Vanda Night Lighting

[jpope42]

I relocated my Vandas to a tree about a month ago to get them more daylight. They seem to like the location so far, but the tree they hang in has landscape lights that are on all night. Will this be a problem over time since they won't have a dark rest period?

[Shadowmagic]

Night lighting can be detrimental to plants but I don't think there is much research on it.
It certainly won't kill your plant so the only downside is that it could mess with the plants flowering.

Unless someone has done an experiment to see the effects it is hard to tell if it will affect flowering or not. I would however tip on more likely to prevent flowering than not.

Is it worth experimenting? I'd say yes but then again it's not my plant. I once put one of mine outside and an hour later when I checked on it a slug had eaten away a whole root so that was the last time I experimented with that

[Ray]

Too many unknowns to properly answer.

As far as I am aware, vandas are not "day length"-controlled bloomers.

Just how much light do they get? Very large, bright lights might have an impact on their growth, but tiny landscape lights might not have enough output to matter much, if at all.

[jpope42]

Thanks for the replies. The lights aren't bright, low voltage halogens. I think I will experiment and leave one in the tree and move the others back to their original location. They get east morning sun, but less now that we are moving into fall. Since I'm in central Florida, I plan to leave these guys outside all year anyway and this may be a good way to see how different lighting and locations affect them. Hopefully I'm maintaining them correctly (done some vanda specific research for my climate), so I'll continue what I've been doing with the lighting being the variable. In the 6 months I have had them I haven't hurt them yet! Also I'd post a pic of them at night but haven't figured out how to attach photos yet. I'll post one when I do.

[jpope42]

Here's a pic of the light at night

[Roberta]

The night lighting certainly won't harm them. Whether it inhibits blooming, perhaps you will be able to tell with growing plants in both environments. The light looks pretty dim to me. Some Cattleyas (not all) are really picky about blooming if they get light at night, but other orchids are less touchy. Also, in the tree the plant may be somewhat shielded from the light. Here's hoping for blooms!