What did I change to have success? post for any ideas to help new growers.

[Optimist]

I second the "African Mask" post. I have a few alocasias like that, and if they are unfurling leaves, it is good enough light for Phrags to put out spikes. They are pretty inexpensive (some anyway) and they are good indicators for beginners whether they have good light or not. I also read something a while back about how much light living rooms have and it was fairly pathetic. The human eye is a pretty low light tool. We are simply poor judges of light.

[estación seca]

The human eye is a pretty low light tool. We are simply poor judges of light.

The eye and brain function together. They are amazing. The eye collects data and the brain processes it. We're not aware of what is going on.

The image projected onto the retina at the back of the eye is upside-down and reversed right for left. The brain fixes it for our awareness.

The brain adjusts for outside brightness. When reading black print on white paper, in full sun compared to indoors under muted light, the amount of light reflected from the black print in full sun is higher than the amount of light reflected from white paper in muted light. Our brain interprets things in context, so the higher amount of reflected light is interpreted as black in context outside, and the lower amount of reflected light as white in context indoors.

[Optimist]

Originally Posted by estación seca

The eye and brain function together. They are amazing. The eye collects data and the brain processes it. We're not aware of what is going on.

The image projected onto the retina at the back of the eye is upside-down and reversed right for left. The brain fixes it for our awareness.

The brain adjusts for outside brightness. When reading black print on white paper, in full sun compared to indoors under muted light, the amount of light reflected from the black print in full sun is higher than the amount of light reflected from white paper in muted light. Our brain interprets things in context, so the higher amount of reflected light is interpreted as black in context outside, and the lower amount of reflected light as white in context indoors.

I was talking about how badly people can judge indoor light for plants. Eventually they can be taught to do this. I am directing my comment to someone who buys a phalaenopsis at a grocery store and then puts it in the wrong place in the room and kills it.

[WaterWitchin]

Good thread Optimist. By the time I’m getting around to responding now and reading other comments, I may have misinterpreted the original post as everyone appears to be talking about light. But, I’ll respond with what I originally thought was the intent anyway…stuff that made me a better and more successful grower.

I started with an orchid here and there in mid 90's. Big box Phals, and a couple of Cattleya gifted to me, couple of dendrobiums I immediately killed. Around 2000 I became friends with an orchid breeder and grower. The orchid part of my plant hobby grew exponentially.

Light was never a big issue for me, as I’ve always grown a lot of plants both indoors and out so was already cognizant of the importance of paying attention to a plant’s light requirements. With orchids, about six months out of the year I grew outside. The other six, by around 2005, their number outgrew my south facing sunroom so they wintered in the Batcave (basement) under a mix of LED lights and aquarium lights I already had.

During the first ten years, I did my fair share of orchid killing. Learning how to recognize quickly and deal with scale was one game changer. Another came from learning to choose different genus based on my environment without having to tweak the environment a ton. I still occasionally get outside that zone, and still have more failures than successes.

About four or so years ago, my grow space changed again, mostly do to getting older and not having the ability to schlep 100 orchids in and out and up and down stairs every six months. [A side note: After about 15 years I learned that for me, it was necessary to limit myself to under 100 orchids or it became a chore instead of a fun engagement. Another step in the road to better growing, for me.]

After I made that move to growing in the same place year-round, I found that some genus that had grown well for me no longer performed as well. That goes back to environment, and not overly tweaking it. Examples: not growing cymbs anymore that required a big chill, as they were in the same space as ones that couldn’t tolerate the temp drop; orchids that used to come back inside earlier than others, who couldn’t tolerate the high 90s to 100 of our summer. The new grow space is inside, but on an upstairs sleeping porch which gets some serious heat in summer, no AC or heat vents. Just an open door into an AC room, and a space heater in winter.

Adding an automatic misting system was a game changer for me in growing some genus I didn’t fare well with before… but really wanted to grow. Tolumnia come to mind, as do several other I want mounted. Using RO water for some of the more picky genus, phrag for example, was another game changer.

or me, the biggest change to more successful growing was my choice of either growing mounted under misters, or in semi-hydro. No more bark mixes here. That isn’t because most can be grown either way. It was realizing that my style is to sit it and forget it. I’m not a real hands-on gardener, and want to quickly pass through, water everything at the same time, and move on. Finding ways that worked well for me, in my environment with little fuss, was the key step in becoming a better grower.

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[Roberta]

Sage advice!

[Optimist]

Originally Posted by estación seca

The vast majority of house plant growers never fertilize their plants, even if they remember to water them. Bagged potting soil is mostly sawdust ("forest products") with no nutrients. That's why so many house plants hardly grow.

I've never been criticised for this, but I put worm castings in my media mix. I consider that the millipedes and centipedes, the earthworms and other bugs would be active in or near the root areas of outdoor plants-- especially terrestrials. The kelp might provide auxins too, but it also acts as a "green tea." I am somewhat afraid of using random leaves to make green (compost) tea of--- but I have made it of yerba mata because there may be pesticides and things in the plants you would make green compost tea out of.

[Keysguy]

Smartest thing I ever did was I stopped trying to grow plants in an environment they wanted no part of!

[Mountaineer370]

Ditto to what Keysguy and a few others in this thread have mentioned. Learn what plants work in your particular growing environment, and stick with those. I've only been growing for about seven years now, so of course I'm still learning, but in that time, I have acquired new plants and then rehomed them when I realized I did not have the temperatures, humidity, or light they needed. I should note I grow only in my house, in one small space in one room. There are no other options for me, so I've learned to be content with the dozen or so Phals I am now down to. Along with my African violets, they grow happily on my dining room table which is next to a south-facing window.

Light was the other big lesson I learned. Even in that south-facing window, my plants were not getting the light they needed to thrive. They grew leaves and roots, but I was struggling to get them to rebloom reliably. My lighting system is probably a lot less than most of you have, but it has made a big difference. I have a decorative tall floor lamp (commonly called a pharmacy lamp) at either end of the table. These are a viable option for someone who does not want industrial-looking lights in your main living space and/or does not want to hang lights from the ceiling.

In my case, I did not want to use LED lights, for personal reasons that they hurt my eyes. If you're not bothered by them (and it sounds like most of you are not), consider yourself lucky, since they are ubiquitous everywhere these days, not just among plant-growers. So my lamps use full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs instead.

As I said, it's not a lot of light, but that small amount of additional lighting along with the increased duration of light has been enough to make a huge difference in reblooming.

[Keysguy]

I think I've told this story once or twice already on this board but it is so worth repeating whenever a thread like this surfaces where it is clear people may literally be afraid they are doing something unhelpful to an orchid or they are just unsure.

An orchid grower acquaintance of mine personally designed and built his own greenhouse which if memory serves me correct was roughly 60' x 100' and he had several thousand plants, many of which were magnificent specimens he had nurtured for years.

I was visiting one day and noticed he had a whole case of some nice 14" bulb pans which I had unsuccessfully been looking for commercially. I asked if he'd be willing to sell me a few and we went into his greenhouse "office/storage" area to write him a check. There on his desk were 2 large coffee cans (I'm talking old school Maxwell House 2 pounders) absolutely stuffed with used plant tags.

I inquired as to what they were for and he looked at me with an absolute deadpan face and said "To remind me of how smart I am. I've always believed if you haven't killed a few plants, you haven't learned a damn thing!"

True story.

[MateoinLosAngeles]

I stopped watching MissOrchidGirl on Youtube and started to have success when I followed culture notes from experienced, science-based growers.