Hi, Sue, In the current Oak Hill Gardens newsletter, the growing tip is about Ghost Orchids. If you scroll down almost to the bottom of the page linked below, you'll see the section for News and Updates. They are successful in blooming these (check out the pix!), and their conditions are different from mine. That said, April before last, I spoke w/ Greg in person, describing my conditions for the Ghost. He thought the big vase/candle holder was a good idea for a home collector and said, as long as it's putting out new roots and having green-tipped roots, it'll bloom at some point. More orchid world ambiguity. :) Whitecat8 Here is a link that might be useful: OHG

Hello, Chris, Oh, my goodness gracious! Thank you so, so much for taking all the trouble to get that footage and then share it with us. Amazing. Hmmm - if mine ever blooms, I wonder if a Giant Sphinx Moth will zip up here to pollinate it? :) Naah - too many opportunities right where they are. You've done a great, delightful service for the orchid world. Beautiful Website, too. More thanks, Whitecat8

no idea depends on which species of ghost orchid it is basically

Debbie, I can give you this information: Learn as much as you can by reading about and researching the Ghost Orchid and its culture requirements. You "arm" yourself with the best information you can find, and then you have a "head-start" at growing the orchid. I have done the best job I could at trying my luck with the Ghost Orchid, but I am of the opinion that if a plant dies because "conditions" inside my greenhouse werent right, then I dont try growing it. Changing the conditions in a greenhouse is just too much work for me, so I attempt to fit the plant to the environment that I already have. My Ghost Orchid is kept in a 17x30 polycarbonate exterior greenhouse (along with my cattleya and vanda orchids) with a 63% shade cloth. Although I have a 63% shade cloth, my greenhouse is very bright. I imagine that the Ghost Orchid growing in the Fakahatchee Strand State Game Preserve gets "plenty" of light and high temperatures in atmosphere heavy with moisture, but my mounts here in SW Georgia do dry out between watering. The greenhouse has a concrete floor that I water down on the very hot days to increase the humidity and lower the temperature. There are two fans on the floor at the west end of the greenhouse that run 24/7, so the air circulation is very good. I try not to let the lowest winter night-time temperature get below 55degF, but it has dropped to 50 on occasion. I mist spray the entire greenhouse in the Smmer when the Smmer day-time temperature inside reaches 108degF. I would like to keep the Smmer daytime temperatures lower here, but again it would just be too much work for me to do more than I am now doing. In South Florida I know that the temperatures get pretty high, but as long as there is a high humidity, they seem to do pretty good. I know that if they stay wet, the roots will rot. When I first got the plants I also bought 'Plant Success' Fantastic Fungi micorrhizae tablets from Charleys Greenhouse to spray and dip the plant in occasionally (product #7170 - 75 tablets for $19.95). Also, when I first got the plants I kept them hanging beneath a plastic bell. The plastic vented plant protector (product #1747 - Solar Bell - 3 per pak, 13" diam. x 10" high for $19.95) is from Charleys Greenhouse too. When the plants started to really grow, I removed them from under the plastic bell. The clear plastic bell didnt provide any shade but was used to keep any drafts off the young tender plantlets and to hold the humidity around them. The mature plant hangs in the center of the greenhouse on the east end facing south and are out of the direct flow of air which would dry them out too quickly here where I live. I do fertilize it with Better-Gro fertilizer, and I also use Superthrive. I dip the entire mount into a large pail of the fertilizer - Superthrive - water, sometimes several times a day. (I use 1/2 tsp fertilizer and 2 or 3 drops of the Superthrive per gallon of water.) With my environment during the Summer, with the air flow I have and the high temperatures, the mounts dry out within an hour or two. I fertilized the Ghost Orchid pretty often from last September to March, but I slacked off when it actually started blooming. During that period from September to March, I was also using Superthrive in the fertilizing solution. I use "Orthene" as a systemic pesticide. It works good for me, and I have used it on the Ghost Orchid to get rid of wooly scale. Years ago, when I first got the Ghost Orchids, I mounted them on a larger mount, but I didn't remove them from the mount they came on. I just attached that mount to the larger one that I had. Hope this information will be helpful.