Congratulations, you did a great job. A beautiful plant should not be looked at as disposable. You can have blooms each year which will last for months and months. As the plant ages, you can have multiple spikes with loads of flowers. Good for you, you have good gardening skills. When you got your plant it was blooming in December. Your Phal is a winter bloomer. It will grow this spring and summer making leaves and roots. Fertilize with normal orchid fertilizer weakly. In the fall, the days shorten and the temps start dropping. The Phal needs about 6 weeks of cool nights to initiate spikes - not positive if its 6 weeks or 4 weeks (you can look that up). They need a temp difference between warm and cold such as day temps in the 70's, nights in the 60's. Try to give it as much light without burning the leaves. Don't overwater, but do fertilize while you see growth. I do not fertilize while in flower, but other people do. You can try it both ways. Good luck, and please post back. Jane

Unfortunately you've got several hurdles to contend with to grow Cattleyas in the home up there. The species tend to be pickier about specific conditions, some more than others, but even among the hybrids, you'll have to be pretty selective to find ones that will grow well without herculean efforts. Mini-catts, which are targeted in no small part to home/windowsill growers, are probably your safest bet in that family. 55-60F is OK-good for a night time minimum for many Cattleyas, but much too cool a daytime temperature. Orchids generally require a pretty big day/night differential to grow well and in some cases, flower at all. Cattleyas as an over-generalized group tend, unfortunately, to fall into this category. I do think you'll need some kind of supplemental lighting, especially for the several months per year when you'll have barely any daylight at all, and what there is, will be weak. As for the kind of lighting you'd need, I tend to think you'd need an HID for full-sized plants, but you could grow compact/miniatures under fluorescents. You'll probably also need to do something about raising the humidity around your plants - with cool indoor and frigid outdoor temps, I'm guessing it gets awfully dry indoors up there during the winter.

Matt could not be more right. It is difficult and takes specialized equipment. It's not as simple as planting some seeds and watching them grow. Sterile culture is involved. Look up the term both Arthr and Matt used: flasking. As a beginner I also urge you to focus first on learning how to grow the plants. Without that you'd never get the babies to grow. After a few years when you know you can grow and rebloom them, then you can think about attempting the process. During the time definitely educate yourself on the flasking process. Buy some compots and grow them up. Buy a flask and try to grow it up. Basically, your best bet at success is to build up to doing it all on your own, which I assume is your goal. Arthur's advice is also priceless (though I might be putting words in his mouth): go ahead and pollinate your plants. Get that experience. There are also labs that will grow the seeds for you. Lots of ways to go about this!

Hello cutterpup, It sounds like the tropical sundews are about right for the height and non-dormancy requirements. Drosera spatulata, Drosera adelae, Drosera prolifera, and Drosera alicia are some of the sundews that are easy growers and about 3-4 inches in rosette or height at the most. Some of the Butterworts might be worth a try as most grow low rosettes and some, like the Mexican species, grow year round and produce beautiful flowers. Cephalotus follicularis might be worth a try even though it is considered a semi-temperate as it would enjoy the temperatures you can provide and will only rest for a short time in winder, not go completely dormant. If you can get more space, a Nepenthes would eventually be worth a try as they are large beautiful plants, some liking a drop in night temperatures as well. Nepenthes can be slow growing, so if you get one that is only a few inches tall, it might take a couple of years to grow too large for your setup. They eventually vine out and some species have been reported growing out to 20-30 feet across the ground or up trees in the wild though you can clip and trim them, producing cuttings to make more plants. My Nepenthes sanguinea was about 3 inches tall when I received it, producing 2 1/2 inch pitchers. Now, only 4 months later, it is still only about 4 inches tall and producing 4 inch pitchers.