I don't use any lights, but my orchids seem to do okay. I have learned what I can grow and what I can't grow. I have switched to the smaller catts that bloom on every new pseudobulb. I think these plants need less light than the regular catts. Indoors these are right up against the glass of my south/southeast picture window. Behind them I have a few phals. (I eased up on growing phals because they take up a lot of room. I can fit two small catts where I have one phal). These catts bloom during the winter when a new p-bulb reaches maturity. The blossoms don't last as long as they do outside, because of lower humidity, but they do bloom.

In the upstairs west window I have an Oncidium Sweet Sugar, Encyclia Radiata, Miltonia, and a Diagamora Winter Wonderland. These plants bloom in late summer and late spring, so they don't seem to be bothered by the lower winter light.

In the downstairs west window I keep the dendrobium nobiles. These plants grow like crazy during the summer and then need a dry, cold rest in winter. They start blooming in late January and don't stop for a couple of months. That window is sunny but very cold, exactly what they like.

So I stopped trying to grow what I can't, and enjoy what I can. Though the plants seem to do okay, maybe they would grow better with additional light, so this winter I may add a couple of plant lights to the big window to see if they improve anything.

Like a lot of windowsill gardeners I like to summer mine outdoors. But the winter set-up that I used last year indoors was insufficient in retrospect for the orchids that I kept in it. This year, I plan on changing some things. I have successfully flowered catts (amd their intergenic hybrids), dendrobiums, vandas, cymbidiums, oncidiums, and phals. I have yet to flower a Dendrobium nobile-type, so this year, I plan on treating it like a cymbidium and see if that makes the difference. I re-read Rebecca Tyson-Northern's book on orchids, particulalry the chapter on cattleyas and realizd that lights in the evening can hinder some of the labiate-hybrids flowering schedule. That makes sense since the light cart was in the main living area last year, and some of the winter-flowring ones did not flower last year. For indoor growers, the two main problems are ligt and humidty. I am going to increase the light and group plants for proper humidty.

Another example, I usually summered my phals outside in a covered-screen porch. I didn't get them to bloom even after the fall temp drop. Growth was unsubstantial since in the summer it is hard for me to get just a little light for these. It's either all or none. This year, I kept them indoors on a North-facing,unobtructed windowsill, and not only was growth good, but they are all (11 of them) flowering since I can keep a closer eye on them.

I think that instead of doing the same and hope for the best, it is easier to change things around for an orchid that hasn't bloomed in a while. Once I get the right conditions, I keep doing it and sit back and enjoy.

I do enjoy better conditions, since I have my city apartment, my parents' house, my girlfriends' apartment, and my office to keep my ever-growing collection blooming. In reality, I now know what I can and cannot grow, so I avoid the ones that are too difficult and collect the ones I know I can grow. That's why I have 12 phals and only 2 vandas. My vandas grow and bloom several times a year (in winter) since I hang them from a 10 foot ficus tree in the office lobby. The lobby has 15 foot windows that are about 50 feet long and face South and west...perfect in the winter. There is also supplemental fluorescent lighting. The vandas are a lot of work, but well worth it. I only have 2 but that is plenty. Better to have 2 good-looking plants than 10 half-dead plants.

Long story short - calvin, what are you trying to grow? Can you keep them elsewhere? It might be better to compromise and trade more of what you can and for less of what you cannot grow.

Hi, Calvin. It is a little depressing when all your efforts go down the chute every winter.

I'm giving up on catts, despite having five 400W HID in my light room. Some bloom, lots don't, even when kept all winter directly under the 400W only app 8 inches away. They (nearly) all live, but I just didn't feel I was getting my effort's worth out of them.

I once thought the light room would be plant heaven for tropicals. Not so, so I switched to orchids, mostly catts. They didn't think it was heaven either.

But the phals did-- they grew fat and happy in the light room. So I'm switching over to phals. At last, found some appreciative plants :) Lowlight plants think my plant room is heaven.

About windowsill conditions: I have a south window where I keep blooming orchids. Last winter about December I put two Wonderlites up in that window, so I had a perfect before and after experiment: same plants with just south exposure and later with south + wonderlites.

There was a noticeable response almost immediately from a Sharry Baby with stalled spikes that started to fill out and open up almost as soon as the lights went up. Also, a couple of sequential blooming phals that put out several new blooms.

