I've had a few glasses of wine, so I'll join in the fun!

For the most part, I share your 3 strikes and your out rule. Paphs for me. I kill every one I've had, but I've finally started getting a couple types to last longer than half a year. It came down to two things in my case: using finer grade of bark (I have had a fixation on medium/large bark and sphag mix for the last decade), and not being so hesitant with the water. Once I started watering every other day or so during the summer instead of once a week (maybe a little less), a few things perked up.

Phal violacea falls into the camp of "I always kill but will never give up". I wish I could quit it, but I had a healthy one growing well once upon a time and its worth it to get that fragrance back.

For your formula, truth is any plant is easy to grow if you give it the culture it wants. Over a decade as a professional horticulturist in greenhouses and gardens with a couple research degrees under my belt has taught me the formula truly comes down to:

Appropriate moisture + appropriate light + appropriate temperature = Success

I place particular emphasis on moisture: Pots and media are merely variables in controlling moisture. And don't forget that light/temp/moisture are inextricably linked: high light/heat increases evapo-transporation, low light/cool temps slow it down.

So you can use light and heat for controlling moisture as well, to the extent that the plant still grows well.

This post was edited by terpguy on Fri, Mar 7, 14 at 23:58

Oooooh, you tricked me. With my own wine intake I missed the fact that you weren't talking about "The formula for successfully growing a plant". You were hitting a slightly different angle.

You can't say "Any orchid can grow anywhere given the proper culture" because in all but one case (explained below) it contradicts itself. Fundamentally, proper culture and "anywhere" may be inherently incompatible.

Cultural plasticity - tolerance for a wide range of cultural conditions - is the key: different species have greater plasticity than others. Phals can be grown any way you can imagine: slightly cooler, hot, mounted, potted, lower light, Cattleya light. Ludisia can only be grown in pots. Paphs are intermediate: generally should be in pots, but there are a few species that can survive mounted if given enough moisture.

Plants that have great plasticity are the one exception that actually fits your statement. Your statement becomes self contradicting when a plant has limited plasticity. Draculas will never survive in the full sun environment you find Vandas preferring.

This post was edited by terpguy on Fri, Mar 7, 14 at 23:56

Phal Violacea is on my strike out list, but I've never seen one flowering in person so the scent could change that. I have never had any luck with Paphs either but I won't black list an entire group of plants only specific individuals.

The plants I refuse to give up on is where the formula comes into play. My environment is limited to a sun room inside my home and my zone 6 back yard in summer. So what I try to do is, pick a potting method ( which sometimes is no pot and sometimes 2 pots) a potting media, ( which may be no media), and match those to a watering schedule and a place in my growing area. I picked up a infrared thermometer which helps with the placement in the room, I have found up to a 10 degree temp difference from the floor on one end and the ceiling on the other. Light levels are easy to control with window placement and using some plants to shade others.

I can't say it works for everything but I will say that I have been able to expand on what I can grow quite a bit by experimenting with different formulas.

James

Speaking of Paphs, that brings up another area for successfully growing most orchid genera; and that is their original habitat: what conditions do they grow under at 'home?' That's part of providing the right culture, but is frequently forgotten. Using Paphs as an example, some Paphs are cooler-growing, while others are warmer-growing. Generally, the way to tell the difference is that the warm growers have mottled leaves rather than the solid green of the cool ones. I found I can grow the warm ones but clobber the cool-growers. Seems to hold true with their hybrids as well. As additional insurance, I only buy mature, multi-growth plants -- I have killed too many single-growth ones, even if they had mottled leaves.

This same principle goes across the board to many orchid genera. There are warmer- and cooler-growers in most, even Pleurothallids and Cattleyas as examples. Living in N. Florida and formerly S. Florida, I long ago learned I cannot grow orchids such as Miltoniopsis, cool-growing Phals, and the more decorative Masdies. Just doesn't work, although they may linger on the edge for a year or two. There are too many other wonderful orchids to grow that will do well here.

Agree with 3 strikes and you are out ------ don't necessarily follow it.

After 2 strikes I take pause and try to find out as much as possible about the natural environment of the failing plant. I also try to identify a grower who successfully grows them. I have tried over and over again with Dendrobium cuthbersonii and have always failed . So I finally talked to Tom Perlite from Golden Gate Orchids who grows these things like I grow Dandelion and got some hints from him. Now it takes me 2 years to kill them instead of one. I have finally given up on these little beauties.

Dendrobium nobile is another example. No matter how closely I follow the instructions as to how to grow them, winter rest etc, I cannot get a decent bloom. Either they don't bloom or they make a few lackluster blooms. So I finally talked to the grower in Hawaii who is the source of most of the commercial nobiles you see on the market every spring. Success, last spring all 3 of mine bloomed ------------ with a few lackluster flowers! Enough, they went on the plant table of my society and I'm done with them.

Miltoniopsis; Killed every one of them in the past. Finally talked to Theresa Hill form Hillcrest Orchids who grows beautiful Miltoniopsis. Her advice was simple, keep them cool in the summer, warm in the winter, they like to be within 5F of 60F. Doing this I am now growing them successfully, meaning the plant is increasing in size. Last year they even bloomed, one or two spikes on a large plant. That should have been 10 spikes or more. So I'm not there yet and unless they pick it up may also give up on them but not yet.

