Welcome to Orchid Board :welcomeflowers:

Welcome and congratulations on your Phals. Did you save the tags or are they NoID's?

Some people do add sphag, it just depends on your climate and growing conditions honestly. The sphag would help somewhat with the transition from all sphag to a bark based medium, just remember when watering that sphag retains a lot more water and will dry slower than a bark mix alone.

I have the tags on all but two. At $1 a piece, I couldn't resist even the NOIDs! The minis are Phal. Sogo Vivien (mericlone), and Phal. Doud Violet (mericlone). And my big baby is Dtps. Sinica Cherry 'MP0670'. The other four are what I would call regular sized? The ones you usually see in the big box stores. Two of them are NOIDs; the other two are P. Lulu (has a bunch of numbers that I don't know the relevance of), and Dtps. Chain Xen Pearl 'Ming Ho' AM/AOS.

AOS I know stands for American Orchid Society, but no clue as to the other initials! Lol!

I can't believe you paid $1 each. Yikes, that is a great deal.

AM, stands for Award of Merit. You made out like a bandit, good for you!

Oh! My! GOSH!!! I just squealed! Rofl! Now I am super proud of myself! Now if I can just keep them alive, I will be doing wonderfully! Wish I wasn't so broke, or I would go back for more. Is it always like this? I can't seem to get enough of them!

You are absolutely in the right place. Not only do we get excited about our chids, but we totally applaud the hard work and extensive knowledge of others. Welcome to a wonderful forum! Every day you will learn something new.

I try to learn something new every day anyway, so that is perfect! ;-)

I would like to put my orchids outside. I have a porch, with roof, that faces south. Well, sort of southwest actually. There is a house across the street diagonally, and a few trees that shade the porch in the afternoon. Do you think it would be wise to put them out there?

If it were me I would put them in more shade initially and gradually give them more sun. You don't know how long they have been in artificial light and you don't want to give them sunburns. But they will be much happier outside with fresh air and breezes.

The other thing I do is repot new orchids. That way I can check out the roots and get them started off on the right foot. Also, what I have discovered is, a lot of the growers will take a hunk of sphagnum moss and place it in the middle of the roots. You want to get that out of there.

Hopefully this will help. I still can't believe you paid $1 each. I am really happy for you.