Intermediate book &/or Encyclopedia

[miowntime]

Hello all!

I'm hoping you all can help me pick out a new book. What would you recommend for someone who's spent the last 9 months reading, rereading, and digesting Understanding Orchids?

I'm TRYING to keep my orchid numbers down as my windowsills and the raised humidity trays I built are getting rather full SO...I figure another book to pour over is one way to do that!!

I've looked through the books reviewed here but there aren't many there. I've gotten kinda spoiled by this forum and need more information. If you could recommend your favorite books/encyclopedias I would sooo appreciate it!

BTW don't know if it's helpful but my stats are

• 50% humidity
  approx 1000 footcandles
  growing mostly phals & oncidiums due to low light

Thanks again! Orchid Board ROCKS!

Beth

[Discus]

Hi Beth,

I find orchid books make the "too many plants" problem worse, not better, as you keep coming across things you really, really need to find another little spot to cram in...

I recently ordered a whole bunch of orchid books; of them, the "best", if I had to pick just one, is probably Flora's Orchids; the New Encyclopaedia of Orchids is also quite good - I haven't had a lot of time to pour over the books yet, but they've all got their good and bad points.

For further suggestions, I guess you might like to tell us what direction you'd like your orchid mania to go in?

[ronaldhanko]

How about Rebecca Northern's Home Orchid Growing - I probably read that book 10 times over the years and it is crammed with information on everything from specific plants to genetics.

[tucker85]

You already have my favorite book "Understaning Orchids". If you're not yet a member of AOS I would recommend joining. It's $65 a year and they send out a beautiful magazine several times a year called "Orchids". There are always good articles to read and photographs to look at. Most of the information is more current than you find in many books.

[miowntime]

Thanks Discus and Ronald! I've placed my order so Flora's and Rebecca's are on their way!!!

Discus, the truth is that I don't really want to limit my obsession. I've just run into a sort of a wall. I want to branch out from phals but have low light (500-1000 fc) so I feel I'm REALLY limited in what I can grow

I don't really fancy slipper orchids or the look of supplemental lighting. I'm already using a 10,000 lux light for 4 hours a day.
.................................................. ...............
Maybe this should be placed in another category, but I spent many hours pouring over this board and my books to find some new plants with interesting foliage that bloom several times a year. I'd thought to buy some small plants that can grow into nice specimen plants. I'd gotten a nice list going for medium light plants when I realized that my light meter arrived measures in lux, not footcandles. So I converted and I found out I have rather low light. It's gone downhill from there

Anyone have any suggestions?

Poor me

[miowntime]

Ok, so I went on-line and found Phal cornu-cervi. Guess I haven't exhausted Phals after all!