Hello, newbie from Germany here!

[SandraL]

Hi everyone!

I'm Sandra, I'm Portuguese but live in Germany where I work as a post-doc researcher.
I have a green thumb and always kept plants but, although I was attracted to orchids, I thought they were difficult to keep as house plants. Three years ago I bought my first orchid, a hybrid phalaenopsis. I managed not to kill it but I didn't give it enough attention either and I'm still trying to recover it from the abuse it suffered at my hands. Last year my work colleagues, knowing my love for growing plants and for orchids, gave me a white hybrid phalaenopsis for birthday. Not the kind of plant I would have bought myself but it was a stimulus to learn how to take care of it and after a couple of months I was hooked. I bought several cheap (discount rack) plants including hybrid phals, a Colmanara Masai Red Splash, and a Dendrobium Berry Oda. I wanted to test which types of orchids did better in my environment. As far as I can see they are all doing great at the moment (except for one of the phals which I killed trying to, and succeeding, to get rid of mealybugs), with healthy, vigorous growth and rebloom in the case of the white phal.

Now I caved in and bought a few more unusual orchids to test my limits: an Angraecum didieri, a primary hybrid Phal. thailandica x honghenensis, a Dendrobium trantuanii, and a primary hybrid Cycnoches loddigesii x Catasetum pileatum. All of them were relatively inexpensive so if I do anything wrong I won't feel too bad but right now I'm afraid and excited in equal measure.

I'm looking forward to learning a lot with more experienced growers and to share my successes and failures