I've been growing cattleya completely indoors, year round for more than 7 years now. Keep in mind the vast majority of orchid growers prior to the past maybe 10 years were either outside, seasonally outside orchid growers or greenhouse growers. Most cultural guides you will find on google reflect this historical fact. In non tropical environments there are particular environmental/cultural conditions that are make or break for Cattleya due to colder temps under certain conditions. In a completely artificial environment you will have a different sets of problems to deal with:
1) airflow/ventilation - growing any indoor plant will benefit from gentle airflow and ventilation. water needs to be adjusted accordingly.
2) humidity- you shouldn't keep high humidity in your livable spaces for health considerations but you will benefit from keeping your humidity at least 40-50%. In the winter with the heaters on you can get really low humidity indoors. In an enclosed environment you have complete control.
3) temperature- cattleya will benefit from 75-85 degree days, some prefer higher... and 60-68 degree nights. if you have a completely enclosed/sealed indoor environment you will have no problems with this, certain compromises must be made if not.
I grow them with 11 hours in the winter and 12-13 hours in the summer. The DLI ranges from about 10-18 hours for all of my plants.
I have found that many cultural guides for cattleya reflect the temperate greenhouse centric view that has persisted for so long. After all, the foundations of the orchid hobby in the west are with insanely rich people, who had opulent conservatories, cared for by servants (some paid, some not) full of exotic orchids and tropical plants. Most indoor growers will not struggle with low light, low temperature, wet conditions that exist in temperate greenhouse culture.
A good example of this is cultural guides for Cattleya dowiana. This plant has no shortage of cultural guides and anecdotes about how not to kill off its roots in the winter and that its a very touchy or delicate plant. Hardly any of these tips are relevant to the indoor grower, in fact, you may end up more worried with getting your daytime temperature up than your nighttime temp to achieve the best results.
Bifoliate cattleya cultural guides are also littered with anecdotes by growers who had a "unifoliate" / western perspective. Similarly to Cattleya dowiana I have found that Cattleya violacea is not so finicky in the indoor environment. Reading older guides will convince you that the plant simply cannot be grown without advanced knowledge and a greenhouse.
It's 2020, a grow tent or appropriate room, a good light source and a basic understanding of orchid culture you can grow any cattleya you want. I'm not talking about an orchid "just surviving" indoors I'm talking about high quality specimen plant that will be indistinguishable from the plants grown by more privileged growers who dominate the hobby.
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