What is wrong with this?

[Kittyfrex]

Originally Posted by NatalieS

What do you mean when you say the terracotta is bad? How do the plants react to it? Do you mean that the medium dries out too fast? Succulents are going to be in already very free draining medium that doesn't retain water, so yeah, I can imagine they might not like the faster drying porous pots.

Packed sphagnum moss on the other hand retains a lot of water.

I mean, about 28C avg daytime temp, 60% humidity with an open window, packed sphag, and a clay pot sounds pretty good to me, but everyone's environment is different unfortunately - what works for one may not work for another.

Water-retaining medium needing watering every 1-3 days most of the year kind of dry. I am neither good at physics nor chemistry, and i have no idea what exactley is making it such a bad pot type here. I have never tried it indoors, but you might understand why

[estación seca]

If you know the name of the plant, you can look up the ancestry at orchidroots.com. Then you can look up the individual species at orchidspecies.com and find the temperature preference. Complex hybrids generally are more temperature tolerant than individual ancestors, but some hybrids might have a majority of cool or warm growing ancestors.

The chief temperature problem when trying to grow cool growing orchids is the night temperatures. Many plants tolerate higher than ideal daytime temperatures if nights are much cooler. In many tropical cloud forest areas, high in mountains, even summer nights may be very cool.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by Kittyfrex

Water-retaining medium needing watering every 1-3 days most of the year kind of dry. I am neither good at physics nor chemistry, and i have no idea what exactley is making it such a bad pot type here. I have never tried it indoors, but you might understand why

OK, well I can tell you they definitely won't dry out as fast indoors simply because the climate indoors is going to be more stable i.e. if it's a windy or a really hot day outside, then water is going to evaporate faster and the pots are going to dry out faster. Outside, your plants and their pots are subject to the elements all the time.

Unless your home gets hotter than it does outside, or if having a window in the cool room open creates a big draft for much of the day, I don't see how terracotta would dry out as fast indoors as it does outdoors.

Personally, I would experiment. But if you're not comfortable using it, then you're not comfortable - it's just a suggestion for cooling your plant a bit.

[Kittyfrex]

Originally Posted by NatalieS

OK, well I can tell you they definitely won't dry out as fast indoors simply because the climate indoors is going to be more stable i.e. if it's a windy or a really hot day outside, then water is going to evaporate faster and the pots are going to dry out faster. Outside, your plants and their pots are subject to the elements all the time.

Unless your home gets hotter than it does outside, or if having a window in the cool room open creates a big draft for much of the day, I don't see how terracotta would dry out as fast indoors as it does outdoors.

Personally, I would experiment. But if you're not comfortable using it, then you're not comfortable - it's just a suggestion for cooling your plant a bit.

I am willing to experiment, far from that. Especially since all hybrid odontoglossum i had suffered a similar fate. I had presumed it would need similar care as the another orchid that had the same tag but is pretty much as oncidium as it gets, you know, having the same tag.

Edit: This conversation had me thinking and it just all fell into place. I had failed to orginize the doom of all my 10ish odontoglossum so far. I got them all in the fall (not all of the same year, but still, i only ever got one in spring and that was a wild ride). All would star springing to life, either producing more blooms or sprouting new growth. Only to be dead mid-late summer ( by climate, not calendar). You know, when temperatures outside are 35+ for a month+. That means about 31 to 32 where my phals, oncidium and vanilla are, and they are all doing just dandy, only needing more water than usual. And it only took the death of another odontoglossum (that i noticed today; been dying for a bit over a month, couldn't figure out why) while having this conversation. Tragic.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by Kittyfrex

I am willing to experiment, far from that. Especially since all hybrid odontoglossum i had suffered a similar fate. I had presumed it would need similar care as the another orchid that had the same tag but is pretty much as oncidium as it gets, you know, having the same tag.

If you're already growing it the same as another similar plant, and it's not happy, then all you can do is try something different.

It's possible that 'something different' may not work out either, but the chance that the plant may improve is higher than continuing doing the thing that is seemingly already making the plant deteriorate.