So lights do make a difference, even in a south window. The thing about winter here is that we only have maybe 4 sunny days max out of 7 from about Nov thru March. So even a south window gets suboptimal light.

I personally couldn't stand dozens of semi-dormant plants around for months -- too much like a daily reproach. And while the last fall and early spring weather is nice here, the orchids still have to be indoors. So it's a 6-7 month dormancy. Too long for me.

I'd rather switch than fight, hence the phals.

But I did want to warn you HID are not a panacea for plants that need high light even if you had them. Maybe 600 or 1000W would be, but I didn't get those-- not worth it to risk damaging my sight.

Thanks for the long and detailed replies!
re brad - I seem to have most problems with my LC. Jungle Elf x Enc cordigera, Laelia rubescens and Blc. Pokai tangerine x Chocolate sun...all catt types.

Maybe you guys are right - it's time to move away from unrealistic goals! I totally know what you mean about the phals, mehitabel. My best window is also a southern window and my phals pretty much don't mind it, but everything else whimpers a bit. So, being the big meanie I am, I move the phals to an even shadier corner to make room for the light lovers...and in the end, no one is happy. Maybe it's time to pay some more attention to my phals. :)

I'm asking mainly because I've seen some of my orchids adjust to this cycle, and as a result grow much more successfully. My Dialaelia snowflake for instance, had some issues the first winter, but now grows big fat pbulbs all summer and blooms without fail in the winter. My dend. bigibbum have also adjusted..they kinda screwed themselves over the first two years but this year managed to produce HUGE canes which I'm pretty sure will bloom, although I don't know yet. I guess I'll just have to see what works. Definitely not willing to pay for 1000w of additional electricity a month, nor get retinal burning every time I walk into the living room!

I grow all my plants indoors year around, way too many bugs to battle if I take any outside and I hate using pesticides (bad for the natural pollinators of my fruit and vegetable garden). I use all my east facing windows and have great success with Phals, and paphs. I also have done well with dends, encyclia coch. and limited success with those in the pluero family like masdies but this is more due to low huidity than light. I gave away any vanda types and now trying some epidendrums.

Don't give up Calvin!!! Sure it's easier to grow orchids suited to your environment but what would this hobby be without challenges and overcoming them??

I'm in the North too and feel your pain when it comes to catts. The first winter they died.

The second winter I added flourescent lighting, potted them in unglazed clay with LECA and watered them at most once a week but they still suffered root rot. Although they made it past the winter, the damage had set them back so greatly that most of them did not grow well in the spring/summer outdoors.

But all those sacrifices (poor dead catts) did teach me a valuable lesson. Increasing the amount of light and/or raising the temps are not gonna do it for catts. You've gotta expose those roots!

I now grow mine in vanda baskets with 2" chunks of lava rock. They did need to be tied down at first but in a few weeks, the roots grew out and anchored the plants in no time. I also have some recovering ones in unglazed clay pots with 3 huge lava rocks. Their roots are growing healthier than I've ever seen. I've even got my first spottie about to bloom any day now!

They really don't need their roots kept as humid as other orchids. As for watering, I water every morning when it's hot and dry, every other day when it's hot and humid or when it's cool and dry (like it is now).

When they are indoors and have less light and no ventilation, I only water when the pseudobulb just start to wrinkle. And mist the baskets and the aerial roots on the days I don't water.

Here's a pic of my catts in baskets:

{{gwi:194387}}

Here's some info I found that finally gave me to courage to expose those roots...Lc Jungle Elf is mentioned in there.

nodosa (Ed in SAT):
More Catts than you think like no mix in the pot. Turn a clay pot upside down and you have a perfect place to grow species Catts.

graphicgreg :
I would suggest going really coarse, like large lava rock or tree-fern chunks.

Cattleya aclandiae along with nobilior & walkeriana may very well be the bad boys of the Bifoliates. Success with this dwarf species can elude even seasoned growers. Many mini-catts have been made with aclandiae as a parent, the colorful LC. Jungle Elf among them.

They resent being disturbed and MUST be mounted, preferably in such a way that allows them to walk HORIZONTALLY along the mount, give them bright light once established.

So don't give up Calvin, you're gonna grow beautiful catts! Oh yea, supplemental lighting is a must if you get consecutive days of clouds (like we do during NYC winters).

Steph

Hey, Calvin,

Minnesota person here. My window, 5'x5,' faces E/SE, and even the Phals wouldn't thrive without the 48" T8s (a cool and a warm from HD) running 16 hours a day.

