1) yes 2) yes, never let the soil go completely dry; neither, do you want it to be excessively wet. 3) Frozen roots do not necessarily mean a dead plant, or even an injured plant. Commonly, each species of plant has a general range of cold-hardiness, but within species and cultivar, cold-hardiness is genetically determined. That is to say that a plant that is propagated from cuttings or tissue culture will have the same ability to resist cold as the parent plant. Plants cannot "develop" a greater degree of cold-hardiness by repeated or prolonged exposure to cold, even after 100 years (trees). If we pick any plant at random, it may or may not be able to withstand freezing temperatures. The determining factor is the plants ability to prevent freezing of bound water. Bound water is the water inside of cell walls. There are actually three kinds of water to consider when we discuss "freezing" or cold-hardiness. The water held in soil - When this water freezes, and it can freeze the soil mass solid, it doesn't necessarily kill the plant or tissues. Then there is free or unbound water, also called inter-cellular water - This is water that is found in plant tissues, but is outside of living cells cells. This water can also freeze solid and not kill the plant. The final type of water is bound water, or intra-cellular water - If temperatures drop low enough to freeze bound water, the frozen cells and the tissues they form die. This is the freeze damage that kills plants. Fortunately, nature has an antifreeze. Even though temperatures drop well below freezing, all plants don't die. In hardy plants, physiological changes occur as temperatures drop. The plant moves solutes (sugars, salts, starches) into cells and moves water out of cells to inter-cellular spaces in tissues. These solutes act as antifreeze, allowing water in cells to remain liquid to sometimes extremely low temperatures. The above is a description of super-cooling in plants. Some plants even take advantage of another process to withstand very low temps called intra-cellular dehydration. Any/all parts of your plants can stay frozen for extended periods or go through multiple freeze/thaw cycles w/o damage, so long as the temperature does not fall below that required to freeze intra-cellular water. If roots remain frozen, but temperatures remain above killing lows, dessication is the primary concern. If the tree is able to take up water, but temperatures are too low for the tree to grow and make food, stored energy becomes the critical issue. Dormant and quiescent plants are still using energy from their reserves (like a drain on a battery). If those reserves are depleted before the plant can produce photosynthesizing mass, the organism dies. There are a number of cultural factors that also have some affect on the cold-hardiness of individual plants, some of which are length of exposure to seasonal cold, water availability (drought stressed plants are more cold tolerant), how recently planted/repotted, etc. I bet that was more than you bargained for, but I copy/pasted most of it from a reply I'd left somewhere previously. Al

Again - a plethora of great info! Thanks! The vanda is a Dr. Bai #2. The bathroom is actually fairly large and foolishly has a cathedral ceiling, but yes, still the smallest room to heat. The glassblock window is not only huge, but also one of the new ones that is actually some sort of glass and plastic form, so it gets good light and does not get cold like the older ones that had actual glassblock with grout. The room already has several CFL's, so how lucky is that???? I'll just upgrade and get a couple of cheapy CFL fixtures to supplement. How will the Cid's fit in to this scenario? Any difference in how I should treat blooming Cid vs non-blooming Cids as I make this transition? I am going to go ahead and move the non-blooming Phals in there and get a portable heater as you have all suggested. The bathroom is our master and also adjacent to our closet, so the heat won't be totally for the orchids! We have been using a tiny space heater in there just to shower all this week. Any suggestions on a bell-curve of temperatures throughout the day...highest temp and for how many hours? Again, thanks to all of you...

It's a good time to brush & clean the bottom dirt & slime out of them. I have 7 barrels & I empty them! Last winter, I had a hard time getting the hoses off the fittings - (the hoses harden up on the fitting barbs and when I mess with the fittings trying to get the hoses off, the fittings start to leak) This year, I emptied them, cut the hoses between each barrel, then installed a male and female hose mender on the hose between each barrel, so that I can just unscrew the hose coupling and move the barrel for cleaning and/or storage. Don't leave the water in them! It can crack the barrels and it is not worth it! It is also nice to start out the season with nice clean barrels! Paul

we all cross this bridge with indoor TREES!!!! time to buy spousey a new babe... and youth-in-ize grandpa ... wrapping the roots might help.. but that would obviously not protect tender foliage .... i presume.. since its inside .. and probably eating up you house... it will stay for now ... but you better get a grip on reality.. and understand.. that at 10 foot or more next year.. it will not be coming indoors.. and be left to the vagaries of mother nature... and she is a cruel mistress ... sooner or later.. its gotta go ... ken