Honestly I find the more I remove myself from the care of my plants the better they do. I've tried so many things like humidifiers, heaters, grow lights, I even bought a misting system for amphibians and built a glass case for some plants. It all got to time consuming and costly to keep up so finally just went with the room at its normal light, temperature and humidity. I devote one morning a week which is Sunday from 6AM to 9AM to watering, if I have time I water a few plants again on Wednesday. I use a pump sprayer to water so I can control the water flow. I like to spray a small amount of water over a longer period of time instead of dumping water into the pot and having it spill right out the bottom. I feel this gives more time to let the roots soak up water. For plants in standard pots I will even put my finger over the drainage hole for a minute to be sure everything is saturated. MOunted plants and plants in baskets I will soak in a bucket of water for 5 minutes or so. You have to change the water between plants to prevent spreading bugs or disease. I use the waste water for my dirt plants. For plants that don't like to be dry I use semi hydroponic pots with hydroton as a media, I also have switched some plants to hydroton as the media in regular pots. Sometimes its hard to find good potting bark, I find a lot of places store their potting media outside where it gets wet and breaks down so if the bag isn't clear I don't buy it. As for suggestions on fragrant plants I like Zygopetalums are great, the scent can fill the room. I like the BLC Tangs and LC love knot are good because the bloom a few times a year. Brassavola Nodosa and Angracums are nice because they are fragrant at night. Check out the Oakhill gardens site. They have a list of fragrant plants , I also see they have a Angracum Sesquipedale in seedling size. Good luck

I've only been an orchid addict for about 3 years - mainly have phals, a dendrobium, a vanda and now 2 cattalyea's. I live in Zone 5 (PA) and my phals and den rebloom with many large blooms every year. They sit on or near my window sills and I do not add any humidity, though I do have them grouped, so that may help. I also (due to fear of bugs/aphids) do not put them outside for the summer. Maybe I've just been lucky - but, I also do not mist - unless I just mist the aerial roots. I'm afriad I'd get crown rot. This coming winter, I may add a vaporizer to see if it makes a difference. Maybe humidity for what I'm growing isn't truly necessary, maybe they just adapt to the growing conditions.

Arthrum: good point, the temps in my house are only kept above 65 degrees, but it still seems that some temperature hardy plants still show dislike of my repotting... Dbarron: oh my! Sounds like a tragedy! I get upset enough when I break of a new shoot! Vtandrea: thanks for the suggestion! I'll definitely try it on one of my oncidiums! Jane: I live in the Oakland hills in the SF Bay Area. I grow almost all my indoor orchids in the same spot, positioned around a fireplace to control the amount of light. The facing of the house isn't the best. 80% of the light is late morning to afternoon sun . 90% of the windows are west facing :( like the house... The problem might be I repotted at the wrong time. I didn't a lot of reporting in the winter/ late fall (whoops...)

Richard, it is your last sentence which really tells the tale. So many mycorrhizal preparations have had meager research results and it seems likely that getting the fungi to survive in their new home is a large part of it. This is a rapidly changing field of investigation though, and I can report that "helper bacteria", which appear to set the table, so to speak for the mycorrhizal organisms are being looked at. We talked about that complexity earlier and this is one such area of further detail that is being worked out....or at least that's the goal. The other stumbling block is that strains of these various mycorrhizal fungi can be host-specific. Not in every case mind you, but for some plants, there is one and only one fungal partner. So take larch for an easy example: They appear to "work with" the bolete (a type of mushroom) Suillus grevellei almost exclusively. And Suillus grevellei may not partner with an adjacent species. Not wishing to talk out of my depth here, I'm going to leave it at that. I may be interested in this stuff and have been for decades now, but I'm no mycologist, and should one wander in here, they could perhaps see some problems with bits that I've written. Overall though, this is what appears to be happening. I do not see any harm however in "inoculating" with a bit of forest soil. First, by volume, it's too little to get you into all the stuff we usually decry in soil amendments. Second, it just might work in some fashion............who knows?