As it is, Phals, Phrags, and Paphs rebloom, even on the bottom shelf, which receives little direct light but has two more T8s.

In this set-up, on the top shelf that receives direct light, I've rebloomed the Burr. Nellie Isler, Coryanthes feildingii, Miltoniopsis, and 2 Onc. Twinkles.

With this lighting, I wouldn't try Catts. So far, the Potinara and Rhynchostylis haven't rebloomed, and it's the first winter for Den moniliformes, so who knows? Having 4 T8s in each fixture might make all the difference, but I'm checking out huge cfls on specialty sites.

Two places in the orchid room have the largest cfl that HD sells. The bulbs go in that clamp-on, shiny gray metal fixture. Phals, Phrags, and Paphs rebloom under these, even though they get no direct sun.

It'd be a downer for me to watch plants just hang on during the winter, esp. because we have so much of it in our parts. Yes, the right lights would help your Catts, and you'd probably be happier, too.

Word is that Howard gave Clara 2 sites that sell huge cfls, and she posted them here a bit ago. I'm gonna check them out because it'd be nice to have things bloom more than once a year, if more light is all they need. Plus, the Potinara, etc. might bloom.

The 1st site is Light Bulbs, Etc.: http://www.lightbulbsdirect.com/page/001/CTGY/CompactFluorescent. The 2nd appears below. Except for seeing the URLs here, I don't know anything about either place.

Others in the frozen North have happy Catts during the winter, and I just know you can, too, without the hot, blinding high pressure sodiums.

Keep us posted - Whitecat8

Here is a link that might be useful: Farm Tek cfls

Calvin,

This is where the challenge of growing orchids comes in! Separates the addicts from the rest.

Anyways, I pretty much grow stricly indoors (a few Cymbidiums usually make it outside for the summer). Last summer, I absolutely fell head over heels in love with spotted Catts. Since then, all manner of Catts have won my love and admiration with their floof, wild colour combos and fragrance. I have stayed with mostly compact Catts, but have a few larger ones (up to about 18" tall with pot). I grow in a spare E/SE facing room and supplement that light with fluorescent tubes and CFLs. The larger Catts, my aclandiaes and Catasetinae are all directly in front of the window and are supplemented with 42W CFLs, 5 for a six-foot length (one at each end, the other 4 equally spaced out). My compact Catts are less than a foot under 4 four foot fluorescent tubes. During the summer, the lights are on for 16 hours to mimic natural daylength and I pretty much leave them to it, other than watering every 2 or 3 days. During the winter, lights are on for 14 hours. I start a little space heater in there only while I'm taking my shower in the morning to bring temps up to about 21C/70F from the 17C/60F nights they're subjected to. The lights and any sunlight usually bring the temp up to 26C/79F over the course of the day. I have trays to catch watering runoff, which also double as humidity trays. I use clay pots as risers in those trays, which is great for evaporation (I do clean those with Physan every couple of months at least and replace every six months). Humidity is maybe 45-50%, which is ok.

With this set up, in the year I've had my Catts, I have not had any problems getting my Catts to grow well (taller and fatter) and to bloom, summer, winter or any season in between. I've even rebloomed a couple of big honkers. I know they could bloom more often and with more flowers (a fellow orchid society member has a drool-worthy greenhouse and drool-worthy flowering Catts to show for it), but my plants are healthy and they seem to be ready to bloom at least once a year for me. Ok, the room is quite bright, but you don't need sunglasses to go in. It's actually quite nice in the dead of winter when you're light-deprived to go in and bask in the light. Even nicer to drag in a lounge chair on a stormy Sunday afternoon to curl up with a good book.

Good luck and keep experimenting. You often don't know what will happen until you give it a try.

Julie

My bathroom looks like I'm colliding atoms because of the wardian case in there. No plant can be farther than 1 foot from the tubes, and there are 12 tubes (two 2-tube lights on the back and two more on either side). With a similar setup, I bloomed odontoglossums and sophronitis, a few years bac. Honestly, providing supplemental light need not be difficult or expensive. My lights are just $8 shop lights from HD, and I got a 10-pack of cool white bulbs and a two-pack of warm white bulbs. Of course, 4 of the shoplights are salvaged, so they were free, but if I had purchsed all of them new, I'd be looking at less than $100 in lights. I think it is well worth it to be able to enjoy plants that I wouldn't be able to grow outdoors here, anyway (unless I A/C'd a GH (which I HAVE done)). Furthermore, if I hadn't been able to get approval from my neighborhood to build a GH, I would've converted my utility room to a growing environment for things other than cool growers.

