How to know what Orchid is right for your conditions?

[monivik]

So this is a beginner question for sure...

So I've always been that type of person who would just buy a plant, either orchid or something else on a whim. I would just buy something because I looks nice.

Recently as I've been doing research and try to learn why my plants always die... and I'm already learning a lot... I've found that one should first try to find out the conditions of your home, and see whether a particular plant actually is suitable for you.

Oh so yes, this is regarding keeping plants in your house, small scale, since I don't have a greenhouse or anything like that.

Another thing, as someone recently pointed out in a thread on this forum that my room temperature is too low for Phalaenpsis orchids. I figured ok, I have to look more into this then.

The issue right now is that it's fall here and fall/winter is cold, dark and rainy here. So first of all not so much daylight.

Second, temperature wise we don't heat up the house during the day as there's mostly no-one home. So the heater wouldn't go on until evening. Besides that we live in an old-fashioned building, apparantely back then no-one thought about building houses with a good insulation against the cold. At this very moment the daytime temperature indoor is 20C=68F, but I know that it can go down to 19C=66.2F or if it's extremely cold outside even 18C=64.4F.

My windows are either east or west. Now on the east side is the bedroom window, for some reason this just happens to be the coldest place in the house. I just measured the temperature by this window and it's 17C=62.6F indoors! The truth is that I've kept my Paphiopedilum Pinocchio by this window every fall/winter for years and for some reason it seems to be doing fine. It's grown so big I think I will have to split it as it hardly fits in the pot anymore.

So my question is: Would you say that in my conditions I can better go for cold growing orchids? And in this case what type of orchids would you recommend?

Another question. Is getting a special plant growth lamp or light an idea? Do these give of heat as well or only light? It's just that I've got a shelf with a whole bunch of Phalaenopsis (the regular type, the ones you can get from any garden store) and in the summer the light on this spot is ok as it's away from direct sun, but I'm starting to think that it may not give enough light winter time. As I just read somewhere that not enough light could be a reason for not blooming.

Also just to let you know what type of orchids I have right now: so the regular Phalaenopsis is the one I've got the most of. Then there's Brassia Eternal Wind, Oncidium Sweet Sugar, a Miltoniaopsis and the Paph I just mentioned. Oh and a hybrid of some sort that we've concluded earlier probably has some Oncidium and Ondontoglossum in it.

I've just come to realize that the Macodes Petola that I just recently bought is actually warm growing. So I've just moved it to my "warmest" window (though even this one at 20C might be too cold for it but it's the best I've got for now).