Hello. We're a couple of orchids lovers
 

Hello everyone :waving,
Altough it's our first time posting here, we have lurked as guests for the longest time and learned quite a bit from a lot of different users over the 6 years we've been growing :biggrin:

We have a diverse collection of around 130 species, but phals were our first love and still occupy a big space in our shelves and hearts.

We grow our plants inside, in Portugal under natural and artificial lights and use organic media.

Please feel free to ask anything we might have forgotten to mention :biggrin:

Welcome! Like you, I lurked before I finally joined the OB. These fine folks are orchid experts and have saved my struggling collection on several occasions. (But beware -- they are orchid addiction enablers -- in a GOOD way.)

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

Hello neighbour!:)
Welcome to the Board!
May I ask you where are you located in Portugal?

Hello!
Thank you.
We're close to Lisbon

Welcome from a fellow neophyte. I have only been here since November, but it has become my favorite place to hang out. Nemesis.

Welcome to the OB.

I'm from Sintra but living in Abrantes for 20 years.

Abrantes? Beautiful place altough keeping the humidity right during the summer can't be an easy task!

Indeed, but with creativity and a careful choice of plants it's possible.:)

Hello there! Being a couple that shares the same passion for orchids must be awesome :D
Even though it´s not that close, will you be going to the expo in Porto?
Take care!

Hello! It's pretty awesome but the level of enabling is through the roff! We actually share most of our hobbies.

We're hoping to go to Porto, altough with how Covid is going here who knows. We really miss orchid shows and don't get many here.

Will you be going?

My partner is a fern and palm lover, so let´s say there´s some sort of intersectionality there :D

I miss too walking around the shows, looking at all the variety, the people ...then spending 2 hours to decide which plant I should take home.

We don´t get many shows here either, but the ones in Portugal seem quite interesting!

I would really love to, but lets see how it goes with covid and if february gets any better...fingers crossed!

True, there is intersectionality and orchids are so varied I'm sure there's a species out there for your significant other.
Ferns are really cool, we have a couple.

Hahaha the Orchid show experience! If you don't spend at least half the time it takes to look at every booth, carefully pondering what to take home you are not doing it right.

Here it depends a lot on the vendors, sometimes we get really cool ones. Last time we were in Porto Joseph Wu went and if you love phals there was so much lovely stuff your wallet runs away trying to save itself.

We only went to an orchid show in Spain once in Estepona (at the orquidario) , but lt was really small. Altough the orquidario was wonderful.

Yes, let's hope Covid eases up. Fingers crossed!

:welcome:

welcome! can't wait to see your beautiful collection!

Nice to meet y'all! Looking forward to seeing pictures of your collection ^_^

I'm going to my first ever orchid show this weekend, and I'm really excited for it. What advice would you have for that? Its gonna be hard to pick something to take home as I only have enough for one or two small plants, but I'm excited just to see so many!

Itzi: Write down on a piece of paper what your growing area temperatures are, summer and winter. Bring it with you. Also your humidity and light. Make sure whatever you buy will grow in the conditions you already have.

Don't buy anything you consider expensive until you feel confident growing orchids. Don't tell yourself you'll set up a terrarium when you get home with a new plant, or a new lighting system, or anything else you don't already have.

Don't be afraid of bare-root plants from South America. These may be excellent values.