Masdevallia/Dracula in florida heat

[Bagus]

Hello everyone, I am new here (kinda)

I've been lurking for a while and have been using this forum to answer some of my more specific questions, but sometimes the search button just isn't enough. So I've decided to make an account.

I have recently been looking at Various Masdevallia, Dracula, and Dracuvallia from Ecuagenera but I have not dared to pull the trigger on one because I know these are usually cool-intermediate growers and my only growing area is outdoors in zone 10a heat.

However I have seen some people here use Kool-logs to keep the roots cool enough for them to survive. I have a couple tall terracotta cylinder pots which I could try to emulate this effect with, but I would hate to waste time and money just to kill anything I tried to mount on it.

Any advice to allow these genus to beat the heat?

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board.

I'm familiar with evaporative cooling because it's still used quite a bit in Arizona, but only when humidity is low.

Evaporative cooling hardly works at all when the dew point is over 55 degrees F / 13C. It doesn't work during our summer monsoon, which is also the hottest part of our year. It will not work during warm parts of your year, because your relative humidity is even higher.

People in cooler parts of the San Francisco Bay area, or right on the coast in southern and central California, can grow these outdoors for most of the year.

The only people likely to keep them alive in your climate will be those who keep them indoors and keep the temperature in the house quite cool. An Orchid Board member, RJSquirrel, grows some of them near Houston. Look up his posts.

There are lots of other orchids that will thrive in your climate, but not the ones you mentioned.

[Bagus]

I feared as much...

Thank you for the response regardless!

[Roberta]

There are a few Masdevallias that are more heat-tolerant. Masd. floribunda is one of the easiest. I have actually managed to get away with some of the Draculas too. Hit or miss. However at my house, there is the advantage of cooler nights which help the heat-intolerant orchids get through summer days. That is the missing factor in Florida, the hot days often are followed by hot nights. You may be able to get away with it indoors, but outdoors probably not.