So here's my take. There could be something wrong or it could be just a freak occurrence. Like Andrea mentioned this could have been caused by a draft, or the opposite by being overexposed to heat (not sure what kind of heating you have in your house). If you fertilized recently that could also be the culprit, I've heard of early flower demise & bud blast from fertilizing during bloom, however I've never seen it myself. I don't know how much fertilizer you give the orchid when you water, but don't forget that orchids really do only need a minuscule amount. That said, there's also a chance that your orchid is slowly going downhill. You say that nothing has really changed over the course of the year, but you have to take into account the changing levels of light especially in winter. To give us a better idea of growing conditions, how close is the orchid to the window? How much light does the window really get? For reference, I grow my phals in a southern window in the winter. I imagine that in zone 4 in a northwest window your phal gets about 1 hr of sunlight per day, if that? That's probably not enough light to sustain 20-30 blooms for an extended period of time. There's also a chance that the medium that the orchid is growing in is breaking down (I assume you have never re-potted the orchid) and suffocating the roots that are inside. Once your plant is done blooming, it would probably recommend re-potting it, unless you already did so when you bought it. Fortunately, they days are getting longer and your plant should be getting more and more light. Overall it sounds like you're on the right track, so keep up the great work. If possible, I would consider moving the phal to a brighter window next winter so that it gets a little more light, that way it will be able to keep up it's wonderful display. Best of luck, ~Jem

willard, you've posted that list before, but I guess I've never given it serious thought until now (well, now I have that problem). I see a few items on the list that may apply. -now that there's very little rain I've been having to water it with city water, which has a very high calcium content, among other things. -I haven't seen as many bees around as I used to see, but I don't imagine that's the issue when pods aren't even opening. - I've seriously cut back on the nitrogen I give it because I have heard before that it has a negative effect on pod development. -size of pot, yeah, they're 3-4ft tall in 5 gallon buckets, 2 per bucket. that's probably an issue. -too much grower attention, guilty as charged. -there's plenty of light to be had, and air circulation is never an issue. -too low humidity is never an issue here in FL, but what about too high humidity? I'd imagine that could make the pollen clump together and not do its job. am I off base on that one? so it looks like 5 out of 11 on that list may/do apply to me. I guess I'm screwed. there's nothing I can do about the water, short of having to filter it, I guess I can put them in the ground like I did with my brain strain (which currently has 10 pods growing, one of which is mostly ripe), and I don't suppose I could bribe the bees to come back, could I? Josh, I've never fully understood what I was supposed to do when they tell you the strength to mix the fert. is the intention that you mix one tbsp per gal (or whatever it says) and water the plants fully with that? what I usually do is mix slightly below recommended strength, and only give each plant a little bit of the fert-water mix (I mix up a 2 gal watering can, and divide it roughly evenly among my 10 pots), then come back and finish watering with normal water, that way I don't over fertilize. am I doing it wrong? I've never seen any leaf burn. but yes, the leaves that fall off are usually still quite green, but not really all that healthy looking.

RE: How low can they go? Forget the theories, the blogs, what he said, she said. I speak of my own real life experience. My personal experience (gardening in GA and WA) shows that tomato plants are much tougher than most gardeners think. Just take this season: I planted out starting April 15 but bulk of them around April 20th. (Our Last Frost Dat is about April 5th) From then up until early July we had lows in 40s(95%). There were maybe a total of 10 nights when lows dropped to under 41 to 37F. I did nothing as far as protecting my plants. They sailed though. It is also true that my plant grew at a much slow rate. But even then I harvested my first ripe tomato on July 8th. Has it been warmer that could've happened 2 weeks earlier. If I wanted to wait for perfect plant out weather, it would have been in July.

I was not so much thinking of the house size changing as I was what size/cost it would be to justify the $375K reduction in labor. Example being if the original quote was $1M for 5,000 sq ft so $200/sq ft. While this rule-of-thumb can change dramatically based on location & several other factors, I usually would break down the split to 40% materials, 40% labor, & 20% GC profit & overhead. This assumes you own the land (which it sounds like you do from your original post)so it is not part of the $1M. A +/- 10% variation from those percentages would cover most the US construction market. So if those percentages & the starting point of $1M are anywhere close to accurate, that means the original labor would have been $400,000 and to drop that by $375,000 to $25,000 is obviously not realistic. Now if the GC gives up 5% for a 15% profit/overhead & the materials are @ 35% (5% lower than in the original estimate) that means the labor is now getting 50%. Given the build dropped from $1M to $625,000 that gives the labor a price of $312,500. This is a labor $ drop of $87,500 which is much more realistic in a down market. If this is a $2M build then the labor could certainly absorb more of that $375K drop. The primary point being I doubt the 2 balconies & the labor costs resulted in the full $375K reduction. The builder is probably taking a reduction as well but did not want to say so to save a little face & I would still question the finishes. As housecrazy pointed out more clearly, it would be hard to capture in a contract all the specific details. Select red oak @ $6/sq ft versus $3/sq ft for red oak, a $20 water faucet in the kids bathroom instead $50, nails & staples versus glued down & screwed, $10 door handles versus $45 for interior doors, oak moulding versus pine moulding versus paint grade moulding, $150 double-hung windows versus $400, $0.39 receptacles versus $1.39 ones, 1/2" sheetrock versus 5/8", Advantech flooring versus typical OSB, $6,000 front entry door versus $600, & the list could go on & on. 1000's of items. That much detail is hard to capture in the contract so hopefully you have covered the ones that will keep the majority of the costs down.