Rhynchostylis Gigantea Red var Rattana

[Bud]

Thank you for the visit and your kind encouraging words.

I grow my orchids at sea level and very humid and hot in summer. Whereas you are highlander with dry atmosphere all year round. I have visited Colorado twice; once in the middle of winter for snowboarding and in summer on tour for a broadway musical as a designer backstage.
You have a totally different zone, therefore you have to adjust to your environment to provide a comfort to your orchid plant.
Always take note of where your plant came from (labgrown or orchidgrowers place) and where it is endemic from. Your plant is from the equator area which is hot and humid. There are two seasons=the dry and the wet monsoon rains.....as opposed to our Temperate zone with four seasons. Since you inherited that orchid plant already thriving in our temperate zone then it is acclimatized....yet you still have to follow the two seasons of the equator in terms of watering and fertilizer needs. I do not give it dry period since morning dew and high humidity provides the plant moisture in its dry seasons....so I water it the same ways in winter but do not feed it fertilizer in winter. Additional electric lighting and an electric humidifier with fan is advised all year round.
You may repot your plant any which way you want. But my lavender spotted foxtail is in a four inch basket with its pencil thick roots intertwined on the basket and I dare not repot it. I soak it overnight in a basin of water every other week.
here is a link for my lavender spotted foxtail:

Rhynchostylis gigantea ‘Lavender Spots’

[Plantaphile]

Originally Posted by Bud

Thank you for the visit and your kind encouraging words.

I grow my orchids at sea level and very humid and hot in summer. Whereas you are highlander with dry atmosphere all year round. I have visited Colorado twice; once in the middle of winter for snowboarding and in summer on tour for a broadway musical as a designer backstage.
You have a totally different zone, therefore you have to adjust to your environment to provide a comfort to your orchid plant.
Always take note of where your plant came from (labgrown or orchidgrowers place) and where it is endemic from. Your plant is from the equator area which is hot and humid. There are two seasons=the dry and the wet monsoon rains.....as opposed to our Temperate zone with four seasons. Since you inherited that orchid plant already thriving in our temperate zone then it is acclimatized....yet you still have to follow the two seasons of the equator in terms of watering and fertilizer needs. I do not give it dry period since morning dew and high humidity provides the plant moisture in its dry seasons....so I water it the same ways in winter but do not feed it fertilizer in winter. Additional electric lighting and an electric humidifier with fan is advised all year round.
You may repot your plant any which way you want. But my lavender spotted foxtail is in a four inch basket with its pencil thick roots intertwined on the basket and I dare not repot it. I soak it overnight in a basin of water every other week.
here is a link for my lavender spotted foxtail:

Rhynchostylis gigantea ‘Lavender Spots’

Hello Bud,

Thanks for the follow-up on my questions. I agree 100% with you that we must all take into account our growing zone when determining plant care (I've another post I started looking specifically for other folks growing Rhynchos here in the mountain states). Without a doubt, our growing conditions here in CO are quite dry and we go through some extremes in terms of temperatures/conditions that are rarely seen elsewhere (great example - two days ago it was 70, dry and sunny and today it's 20 degrees and we have a foot of snow). But that's part of the challenge of growing plants here.

Based on your feedback and some helpful suggestions in the other thread I mentioned, I'm now not so sure the basket option for my Rhyncho is out of the question, so I'm going to give that a try and see how it goes once spring/summer roll around.

Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts on this. You've got some really gorgeous Rhynchos!