spring growth? All year it needs warm days, cool nights. House in the winter is generally around 70 day/night. It does get quite cold here for several months so in a window would be the only temp difference I could give it. Does any of this sound right or possibly hopeful? I should hopefully be able to eventually make the other orchids happy and bloom but the Cymbidium and the Encyclia will probably be given away free next spring (hopefully they live) to someone who would be better able to grow them. I would like to give them a shot this winter, hopefully they will make it. If not, I'll know what not to buy in the future. Thanks!

Again - a plethora of great info! Thanks! The vanda is a Dr. Bai #2. The bathroom is actually fairly large and foolishly has a cathedral ceiling, but yes, still the smallest room to heat. The glassblock window is not only huge, but also one of the new ones that is actually some sort of glass and plastic form, so it gets good light and does not get cold like the older ones that had actual glassblock with grout. The room already has several CFL's, so how lucky is that???? I'll just upgrade and get a couple of cheapy CFL fixtures to supplement. How will the Cid's fit in to this scenario? Any difference in how I should treat blooming Cid vs non-blooming Cids as I make this transition? I am going to go ahead and move the non-blooming Phals in there and get a portable heater as you have all suggested. The bathroom is our master and also adjacent to our closet, so the heat won't be totally for the orchids! We have been using a tiny space heater in there just to shower all this week. Any suggestions on a bell-curve of temperatures throughout the day...highest temp and for how many hours? Again, thanks to all of you...

From various internet sources, I have accumulated these notes: The 'regular' camellia plants usually survive occasional temperatures as low as +10 degrees to 0 degrees F. Camellia flower buds are damaged at temperatures between +10 degrees to +15 degrees F or lower. Open camellia blossoms normally are damaged at temperatures between +26F degrees to +28F degrees or lower. Very late blooming camellias, like the April Series, can handle colder temps. Take them all with a grain of salt as no one has ever done scientific research on what certain temps and weather conditions do. I have had camellias when temps crashed to +5F and they survived so the suggestion of plant damage can occur between (or lower than) +10F and 0F may need "tweaking". Or maybe it happens only to selected camellias. I can confirm from experience that the flower buds have issues when temps go below +15F in my neck of the woods. I have not paid attention to temps when open flowers are damaged so I cannot confirm or deny the suggested range of +26F to +28F (or lower) causing damage to the open flowers. But somewhere around the freezing mark makes some sense. Micro-climates, locations that protect from winds/morning sun, mulch, deep watering prior to cold spells (assuming the ground has not frozen)... all of those can also help. Reading material: https://www.camforest.com/category_s/57.htm