"I dont want to play the in/out game, where plants are moved inside one night then back outside the next warmer day, be it moving the whole collection or certain plants that may or may not like it that cold" Well,that's certainly how I felt last year. So a cold wet spell early in September brought all the phals in for the "winter". But that cold wet spell was followed by more than two weeks of glorious warm weather. Night (day as well) temperatures are extremely variable here this time of year. A night of 58 can be followed by a night of 72. The solution, for anyone who wants to try it, is to put the orchids on biggish two-shelf carts. These hold a lot of plants, and can be wheeled in or out in about 5 minutes. You can have one cart for "warmer" and one for "cooler", and then might only need to bring in one cart. The carts also enable me to protect them from bad storms or several days of cold/dim/wet which we get every year. Shade cloth is easy to rig, supported by the carts themselves. This spring I found that in direct sun, temperatures on the cart are at least 70-80 even if the ambient temperature is 55 or so. So being outside on sunny days, not only gives them glorious sun, but also much more warmth than they would get indoors. Using the carts this spring, I was able to have phals outdoors from the end of March and got wonderful growth and spikes on every mature phal, over 20 of them spiking. By April, they needed shade cloth! This fall, based on last year's weather they should be able to be outside most days til at least the middle or end of October, maybe even later. An example: yesterday and today were warm and humid-- temperature in the 80's, nights in the 70's. Tomorrow we get up to 6" of rain from Ike, some quite heavy, and they will come in tonight and stay in til Monday morning, when the rain will be over and the sun bright again, but the day cool. In Monday night for the low of 50F, out Tuesday, etc. It may seem like a lot of trouble, but it takes no more time than filling a couple of glasses with ice to take to my desk, and it shortens the winter here by about 4 months. And to me, THAT is priceless. My only problem with orchids are the long, long winters. If you grow indoors til nights reliably above 60 in Spring (end of May) and from same in Fall (early Sept), the "winter" is 8 months long. Too long. By Feb, I can barely stand the mess and clutter one more second. The carts shorten the winter to 4-5 months, a little over half. And that's worth 10' a day to me move the carts in and ouf for a few months. Hope this can be of use to someone, since it took me 5 years to evolve this solution. (Yes, sometimes I'm pretty slow)

in livonia.. i learned to consider these short lived plants ... living and prospering only until mother nature took them away ... one bad winter.. relish it while you can ... in whatever form it is in.. and what they said as to pruning ... the only one that got as big as you described.. didnt come back the next spring ... who knows if it was me or winter.. that did it.. for all i know.. i pruned it down that fall prior. . lol ... ken

Hello Shorjai, I wouldn't bring yours out just yet...like Andrew and the others mentioned...wait until these cold nights break.. My temps here in VB are so unstable right now...i just brought all of mine in again for the...5th time..LOL...im not taking a chance...we are looking for the lows tonight around 40* As far as watering...have you given it any water over the winter? If not, then you need to give it a little...they still need a little water while they are dormant... Just to be on the safe side...i would keep it inside, give it some water...depending how large your container is...for my 5 gallon containers..every month during the dormant season i would give them about 2 cups of water...then let them dry out...for the smaller containers..lets say i gallon..1/2 -3/4 cup of water...per month. if it has been bone dry all winter...please give it a drink...it will be very happy that you did!!! Be patient..wait for the temps to be above 45-50 at night before you bring them outside..then you will know they will be safe...place them in a sunny window and let them adjust to the sunlight if you have had them in a dark or somewhat dark area for the winter... You can always give them a "wake up" drink of water with some Epsom Salt in it to help them "awaken" from there time sitting.... some use 1 tablespoon of EP per gallon...I use 2-3 tsps per gallon... Hope this helps... Please feel free to ask any questions.... Take care everyone... Laura in VB

Well, the weather Lady solved it yesterday morning. She predicted 30's for last night, so I moved them inside. It got down to 35. I put them in my Dads old house, in the sunniest room for now. It stays above 50 and gets morning to midday sun. I am remodeling it and sweet thing liked that idea better than putting them in our kitchen.:) I won't have much sun in my sunniest room, the kitchen, until the leaves fall off of my oak trees.