Granted, the case isn't exactly a wonder of aesthetics, but it does the job, and honestly, I'd rather have gorgeous plants in an ugly case than a beautiful case that I can't afford. And hell, you can always build something to hide lights, if necessary. You could build a very nice stained or painted wood housing in which you could mount cheap shop lights to hang from a cieling in your living area.

Again, orchid growing is only limited by your creativity and your resources. If nothing else, invest a couple hundred bucks that would go to plants (or booze, or some other non-essential) otherwise, and not have to schlepp the things in and out twice a year. Why not? I also agree with the premise that being able to minutely control the environment of your plants is well worth the investment and time. In-home grown plants are so much easier to control than even greenhouse plants. I just prefer to have more room and the ability to grow lots of mounted things. In a home grow room, one doesn't have to worry about extended periods of cloud or dark...

And in the end, shop lights are very light and easy to deal with, if you just want to hang them temporarily for the winter and take them down and schlepp the plants, anyway. You're just looking at a few minutes to hang them with cieling hooks. Again, in my opinion, better than having your poor orchids languishing and producing weak, disease-prone growths all winter.

Food for thought.

-Cj

P.S. When I had three different banks of grow lights in my bedroom, back in high school, i never had to worry about seasonal affective disorder... Also, who needs and alarm clock when 24 flourescent tubes come on at 6:30 in the morning?

Catts are especially bad at crawling through the winter in an underlit and underheated situation. I agree with those who dislike winter 'stall' but it is sure hard to avoid if one has a budget. For those of us that have posted, the winter stall is more of an annoyance and performance issue but for many it is a life and death (the orchids) matter. Winter stall can be the end of an orchid if its grower continues to water it at summertime rates. We should talk about managing semi-dormant orchids a lot this Fall so that the information trickles down to the casual browsers and drop in's.

H

Thanks for the great replies, everyone. Steph and Julie - your encouraging words are inspiring! It's great to hear about what other growers in these slightly northern climates do. I appreciate the plant suggestions too, because I'd much rather know that I can grow something before trying it, rather than discovering afterwards, just cause I fell for a pretty flower!

I think howard brings up the good point of managing semi-dormant orchids, which I guess brings me back to my original idea of whether or not I even want to bother with lighting if all it will do is bring these plants out of this semi-dormant state, and do I really want that when all the other conditions are suboptimal. Nonetheless, I will take all your light ideas into account and have a meeting with my mother, who's house I have recruited to becoming my growing pod.

There is a little bit of progress to this story - We have this southern facing sunroom which is tragically situated beneath 2 apple trees, so it doesn't really even get that much sun. However, I have recently managed to convince my mom to move all the furniture away from the sunnier wall of the room, so I will be able to put my plant rack there.

Although I have 2 GHs I have most of my orchids in the sun-room where they thrive. It has a south and west exposure and a humidifier that keeps the humidity over 50%. Lace curtains keep plants from burning. Dens are blooming or in spike now. Others, rescues from HD and Lowe's are resting.

My best light area is in my living-room which has a wall of glass facing SW. I put all my plants along that wall until the dregs of winter, December. I then set up some floor lamps (octopus type) and only put the Catt hybrids which are still maturing growths. This room gets cold at night because the windows are single-pane, old windows and very drafty .

Watering is cut way back to avoid rot. I have had problems with Phals and the cool temps and now move them to a smaller, warmer room and put them under lights. The room is too large to humidify, therefore, humidity hovers around 20%.

I try not to encourage any growth over winter. I dread it when I see a plant starting a growth because I don't have the light or temps to get anything good from the plant. I do not fertilize, hold back water and keep my fingers crossed until Spring. I have Catts now which will be flowering in Oct. and Nov. Then they are finished and put to bed.

Howard is 'right-on.' Posts about carrying plants successfully over winter, without greenhouse conditions, would help many. It is possible.

Jane

Semi-dormancy vs growth no-growth limbo...sounds about the same to me.

Even with the supplemental lighting, my orchids go into semi-dormancy probably because watering and fertilizing has been reduced. However, the extra lighting does produce stronger spikes, stronger growths, less bud blasting, and less "Leaning Tower of Pisa" growth (which is what I call those spikes that reach for the windows).

