anyone else live in insanely cold laces?

[silken]

Greetings. I live in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada. On the prairies where our winter temps can get as low as -40 and close to freezing when it is warm. We have an active orchid society with 60 some members. Of course we all grow indoors, mostly under lights or on windowsills. Some people set their plants outside in summer where we get lovely warm days and not too cool nights. We grow a large variety of orchids. We get quite a bit of sunlight in this part of the world but days are still short in the winter.

[diego_p]

thats awesome. i hope i get to learn a thing or two from you guys.

[Harvy Howard]

Hello all. Here in Edmonton we are having a mild spell, with temps hovering around the frreezing mark. Only 5 more months to go and I should be able to move a few plants from my indoor light garden to the enclosed sun deck – bringing them in doors overnight when the nights are cold.

I have a 3-tier Floralight setup, 4 foot, and with two tubes in each. I have an eclectic mix of plants, but intend to concentrate more on orchids. With this in mind my wife and I are going to splurge on a second Floralight unit early in the New Year.

---------- Post added at 01:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 PM ----------

Seems to me that one of the main obstacles to indoor gardening, especially in regions with sub-zero temperatures, is low humidity. I have a Kenmore free-standing humidifier and, during cold spells, it works hard to keep the house humidity up to 35%

The plants seems to me happy enough in the Floralight unit, as I keep water in all six trays. I have to top the water up a little every day, and add a splash of humidifier conditioner to keep it fresh. Needless to say, the plants are set above the water and away from the conditioner chemical. Some people say to line the trays with pebbles or similar strata, but I don't see any advantage in that, as the base material would have to be removed regularly for cleaning. Thoughts anyone?

[RosieC]

Welcome to Orchid Board.

Not as bad here. Close to freezing just now but not as bad as you.

[Tindomul]

Not that cold here, good luck with it all. Maybe cool growing orchids would do well for you indoors, assuming you have cool summers. Welcome to the Orchid Board.

[diego_p]

the summer here is usually about 70-80° with nights dropping to about 60-65° but the humidity makes it feel like it could be 90-100° and uncomfortable, mucky like.
is that a good temp range?

[Tindomul]

[FONT="Palatino Linotype']Sounds good for intermediate orchids. [/FONT]

[Paul]

"anyone else live in insanely cold laces"?

No the shoe I live in has heating and nice warm "laces".

Seriously, growing orchids in the frigid north is quite doable. Humidity (or lack thereof) during the winter can be a big issue for some types of orchids. I find that catts and phals can put up with that quite well. (With a humidifier running 24/7 I'm lucky if I can get RH levels of 32-35%.) There are other orchids ... especially amongst the pleurothallid alliance ... for which such abysmally low levels is extremely rough.

Then too, terrariums can be an option for you if you like the truly mini species.

[Optimist]

Merry Christmas! I think you may be missing a few keys on that computer machine!