Newbie - Please be Gentle. :-)
 

30 ++ years gardening (indoors and out) and horticultural experience

Owned a flower shop for 8 years where I often worked with phals, cats, dends & cymb. Mostly in corsages, some in exotic arrangements which was my specialty.

~1 year orchid experience

WRT the latter, got my start with a done blooming rescue orchid from Lowes. And then I was hooked as I tend to be with flowers and plants :-) My count is up to 6 now - 5 phals and 1 cat.

I tend to experiment a lot and enjoy challenges. E. G. in my outdoor gardening I am a zone pusher :-) 5b and I push 6es all the time - almost always with good luck. Biggest challenge now is to resuscitate a near rootless phal. Unknown to me bought it that way - another rescue :-) Had ~ 3 bags of spag jammed in but it was in full bloom and looked great - 2 flowering stems.

When the bloom was finished I was gonna do 2 things - repot it and try to create some keikis. In the repotting I discovered that nearly all of the roots were gonzo.

Look forward to participating.

Cheers :waving

Newbie! Newbie! RAWR! I eat newbies for breakfast!!

Just kidding. I am a total noob as well. Welcome. Sounds like you've got tons of experience with plants! Orchids was gonna happen eventually ;)

:welcomeflowers:

I'm quite the zone-pusher with a lot of my orchids, myself ;)

hi! :)

Hi! Great to have you join this forum! :)

:waving Welcome to OB

Thanks for the welcome :-)

I am in Zone 5b - more like 6a. I plant lots of Zone 6 & some 7 stuff. Heck - I have Cannas that have not been lifted since 2010. Heh.

WRT my orchids - I realize that I have pushed the envelope. My biggest challenges is with humidity but I have added a fairly large humidifier and a fan.

I am in zone 6a and also have humidity issues. Welcome!

Hello and welcome. I also have humidity problems. I really don't know if I am in 4 a or b, but I do sometimes try and plant things outside that are in 3 zone.

Where I live you have to take into consideration the wind.................oh the wind, it is very hard to grow things in the wind.

Humidity and other environmental factors
 

I was referring to humidity indoors - but I got a BIG humidifier:rofl:

Check with an Extension agent for your Zone. The Zone map will have a major update real soon. But always be careful with Zones - they are based on averages of 20 years. In my zone 5b we have got to 25 + below in the past 15 years. That will kill a lot.

Outdoors here in Missouri it can be quite humid outdoors (100 +++) :) - I plan to take a lot of my orchids out this next summer - sheltered. But we are nothing like the South in terms of humidity. Heh.

And yes - there are MANY factors that are important - temp zone and wind are major factors. Others are sun time, shade, local & micro climate, location (i.e. S or E side of house). The South side of many folk's house can be a Zone higher than the E or N side. Ditto for planting right up against a foundation in a protected area - witness my cannas in the ground since 2010.:biggrin:

cheers and Merry Christmas.