Post Away - Curious George!

[Diane]

And now you have passed 5 posts, so you can create your avatar and send private messages, etc.

[Orchidzrule]

George, to the forum. I'm one of those who mostly take up space because I'm still learning. (Maybe humorous space, like Tim. I can always hope!)

At any rate, I really just wanted to say everyone on here has killed a few plants. Ideally, we learn what we did to cause its death and then we avoid the same mistake in the future. OK, maybe some of us repeat the course a time or two before graduating, but you get my general idea. You seem to know the right things to do.

I love the Enc. tampensis! I have a cross of it (with E. alatus) and, if it decides it can grow with me, maybe I'll go for it down the road.

Again, welcome.

Cheers,

Rob

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Welcome George! Beautiful plants you have there. I look forward to more photos!

Cheers!
BD

[Curious George]

My wife and I thank you all for the warm reception, for it is truly appreciated. As I find the time, I will post more pictures of our orchids - some know and some unknown. We have a few new flower spikes appearing, so the mystery of their ID continues.

[LJA]

Hi Geo, nice to have you on board! I like your grow areas quite a bit--heavy plastic and one of those electric oil-filled heaters should be enough to keep temps above freezing, assuming you don't get any really "hard" freezes. Sounds like you don't though.....

[uncasteeb]

Would bubble wrap be a better idea than plastic ?
Not sure you call it the same in the US.I,m going to line my g/h with it to
prolong the growing season.
Great looking plants George but boy oh boy what an introduction into growing orchids !!

[Curious George]

Would bubble wrap be a better idea than plastic ?

That's an interesting idea! I've never considered bubble-wrap, but it could be a possibility. I'll look into what size sheets are readily available here. Thanks for the input.

[Curious George]

Well, the winter is approaching, and while we haven't had any hard freeze here, we've had a few cool nights. I was told by the people from whom we rescued these orchids, not to let the temperature go below 40 degrees fahrenheit.

I thank everyone for your ideas about plastic, bubble wrap, etc. What we ended up with was pool covers, which are essentially very heavy duty (11 mil) bubble wrap in large sizes. The photos show my two pergolas wrapped with three pool covers, at $35 each (less shipping). Really not too bad, and I think this will work out for us. The worst problem is that the slightest breeze picks up the plastic and wants to make it sail away. I now have everything staked down very tightly, and hope that with the hurricane season past, and no major thunderstorms lurking, we'll be OK until spring.