Stupid Question! Will orchids survive long in wrong conditions?

[tarev]

My area is like a wrong condition, too hot and dry during summer, no rain for about 6 months, but my choice of orchids thrive. As long as they get the shade they need during afternoons, and watering. Come winter time, we get the flipside, cold valley nights with radiation fog or rain when it finally comes. So I have to adjust and provide the orchids some shelter and warmth.

Just have to adjust as the seasons go, so the imperfect conditions will not be too bad for the orchids. And as mentioned already, knowing what type you have helps a lot, so you know to what extent you can continue exposing the plant to very cold or very hot conditions. For cold temps, I use 50F as my safe threshold, lower than that is too risky for me already. For high temps, as much as I want to keep it at 85 to 90F, just cannot do it, we get triple digit here and higher so I have to really be diligent in watering, otherwise the 'chids will get fried even under the shade. I think the blessing in disguise I get here in my area, we get lots of air circulation, sometimes too breezy, but the plants love it! I grow my Phals and paphs indoors, those I do not bring out, just by the window, and they grow well.

For me it is not too crazy to attempt to grow certain orchids, sometimes you just have to experiment a bit and tweak somethings, and it can work. It is an ongoing learning process..as seasons change, as our climate change..nothing is the same always..so there is always room to make successful growth and some mistakes to be learned along the way.

[Bud]

Give yourself credit.
You have to trust your instincts and believe more in yourself.
You are an orchid grower.
You are one grade above any ordinary human.
The mere fact you can identify orchid specie and can differentiate a Cattleya from a Phalaenopsis tells us you are above average human.
My city engineer who topped the board exams doesn't know what a Phalaenopsis is....he just know its an orchid of some sort he sees at the supermarket aisle.
Just follow the culture of your orchid plants religiously. Read what you can from what the senior members here advice. Make your plants adjust to your environment. If you need to add heat and add light then do it.
You happen to have an eclectic collection that says you have bravery. I stuck to Phals the first year of my orchid growing before I even ventured to a more exotic specie.....and now look at my collection and how I rebloom them....I am just a lowly windowsill grower in an apartment in Manhattan....

[Biohazard156]

Thank you everyone for the replies! I am going to try and be hopeful that I am OCD enough about reading/studying the plants that I'll manage to get them to be ok!

Someone said my phals might my do well, as theirs struggled a bit. It's weird as they are the only ones I'm actually confident with as all of them grow just fine, had new leaves, roots and spikes and they seem ok! I think it's because I branched out and most of my orchids are what I consider "rescues" from garden centres/ikea.

I have decided, surely their fate would have been worse left there than coming home with me and having a small chance of surviving!

You guys have all been super helpful!!! Thankyou again :-D

[Optimist]

It is a smart thing to measure your homes light levels and temps and humidity before getting your orchids, and coosing your orchids according to the culture you are able to supply. Where I live, for example, masdivalias die. I have to buy warm loving orchids. My warm is warm arid, not warm humid, so I have to add humidity. Tempreture wise, I am about the same as Georgia or Florida.