Parvisepalum Paphiopedeliums: I just got started with these so have no failures to report. Go to the Gallery where you see an entry I placed yesterday of my first success with Paph armeniacum. They also have a reputation of being a little difficult and I had a discussion with Dr Holger Perner at the San Francisco show who thinks most people are growing them wrong. Most people treat them as cold growers. True in the winter but not true in the summer. In their natural habitat, the ones from China get treated to a bright, sunny, cold, dry winter and a shady, hot, humid and very wet summer. The result of the monsoon season there. So unlike Dracula who should be kept as cold as possible in the summer, these Paphs should go in the warm greenhouse and drenched every day.

Since there are 35,000 species of orchids available, I generally don't mess with ones that don't like me. My greenhouse is full of robustly growing plants. Not because I'm a genius but because that is the price they have to pay in order to stay. If a plant lingers, grows poorly and fails to bloom, I will get rid of it. Visitors to my growing area think I do magic because most plants look very healthy when in fact it is a process of throwing them against the wall and if they don't stick, they don't stay. There are innumerable others to replace...

I tend to agree/ disagree with multiple try rule. I'm finding that any kind of vandaceous orchids are disagreeing with me. Had a couple phals for the last couple years and even though they grow nicely, I'm finding fewer flowers on them every year. Have an almost dead aerangis modesta, killed an angraecum leonis. Also killed a masdevallia veitchana, I tried hard but still failed. I'm not ready to try them again, maybe in a few years.

I prefer to focus on what I'm successful with. Having lots of luck with the catts, mottle leafed paphs, phrags, dends of all kinds (except latourea) and stanhopeas. I think I'm going to stick with them for a while. They're enough to keep me occupied. I feel bad when they die.

I feel your pain c Masdavalias ans Miltoniopsis, James. And the Vandaceous Orchids are a problem too.
I tend toward towards Phalaenopsis and Oncidiums. I also have success c Paphs and Phrags.
I've had to go back to the Orchid Kiddie Pool since I moved to the Midwest. It's a whole new ball game up here climate wise.
Back in So Fla I could grow just about any epiphyte on the face of the right tree or on a wooden fence.
Now I struggle to keep humidity up in the long Winter months.

Orchid forum lurker. Hey, that is me! I went through my orchid years, and enjoyed them quite a bit. Learned a lot, too. But the truth is, I tend to dislike caring for indoor plants, and concentrate on exterior growers. After a while, those 85+ indoor orchids had me wondering if the care was worth the return.

First I weeded out the ones that would not thrive. Then the common and inexpensive to replace with blooming plants got adopted out (phals go in this group--why expend a year or two of care when $8-15 will get me a 2-3 spike plant and 6 months of flowers?). The ones that were reluctant to rebloom went next. I am down to no more than 6 houseplants now, orchids included.

Instead, I focus on orchids that can easily be grown outdoors in SoCal; Cymbidiums, Sobralias, Dendrobiums, Oerstedella, Bletilla. I shove them into a garden corner, (or in the case of the common Bletilla in the ground as a groundcover), occasionally fertilize or transplant them, and they reward me with flowers every year. No fussing.

Seven years ago I could easily have given you a list of orchids that I struggled growing, and then would occasionally be rewarded with flowers. But now my success rate is leaning towards 100%. :-)

My yard has been a frozen waste land covered in snow, so any gardening I want to do is restricted to the indoors. A few months from now it will be Africa hot outside and I will struggle to keep everything cool and watered.

Part of what I enjoy about this hobby is finding ways to grow things I shouldn't be able to. There's something about having a plant in a New Jersey window think its on the side of a mountain in Brazil.

CJ, I plan to add a some Paphs this year so I will keep your advise in mind. I usually buy smaller plants thinking a young plant will adapt better than a older established plant.

Nick, I sure everyone feels a little better knowing that even you struggle with some plants. Your comments are always informative and provide an interesting perspective.

Ashes, a few times when I couldn't succeed with a plant I would look for that plant crossed with something else. They usually have a similar look but are a bit easier to grow. Neofinetia = dead dead dead. Neostylis = doing good.

James

If I didn't have my indoor plants, esp the ones that bloom in the bleak days of Winter, I think I would eat the walls by mid January. I never had indoor plants in Florida because I was always outside...
I also have some Aroids and some African Violets that bloom regularly.
I have a few plants that go semi to fully dormant during the Winter and need little to no light or water. They grow happily outdoors during our brief and blessed summers.

Hi
Thought I'd throw in my two cents. I'm not allowd to drink so forgive my bad typing??lol
I think if I had to provide a GH or grow them indoors I wouldn't grow orchids at all. Certainly true of my water plants if I had to contend with winter i wouldn;t keep them.
My original introduction to orchids was a gift from a neighbor . Hung them in the screen room where they continued to thrive . In fact still have 5 of the original 10.
All were catts and epicatts two vandas. Since then the only ones that I have bought were the "floofy hybrid catts with the gaudy flowers
I'm now getting old and have downsized much of my plants and concentrating on the "landscape". My entire canopy was destroyed by the hurricanes but has recovered so now concentrating on "garden Landscape plants with an emphasis on oddball epiphytes . I did rip out a section and going with a Tree fern epi planting . So far it's going good ,can't wait to try some orchids in the area as well as some oddball epi ferns .
Orchids have not been my most difficult but understory palms SOOOO many problems lol
My own philosophy is based on price if I can find plants I killed at a reasonable price ?? I do try to keep track of why I think they failed and to make changes to the culture . Interesting disssusion