My New Babies Arrived - One Great Florida Orchid Balcony

[TOMMYMIAMI]

:
Hello Everyone
First of all, many thanks for all the advises. It took me over a week to reorganize, re pot, mount and clean my orchids and balcony, with all great advises from good people on this board! I still have few more pieces on the way, but the biggest wave of my new babies arrived today. So, up to today, my balcony contains 52 orchids, and if I count it right 18 different species. The newest arrivals are Grammatophyllum, Cymbidium Hawaii Gold (finally WARM WEATHER tolerant one), Dendrobium Gatton Sunray and Dendrobium Parishii, My first ever Masdeillia's - Red Wing and Copper Angel, 2 new Bulbophyllums - Rufinum and Sheryl Kurizaky (joining beloved medusae and Shirley), and also my 2 new nun's - Phaius Tankervilliae in Burgundy and Yellow color. HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HERE, hope with all the advices and new information I will be able to care for them better and bring most of them to bloom

[TOMMYMIAMI]

Next week driving to St. Pete to meet with grower, who sells also few Florida Native Orchids, hope to score long wanted Clamshell Orchid and would love to find Habenaria medusae, if he has it. That's the one on my list still:-)

[lornaheath]

What a beautiful display of Orchids Tommy. Love the display you have put together.

Unfortunately in the UK we don't have any outdoors weather to keep Orchids. Not in a permanent display as yours.

Right now we are having hot weather, but 30 degrees is pretty mild to your temps and ours is only temporary and of course very unusual too.

Think I'll come back and live in America. I don't think my Permanent Resident thingy runs out until 2016. Hee heee Only joking. I'm staying home now.

Lorna
x x x

[No-Pro-mwa]

Me too Lorna I am jealous of those that can do that outside. I'm in Wyoming and I have thought of putting some outside in the summer but not sure it would be worth it.

Right now I am having spider mite problems on the back porch with my other potted plants.

Nice going Tommy your spot looks great.

[Picotee]

That is clever use of your balcony, Tommy. Happy growing!

[Orchids4ever]

Looking good

[TOMMYMIAMI]

Yeap, but do not forget, I am i South Florida, so I can have them outside the whole year, the rest of the USA is not the same, some states even worse than UK:-) I love London though, went quite a few times when living in Czech:-) And, it is not all peaches to grow orchids here in Florida, as I learned hard way, so many babies need cold winter nights, or everyday's temperature droops between day/night, and these conditions are pretty much impossible to achieve here in Miami, so even I have quite healthy pieces with lot's of new growths every year, I am not able to make them bloom:-((( So, to sum it up, I would love to have Georgia weather, with night temp drops and colder winters, but I still wanna live in Miami:-)))) BTW, I do remember, back in Czech, we had few cymbidiums, kept them indoors year around, and they never ever bloomed. One year mom just got pissed off, took them outside, put them under huge bush and let them there, since june, unwatched. As she was fertilizing the bushes with chicken shit dissolved in water (used to be the most favorite fertilizer in Czech back than, FREE), orchids got the same fertilizing. In september she PULLED OUT 3 absolutely amazing blooming cymbidiums with stalks having each over 20 open blooms, we were just shocked:-) And also paphiopedilum orchids, which some of them are even native to Czech Republic, therefor must survive your UK mild winter outside as well, the most famous czech native orchid growing in the woods in my old country is Lady Slipper, and if I am not mistaken, it grows free in UK as well??? so maybe you can have few babies on the permanent display also:-)))) I do remember winters in UK are kinda mild, as are the summers?

---------- Post added at 11:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 AM ----------

Originally Posted by No-Pro-mwa

Me too Lorna I am jealous of those that can do that outside. I'm in Wyoming and I have thought of putting some outside in the summer but not sure it would be worth it.

Right now I am having spider mite problems on the back porch with my other potted plants.

Nice going Tommy your spot looks great.

Thanks, it took me years of re organizing, hanging wires and searching for the best spots for each one of them. Only afternoon direct sun at my balcony, and one side with orchid wall has no sun at all. But I think finally i did figure out the best spots, and it looks now amazing. It is little orchid paradise, as I call it, and it is just amazing especially during fall/winter, when it is not so hot here, to sit outside and drink your coffee and watch them bloom:-) BTW, I LOVE WYOMING, Jackson Hole is my favorite spot to visit, summer/winter, skiing is insane there!

[Bud]

You have quite a haul on your recent list....I particularly love the happy healthy nodosa beside the spiking Gramm.
I wish I had your grow zone where you can have orchids outdoors all year round; and even if you have that once every ten years frost its only overnight and your balcony is spared from it.

[TOMMYMIAMI]

Originally Posted by Bud

You have quite a haul on your recent list....I particularly love the happy healthy nodosa beside the spiking Gramm.
I wish I had your grow zone where you can have orchids outdoors all year round; and even if you have that once every ten years frost its only overnight and your balcony is spared from it.

true true, not really frost ever, we are on the 5th floor, so it never gets freezing plus balcony is protected by bamboo railing as well. My issue is to get actually low winter nights temperatures for some babies to bloom, but i will try that crash ice some orchid peps suggested for few nights when cold front passes and will hope for the best. Funny regarding that Nodosa, I got this one more than year ago, it grows like crazy, huge plant actually, but did not bloom for me. I did have it in shade though till this spring when I did put it on the new spot where it's getting direct sun in the late afternoon, so I hope this will make it bloom. I got much smaller one that I have hangin' somewhere fro my friend this spring, that one was bought blooming:-) My plant is like 3 times bigger than the one i got, so I truly hope once it will go to bloom it will be quite a show:-)

[butterfly_muse]

I'm with everyone else, lovely display and jealous you can keep them outside all the time! I've got an apartment but we're at ground level with no balconies, so I can't even put them outside during the summer. At least my windows look pretty, I guess...