Hi Guys,
Joey here from Southern California. Recently I decided to get rid of most of my plants (it was beginning to look more like a science experiment than a indoor garden) and decided to collect a few really nice looking plants instead of the jungle I was trying to tame.
Unfortunately for me I stumbled on a Orchid at the local Home Depot and now I think I'm sick with the Orchid bug!
I picked up a Phalaenopsis with purple flowers you can kind of see in the picture below and decided to put the breaks on buying any more until I learn a bit about them and decide on what types to keep.
So here I am waiting on my copy of Understanding Orchids from Amazon and jonesing to start right away =)
Considering my limited space ( I live in a very small 1 bedroom apartment ) I was thinking of maybe getting into miniature orchids. Do you guys have any advice on small, easy to start with orchids that don't grow too tall. My little grow area doesn't allow for much height.
If you can take a look at the little setup I have right now and give me some pointers on what I need to do to prepare this setup for an orchids obsession I would be very appreciative. Right now I just have two fixtures with 4 T5 bulbs each -- the top shelf has a mixture of 2 6500k and 2 3000k bulbs and the bottom shelf has 4 6500k bulbs. I do plan on keeping a few other plant varieties in here but would like to make it comfortable primarily for orchids. This setup has worked great for my past gardening endeavors and hopefully I don't have to change much if anything for Orchids. The only thing I ever had a problem with was maintaining a good amount of humidity when running the fan. It's not exactly a sealed environment so sometimes the humidity falls below 50% when the fan is on. The shelves I believe are 20" deep by 40" wide and lives in my bedroom with 3 Southern facing windows and one East facing window. Very bright room.
By the way, I am a complete newbie to Orchids. The one I have on the bottom shelf is my very first one and I know absolutely nothing about it but expect to immerse myself in orchid info this weekend.
Looking forward to making some new friends!
Newbie
Welcome to the forum ! You're starting in the right direction it seems, unlike many of us who jump in the deep end before realizing we don't know how to swim !! Guess I'm talking about myself here !! LOL !!! 
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