Here comes Howard the Heretic again to muddy further the murky waters of debate. First of all I don't believe that the experienced growers here (cough, CJ.. Richard... did Arthur chime in?) track down the parentage of every hybrid they acquire and split the differences in culture, etc. ... Impossible. No, what the experienced grower does is establish a baseline set of conditions in their greenhouse such that 90%, if not 95% of their plants are happy and then fine tune the care of the recalcitrant plants by moving them! After all, you cannot re-site your greenhouse because a single plant requires just a little less south-west sun than the GH gets at present. Ridiculous overstatement yes, but what I am reading says to the novice that they must get into the plant the individual plant in order to grow it. I submit that with a hybrid or intergeneric (and 'intergeneric' without any other qualifier always means an intergeneric of the Odontoglossinae/Oncidinae variety) using the culture appropriate for any one of the parents will result in culture that, if not perfect, at least will not kill the hybrid. And isn't that the first step? First, do no harm. Then you can work from there to figure out the minutiae. Trust me, Clara, you do not want a Jay's site for hybrids or rather, such a thing is simply not necessary. All we do is ignore what we learn at such sites anyway!!! I mean, how many of us attempt to supply 4,000fc of light for Cattleya _____________ or a 115F daytime max for Grammatophyllum ____________? No, we give the orchid what we have to give and it either likes it or it doesn't. Am I wrong? Luckily such an approach can work, just because a particular species 'likes' 4000fc and a majority of specimens were observed to be experiencing just that, often it is discovered that the very same species will do well in 2500fc. If people didn't try to grow plants in 'incorrect' conditions we wouldn't know what is ultimately possible. And no, I am not turning a corner as regards my light theories. Just observing that observing good health and growth in an orchid in ones supplied conditions usually sets the standard for care. Attempting to re-create every individual weather station report for every single plant in a collection, even a small one, in a single growing area is simply an impossible assignment. H

orchid126, what would I do ...well, in Russia, I grew all the things I miss now; in winter - african violets, etc. Lived in Philly some... Never had an orchids until I moved here hey, i am by no means bragging about the super-duper Florida conditions. I am in zone 9 - not even perfect 10, where it hardly freezes. It gets cold, and that is why I try to grow a lot of plants that tolerate a wide range of conditions like Cattleya intermedia. My dream is to grow Masdevallia coccinea and Standard Cymbidiums, in bloody-red color. But I cannot and I won't. Once again, different gardening philosophies: I grow what I can :) and as for super florida...it comes with super bugs - lost half an orchid yesterday to a giant grasshopper, like the one in the picture - yuck http://www.mineralogicalassociation.ca/devYoung/images_page/Grasshopper.jpg Honestly, I would love to grow northern plants again; I started tropicals after trying too hard to grow daffodils, perfect roses, peonies, strawberries and such here, and then giving up. Took me two years to give it up and start with Elephant Ears and orchids..This is where "I grow what I can" philosophy kicked in. Maybe, maybe...given time and resources, I admit, I would not mind a greenhouse I could grow masdies and disas in ...maybe. Olya

WC8 - The ikea fixture (around 8 dollars I think) is essentially a light socket attached to a cord that you plug into a regular 2 pronged electric outlet. What's neat about it is that it has a ring of plastic that can screw in around the socket. Here are some diagrams I made quickly..it's kind of hard to explain in words! The parts. Sorry the font is so small! Something went weird when I resized the pictures. Essentially the batwing thing can be made if you're savvy with hardware...you can bend an aluminium sheet into the shape, drill some holes into the top and paint the inside white. I bought mine for 27 dollars, including the metal mount. The ikea thing is 8 bucks, and the 65W bulb was about 30 bucks. Wire for mounting the entire thing onto my shelf was 4 dollars. The total is around 70 dollars, but you can probably get it cheaper if you made it yourself (ie cutting drainage pipes in half etc..) Here is the ikea socket in detail. If you can't find this, then you can buy a metal clamp with a screw-on ring from HD which accomplishes the same thing. I have that on the setup in the photo above, since I'm not using an ikea socket there (couldn't find it until a few days ago) and just a regular socket. And here is the complete thing: Clara: Just another AWESOME bonus of these lights! I haven't monitored heat in detail, but with the 65W and the 4 24Ws under the hood, I do feel like things are significantly balmier. With a fan, hopefully things will be a bit more cool, but as you said: In winter, things get chilly, so the heat during the day is a big plus! What a great way to get the diurnal drop. The phal leaf went like that in like a week, and none of the other phals around it (same artificial lighting since I brought 'em in) are fine...so I fear for the worst. I'm going home to check on them tomorrow...fingers are crossed!

Ok, I will sincerely apologize to you, Jane. I did assume it was you. Since you were the one I called out for (as I perceived it) trying to pick a fight with CJ, it only made sense that it would be you. In fact, it didn't make any sense that it could be anyone else. I thought maybe Clara, but as you'll see below, I only corrected some Ang info. that she posted so I ruled her out. So again, i'm sorry for the false accusation. Thanks to pcan, here is the (shortened) deleted post: "This thread is about Sam's blasted Leonis buds right? While it is always nice to see and smell Ang flowers, I would be thrilled just to know that a plant I received was absolutely blooming size. Buds are very likely to blast when forced to go through such radical changes in such a short timeframe. In the future, if you have a choice, go for plants that are just starting their spikes. If the buds can develop in *your* conditions, they're more likely to make it. I suspect the problem could have been from condensation within and between the tissues inside the buds when the temps dropped at night. I'd try to decrease the air circulation somewhat. The main reason I use a fan all the time is to blow the vapor from the humidifier around and to blow the spray from the mist nozzles around. If I wasn't so lazy I would have long ago hooked the fan up to the timer that controls the misters so it could be off when mist doesn't need to be dispersed. A (Clara)fication regarding Angs is also needed. She said that some Aeranthes/hybrids are less demanding. That is not true. They're not less demanding than leonis, nor Angraecums in general. In fact, most Aeranthes grow in evergreen, riverine, moss forest type situations that are constantly humid and moist. Those conditions are significantly harder to duplicate than conditions that will suit most Angraecums. Having said that, one could infer from what she said, that a hybrid with Aeranthes grandiflora would be less demanding... and while still not true, one *could* grow that with minimal extra fussing. But i digress... Hillerman makes a clear point in one of his writings about the cultivation of Angraecoid orchids wherein he describes how difficult it is to duplicate the 'long wet' cycles that they go through in the wild. It just isn't practical, even in a GH, to stand there and hose them down for hours on end...which is pretty much what it would take to duplicate the torrential rains they get coupled with very high humidity. In most cases, they dry out too fast, as anyone who has grown mounts indoors has found. Especially if there is a fan going, you can spray a plant for ten minutes until it is sopping wet, come back in 15 minutes and it will be dry again. Hillerman's solution is soaking the plants for at least 30 minutes as often as daily. In the winter, I soak them about once a week if they have growing root tips, less often if they don't. This is *in addition* to regular mistings and regular doses of vapor. The point of the preceding, other than providing tips on Ang growing, is to point out that one must jump through certain hoops to grow certain kinds of orchids. If you can't jump all the way through them, you're only going to have limited success. " Hopefully the true complainer is not [actually] offended by Ang-related info! If that's the case...this post will likely get deleted...so copy and paste with elan, while you can. ;-)