Good luck with it. Is it going to be a dry cold or a wet cold?

Cold front tomorrow early morning with 2 or 3 hours of rain. Then clear, cold and dry for several days. Sunday morning will be the first low temps. I will be at it after the rain foe several hours...

I think wet cold is worse than dry cold. With clear skies when the sun comes up it warms up quite quickly. But when it's wet it's usually overcast and temperatures stay low.

But this is a cold front with low temps that will last several days. Wet or dry I heat at 50. Several will take lower but they live together. Heat to the highest temp required...

We don't get cold fronts, although we can get dry air surges which cause cooler night temperatures but still hot during the day. That's not too bad for some orchids, unless there's strong winds with it. If it were too easy there's be thousands of species growing everywhere.

Mine are all staying outside. They've been through a few cold spells and did not show damage. I'm even leaving out the orchids in bud.

If it gets close to frost levels, I'd bring in some but so far tonight is supposed to hit a low of 42.

Jane

This is new to me, dealing with so much cold for my orchids... they are all inside garage, my desert roses are in the shed and 3 potted eggplant are also in garage, hoping to keep them alive until spring. We have heavy frost on grass and all tops and glass of cars.... fireplace is on.. temp is 30 and windchill in 20's

Jane, If I didn't heat at 50 mine would also survive. However I am more interested in beyond survival. A few dendrobiums stay outside and they will benefit. Several others would tolerate mid 40's but it is too hard to remember which is which. Many more would "survive" but they would suffer. As a result the number and quality of flowers would be less. Most orchids I grow will show immediate damage in the low 40's. Mid to upper 40's damage takes a little longer to see and is less severe but in time it will show. A warm loving orchid is Vanda. Below 50 is bad. However there are rare exceptions in vandas. My terete vanda is another exception. Over the years, we have had dips in the high 20's as well over 100 in the west sun and the teretes have no quit and show little damage.

As a northerner all I can do is smile and say good luck. At least we can make pretty good advanced plans as far as when we need to move 'em in/out.

Harvey, I was slogging around in a river with leaky waders last week at those 50'ish temps. Funny, seems Jane the ex-northerner is being calm about it all :)

We went down to 15 last week and don't look to get above the 30's until the coming weekend. Winter has arrived in Ohio, as I had to throw salt on my elderly neighbor's driveway yesterday morning so she could safely make it to church. No shoveling and haven't had/wanted to stoke the fireplace yet this season, but I know it is coming.

Good luck everyone and stay warm!

Bob

Living in the Ozark Mountains a long time ago, I enjoyed using my wood stove and fireplace. I did not mind the work of cutting firewood. But I was much younger then. The winter can add some orchid work but overall we in South Florida are in our glory from November to at least the end of April, we have our best weather. The price we pay is the hot summers. Mostly it is the feels like temperature rather than the actual degrees. Its the humidity. And it is 5 months or more. My wife says 7 months. This weather may give me a very good bloom on my den. speciosum. Since I've had it, 3 plus years, It has not had the cool down require to bloom. Hopefully it will make a difference this year.

Bob, you are right, I am calm about 40's temps because I left my orchids outside in NY when temps dipped in the 40's. I never lost a plant. I did not leave the Phals or thin leaf orchids out overnight, but would leave them out during the day as long as sunny.

I know it doesn't bother the Catts at all. They seem to bloom better with a good chill.

In NY the days were 40, but the nights freezing so they would come in when the sun got low.

Here, in Florida, it will dip to the 40's at about 2am and temps rise as soon as the sun rises.

Living here for 5 years, I have only brought plants inside once the first year. I think it was going to be in the 30's at night. They went back out in the day because in Florida, the sun warms things up quickly.

I haven't found any damage to my orchids and I must have somewhere close to 200.

Summers are the most damaging for many of my plants. I wish I could afford a greenhouse with AC.

Jane

Summers kill phals for me so I do not grow them. I have in the past not heated until mid 40's. The vandas suffers the most. There are some dens that need the cold so they stay out. The rest, onc, Catt, dens, enc. etc suffers less than the vandas but were harmed. Enough to reduce production. It affected the number of flowers and the size. I do not grow orchids for their leaves. It is about flowers. So Jane if you do not mind the smaller flowers and less of them you are on the right track. Simply whatever your production is at lower temps, would be more if they were kept at 50 or better. Certainly there are exceptions. My brassavolas that are in the landscape attached to trees stay and do well. A Florida commercial grower informed me that orchids on trees can take lower temps as the trees provide a natural anti freeze near the bark of trees. I think that means you get a pass with temps a few degrees lower. And the terete vandas are bulletproof.

Harvey,

I think it all depends on what you grow. I keep all catts out until low 40's and sometimes lower if there is a quick warm-up forecasted. I do keep them under an eave of the house and I think the house helps to keep temps a little higher than out in the open. That said, as far as catts I grow mostly mini/compacts and they seem to have a lot of cold tolerant heritage in them, this was/is my best year yet for catts but part of that is they are maturing as I usually buy seedlings/not yet bloomed plants. My vandas and bulbos are the last ones out and the first ones in, in my experience they do struggle with low temps.

Jane,

I have a few plants that I haul in and out, but over 90% of the collection comes in and goes out only 1x per year because frankly, I'd rather be fishing :)

Bob

I'm sure I'm over doing the catts. In the past I left the wrong ones out. So now I do all catts. My biggest influence is the vandas. Some get heated and are on the border line. But the weather forecast is reliable plus or minus 3 degrees. That must be factored from past experience. Only if the quest is for optimum. If you do not err on the side of caution time will kick you in the backside...

I brought in my dens and Vandas. I’d swear my Vandas look more upset about the move than temperatures. That excludes my Renanthera Kalsom which is turning yellow on many leaves. I can’t seem to keep it happy.