Orchid loss devastating....
I just wanted to share my devastation with people that will understand my loss. Yesterday, was my husband's holiday work party, so my parents watched our kids. I grow in my solarium that is located off of our kitchen. We have dogs and to let them outside, we have to go through the solarium, the door to our yard is located off of the solarium. My dad let the dogs out last night and the pilot must of went out on the heater (the door that connects our kitchen to our solarium normally stays shut at night, in the winter). We had no idea the pilot was out, since we didn't go into the solarium because we got home pretty late.
This morning when I went to let the dogs out, it was frigid. I looked at my thermometers and they all read 20°F. We quickly brought the most valuable and hard to replace plants in while we raised the temperature in the solarium.
At this point, I am waiting to see how many plants I have lost. I can already see some cold damage on some. As many of my previous post state, warm going vandas are my vice, so I fear that my collection is going to seriously shrink as I wait for the damage to show. I have many plants that took me a good amount of time to find, so if the amount of plants lost is substantial this may be the end of the hobby for me.
This will be the second time I lost a collection. The first was when I moved back to Michigan from North Carolina and nearly lost all of my plants to a bacterial infection. I just can't justify starting a collection over for a third time with all the time and money that goes into having a collection. I am expecting a third child, so I know that I won't have the time or funds to replace the 100+ plants in my solarium.
I appreciate the opportunity to vent to other "orchid people". Thank you for taking the time to read this.
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