It's the only way we can learn.

[Kittyfrex]

Originally Posted by NatalieS

If you're already growing it the same as another similar plant, and it's not happy, then all you can do is try something different.

It's possible that 'something different' may not work out either, but the chance that the plant may improve is higher than continuing doing the thing that is seemingly already making the plant deteriorate.

It's the only way we can learn.

They were not grown all together, or in the same space. I was just reclutant to go cold because i did not belive that genus liked it cold. It's also a north window they would sit on, after enjoying a ton of both natural and artificial light.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by Kittyfrex

Edit: This conversation had me thinking and it just all fell into place. I had failed to orginize the doom of all my 10ish odontoglossum so far. I got them all in the fall (not all of the same year, but still, i only ever got one in spring and that was a wild ride). All would star springing to life, either producing more blooms or sprouting new growth. Only to be dead mid-late summer ( by climate, not calendar). You know, when temperatures outside are 35+ for a month+. That means about 31 to 32 where my phals, oncidium and vanilla are, and they are all doing just dandy, only needing more water than usual. And it only took the death of another odontoglossum (that i noticed today; been dying for a bit over a month, couldn't figure out why) while having this conversation. Tragic.

A cool grower that is well established or mature can certainly appear to do OK in warmer temperatures for a while. Their metabolisms speed up and they grow and spike, and all the good things, because they're trying to take maximum advantage of their perceived growing season. But if that doesn't get throttled back down again at some point with reduced temps, they just spend all their energy and slowly deteriorate.

As ES mentioned, they can certainly tolerate high temps during the day if the temp drops way down at night, though I have no experience growing them under those particular types of conditions - I was still living in Ireland when I was growing them, and they loved being outside on my enclosed balcony late spring through autumn with 25C max days and down to 10 min nights towards late autumn. They'd then get brought inside for winter/spring with temps between 16C and 22C (the apartment was very poorly constructed and would never be terribly warm or dry in the cold months).

[Kittyfrex]

Originally Posted by NatalieS

A cool grower that is well established or mature can certainly appear to do OK in warmer temperatures for a while. Their metabolisms speed up and they grow and spike, and all the good things, because they're trying to take maximum advantage of their perceived growing season. But if that doesn't get throttled back down again at some point with reduced temps, they just spend all their energy and slowly deteriorate.

As ES mentioned, they can certainly tolerate high temps during the day if the temp drops way down at night, though I have no experience growing them under those particular types of conditions - I was still living in Ireland when I was growing them, and they loved being outside on my enclosed balcony late spring through autumn with 25C max days and down to 10 min nights towards late autumn. They'd then get brought inside for winter/spring with temps between 16C and 22C (the apartment was very poorly constructed and would never be terribly warm or dry in the cold months).

And what about light? Do not recall if i mentioned, but the 'cool room' only has one decent-ish north window, with a house to the west of it (so it does reduce ambient light come evening). Would that be too little? I can always move it to my greenhouse to spend the chilly months (think 10-15 mean night time temps all winter long, takes extreme chills and winds to drop even a degree under that)

[Roberta]

I suspect that you could get away with growing those Oncidium-tribe hybrids, especially if they have Odontoglossum in the background, outside. Maybe close to the house where they get a little radiated warmth. If days are cold, then maybe not but overnight lows of 4 C on an acclimated plant in this group might be tolerated. Maybe try it this winter with 1 before committing multiple plants to the regimen.

[Kittyfrex]

Originally Posted by Roberta

I suspect that you could get away with growing those Oncidium-tribe hybrids, especially if they have Odontoglossum in the background, outside. Maybe close to the house where they get a little radiated warmth. If days are cold, then maybe not but overnight lows of 4 C on an acclimated plant in this group might be tolerated. Maybe try it this winter with 1 before committing multiple plants to the regimen.

Perphaps overwintering it in the greenhouse would do it better. Tho i have to admit, having one more orchid outside is like a kink to me, so i'll need to give it a go. Luckily, they are quite aviable in lidl most of the year.