Seeking advice from experienced growers re: orchids suited to my environment

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Yup, Masdevallias are beautiful orchids! Many people love them for their unique shapes and forms and their often bright colors.

The pic of the Masdevallia you uploaded is that of Masd vietchiana. It is just one of a few variants. There is also a solid red-orange one, and a solid orange one. There might even be a light orange variant of Masd vietchiana as well, not too sure...

Restrepia brachypus is a nice one to have too. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to get a hold of. They are not terribly difficult to grow, and blooms quite easily.

Another easy to grow Restrepia sp. is Restrepia muscifera. Restrepia muscifera blooms almost non-stop. Flowers are smaller than Restrepia brachypus and held much closer to the leaf.

Restrepia spp. have the added advantage of also being relatively small sized orchids as well.

As Brenda Arts mentioned, cool to intermediate Coelogyne spp. are good choices too. Many have decent sized flowers and multitudes of them per spike.

Jrodpad has a good suggestion with the cool to intermediate growing Paphiopedilum spp. and Phragmipedium spp. as well. If you like these, many of the Chinese Paphs are well suited to cooler temperatures. Some examples are Paph armeniacum, Paph micranthum, Paph malipoense. Most Phrags grow cooler. One affordable Phrag is Phrag besseae.

Another choice would be Cypripedium spp. You may choose from native US Cyps, European Cyps, Japanese Cyps, or Chinese Cyps. A couple of species of US Cyps you might be interested in would be Cypripedium reginae or Cyp kentuckiense. Chinese Cyp recommendations would be either Cyp franchetii, Cyp macranthum, Cyp plectrochilum, or Cyp henryi. A European Cyp would be Cyp calceolus. A Japanese Cyp would be Cyp japonicum.

Another Oncidium relative that does well in cool temperatures are Odontoglossum spp. Many of these are also high elevation Onc types that have decent sized flowers.

If you are good at growing spring bulbs like daffodils and such, you might be interested in an easy to find, and very affordable terrestrial orchid that originated from China called Bletilla striata. I've sometimes found these in the garden section of places like The Home Depot or OSH. I've also found these for sale in local nurseries and large chain garden centers such as Armstrong.

Pleione spp. might be another choice for you as well.

As you can see, you're not limited in terms of what you can grow, you just have to know what kinds of orchids grow cool to intermediate.