Of course, I must thank Howard for this because prior to his advice, my orchids were really just barely surviving the winters.

It sounds like your other orchids are doing fine with your present wintering environment. It's just your catt types that are fussy...why not start by giving just the catts a little extra CFL and see how things go. Test it out before investing too much.

I treied to post about winter a week or 2 ago. So many new people. No one was game. Howard or Jane do you want to give it a try? It would be nice to have generalised species info, ie vandas, catts, oncids etc just the major groups..

Clara

Sounds good to me except there are so many variables depending on zone and environmental differences.

Jane

I agree with Howard. For northern growing, I am in W. PA, cutting back on watering and fertilizing aids tremendously in carrying cattleyas over winter.

I drastically decrease water(I drench and then let get totally dry), stop fertilizing, and lower humidity first day of winter and then don't bring them back to normal till the shortest day of the year is over. That is when I begin to increase slowly water and a few weeks later fertilize till we are back to what is required, about the first of February for water and humidity and fertilizer normal about end of February.

When the house gets especially cold, they seem to do better with this regimen as well. But all in all, my Cattleya and hybrids do quite well next to a southeast window. And while yes, they do do the leaning tower of pisa, I don't mind. They are happy and I am happy and I get lots of blooms.

susan

Thanks for the replies and the great advice and sharing of experience. So here's the deal now, and I was hoping for some more wisdom. I realize this is like extremely specific to my particular situation, so I don't know how helpful it will be for other people, but maybe someone will have a similar setup and will benefit from some advice!

I've been carefully observing light levels in the house at various candidate places, here is what I have:

South-facing window box thing, which gets direct sun from 9:00 in the morning till about 2:00 in the afternoon (this will likely diminish in the dead of winter)

East-facing window in the sun room, which gets weakened sun from 11:00-4:00 (I say weakened because the windows in the sunroom are specially tinted...I feel like there are certain UV wavelengths being filtered out but I am still waiting from the company to see how exactly the glass was treated and whether the light is even any good for plants) along with two 5 foot T8s (I think), as well as a 50w Compact fluorescent twirl light (*really* bright).

I'll take some photos and post them later. Ideally I would have liked to mount my lights in the south window, in hopes that the direct sun along with supplemental lighting will help the plants along more, and just plop all my phals on the east window rack, but sadly that was impossible, so I'm taking what I can get.

What are your thoughts? I don't have *that* many light loving orchids (a dialaelia, some catt alliance types, 3 dends, sedirea and a coelogyne nitida...and neofinetia - haven't really figured out the lighting for this one yet).

Oh yeah, and I guess I'll cut back on watering and fertilizing as well, unless I see obvious signs of growth from my light setup.

This is a great thread! There are so many considerations for us summer out/winter indoors people.
In the summer I have cattleyas, dendrobiums, oncidiums, and bulbophyllums out on a porch, with direct sun in the morning and late afternoon, and shade overhead at midday. This year I put out paphs too, on the bottom shelf where they had more shade. Everything does very well and adds a lot of growth.
In the winter, they all move to a sunroom facing west but with a south exposure too. Life for my orchids improved immensely when I added Wonderlites (in the west and south windows) and big humidity trays to this set up, and it cost very little. Most winter days it is about 60% humidity, high of 80 F and low 55F. I have a tiny space heater to boost heat on really cold nights. My electric bill is just $25-30 a month. It helps that this room can be closed off to retain the humidity.
I have the catts in clay pots and water about once a week. I think the humidity helps them cope with drying out completely. Another factor I think is that I choose catts that aren't seasonal bloomers but bloom at various times of the year. Originally I chose them just because I wanted to get more blooms, but I also figure they have a built-in urge to keep growing and not go dormant when the light and heat wane. They make lots of leads and lots of blooms during winter.
My only basket plants are brassavolas that I water every other day.
Calvin, I think your plan to cut back on water and fert until you see signs of growth is exactly the way to go. Generally I think it's important to observe the plants really closely and follow their lead.
By the way I suffered from tinted windows for a month or two before I realized what was going on, but mine came with a little label that warned against using ammonia or detergent to clean them. The anti-UV tint was just a surface film that was gone with a few vigorous washings. By the way, I also remove the screens in winter as they cut down on the light.
Good luck and keep experimenting!
Margo