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Quote:

Originally Posted by jkt97401 (Post 778379)

...Any tips on keeping humidity high?...

My Vanda seedlings have been perfectly happy at 40% relative humidity. I water them a lot.

Get a combination thermometer/humidity gauge at a shop that sells reptile supplies, and keep it in your growing area. You will have a better idea of what is actually going on. If you like electronic equipment, you can buy weather stations that send data via wireless to your PC. There is nothing that says a weather station has to go outside. You can record the temperature, relative humidity and wind speed in your growing area every ten minutes if you wish.

You have read about humidity trays in every book, article and Web page written by somebody who has a greenhouse, and who never used humidity trays. They don't work at all to raise humidity, so don't waste time and money on them. The only way they would work would be to have about 50-100 of them in a small room with no ventilation, and orchids need ventilation.

Humidity in a centrally-heated house comes from only three reliable sources: warm-blooded living animals (including hominids), plants (including non-orchids) and machines (including uncovered aquaria with plenty of bubblers.) You will not be successful raising humidity unless you put more things from these categories into your growing area.

If you have dogs or cats (or monkeys, or mice, or birds...) move them into your orchid growing area when you are not around. We beasts exhale quite a bit of water as we breathe. The more animals in your growing area the more humidity in the air. Even when relative humidity is in the single digits outside here, it is always at least 30% in the house, where the dogs and the hominid tend to hang out. Note: Cats damage plants. They just can't help it.

Along with your orchids, grow a lot of thirsty, easy-to-grow house plants that suck up lots of water. Pick the kind that prefer to stand in deep dishes of water and wilt easily, like Brugmansia and tomatoes. These are also great spider mite magnets and will show damage before many of your orchids. Plants are actually green water balloons, and the reason they stand upright is they are busy sucking water up from their roots to evaporate out their leaf pores. The more you have to water a plant, the more water it is evaporating into the air to keep your orchids happy.

Get a water evaporating machine. Hot vaporizers raise the temperature in the room as well as humidifying, but not many people would feel comfortable running one when they're at work. Ultrasonic vaporizers do a great job of throwing water into the air. They tend to have smallish reservoirs from our perspectives, but if you poke around on the Orchid Board you will find all sorts of do-it-yourself assemblages people have invented to make large amounts of mist for a long time. I remember fondly the converted Rubbermaid storage bin with the ultrasonic disc.

If you already keep fresh-water fish, move your aquarium into your grow space, take off the cover, and put in a whole lot of bubble generators. Be sure you don't keep jumping fish. The bubbles breaking the surface help evaporate water, and you will notice you have to replenish your water more frequently than when covered. Aquarists have to do partial water exchanges weekly because the biome in the tank cannot remove all the nitrates generated by bacteria in the filter from the nitrogenous wastes fish produce. If you fill the aquarium with pure water, such as rain or reverse-osmosis water, you can use the water removed from the aquarium to water your orchids. It has low levels of nitrogen, good for your plants.

Any humidifier will provide more water into the air than an aquarium, so if you don't already keep fish, don't run out and start another hobby. But if you have a tank, it can serve a dual purpose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkt97401 (Post 778379)

...I have two vases, the vanda is in one vase with no media and it has holes in the bottom. I dunk it every morning in the other, slightly larger vase as i get ready for work then remove it and let it drain. Do you think i could add some media like hydroton to give it a little more moisture?...

Before any of that, your plant would probably prefer you soak the roots twice or more daily, unless they are still green from the morning dunking, which I doubt. Vandas do best with lots of water, and they are ready to be watered again as soon as the roots turn white.

I have read of people using stuff in the bottom with non-drilled vases. Some people with non-drilled vases leave water in the bottom, below the lowest roots, to provide extra humidity in the vase. I think it is reasonable to try hydroton with your setup, but I would only have a small layer at the bottom. Eventually the roots might grab onto the hydroton and you will have a problem getting the plant out when it is time to move to a bigger vase. I see the advantage of your double-vase system; watering it is much faster than filling a vase with water, then dumping it out. I spray the roots on each plant with a spray bottle; with you having only one Vanda (for now ha ha ha), this might be as fast as your current method.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkt97401 (Post 778379)

...what fertilizer should i use. I've been looking at SOLOe from First Rays as i like that Kelp Max is included in the formula. Do you think this would be good?

Be sure you read everything about fertilizer on the FirstRay's Web site, and get used to thinking of fertilizer in terms of parts per million of nitrogen rather than half-strength, full-strength and the like. There is also a calculator there to calculate PPM given the nitrogen number on the fertilizer and the amount of dry powder used.

The combined products are for people who don't have time or don't want to mix two different products. Control freaks who try to grow orchids in completely unsuitable climates generally like to mix everything up separately. (A friend told me this.) If you don't mind mixing fertilizer regularly, and kelp only once a month, get an MSU fertilizer blend and KelpMax, and use them separately. Ray doesn't recommend using KelpMax by itself more than once monthly.

I have a book by Martin Motes of Motes Orchids in Florida. He waters every day, and twice per day during hot spells, unless it has just rained. He says he fertilizes his Vandas every 5th - 7th watering during warm weather, using a 15-5-15 fertilizer at 1.5 to two tablespoons (not teaspoons) per gallon, and he uses
Florida hard, pH 8.5 well water. Two tablespoons of 15-5-15 yields about 1,200 PPM nitrogen; I had never heard of any plant tolerating this other than bananas. Motes also uses a weak Epsom salts solution in between to give additional magnesium. He says seedlings need even more feeding. His plants also get far more light than any plant in a home in Oregon.

I have been brave enough to use up to 1 teaspoon per gallon of Ray's MSU 13-3-15-8Ca-2Mg in rainwater, which gives 150 PPM nitrogen, but I use this at almost every watering. There should be plenty of calcium and magnesium in this. I soak my plants overnight in pure water every 3-4 days, and give them a monthly overnight KelpMax soak at 2 teaspoons / 30ml per gallon / 3.8 liter. Being a succulent grower, I push lighting levels on my plants until they start complaining a little, so perhaps my plants can use more fertilizer than those grown in more shady conditions.