I detest winter.

[Wendy]

That's terrible Lien. I feel for you. As others have said I hope you have a lot pull through. If i had any Laelia anceps I would share with you...unfortunately I don't have any.

I too would be scared of growing in a greenhouse....I'm so used to having my plants in the basement. Good thing we've never lost power in the winter. (yet)

 

[lienluu]

Well... after a full day of letting things settle... it looks like most of the anceps made it. Except for the new growths, those are all gone but all the old growths are OK. The leaves are all dead but the bulbs are OK....so that is enough.

Many of the cattleyas died.

The biggest surprise is that I have a huge Stanhopea in there. That plant survived intact. In fact, when I found the mess yesterday morning. All the plants had leaves that were frozen solid and on a few, I bent them to see what would happen and they just snapped off. Not so with the stanhopea. The leaves didn't even freeze!

 

[adiaphane]

Many of the cattleyas died.

I'm so sorry to read that! Your catts were so beautiful, and helped change my mind about catts (I'm serious, I really like catts now).

I can't offer any solutions or preventions, only condolences.

 

[SlipperFan]

I'm sorry to hear about that, Lien. I guess we should all go live in the tropics.

 

[Heather]

I'm sorry to hear about that, Lien. I guess we should all go live in the tropics...

together! I'm really thinking we get along here so well, let's move somewhere warm and hang out. It would certainly be easier to go out for a beer - although, one of us might have to open a bar to accomodate us all.

I had a really nice note this evening from a forum member who admired how much of a real community of nice folks we were. It meant a lot to me, and means a lot to me.

Love, kisses, and all that silliness.

 

[SlipperFan]

together! I'm really thinking we get along here so well, let's move somewhere warm and hang out. It would certainly be easier to go out for a beer - although, one of us might have to open a bar to accomodate us all.

I had a really nice note this evening from a forum member who admired how much of a real community of nice folks we were. It meant a lot to me, and means a lot to me.

Love, kisses, and all that silliness.

Can you imagine what kind of orchid paradise we would have.....:drool:

 

[Rick]

together! I'm really thinking we get along here so well, let's move somewhere warm and hang out. It would certainly be easier to go out for a beer - although, one of us might have to open a bar to accomodate us all.

I had a really nice note this evening from a forum member who admired how much of a real community of nice folks we were. It meant a lot to me, and means a lot to me.

Love, kisses, and all that silliness.

I have a brother in law who goes back and forth to Vietnam for extended periods.

He loves it, and plans on moving there for good. No shortage of beer either.

 

[NYEric]

I have a brother in law who goes back and forth to Vietnam for extended periods.

He loves it, and plans on moving there for good. No shortage of beer either.

HOT!!! [as in too hot]

 

[NYEric]

H. I'm on the Ecuador or Costa Rican oceanside retirement plan!

 

[ohio-guy]

Maybe we should all just meet for lunch first before we move in together!
Or maybe hook up for an orchid congress or show and be sure we are marginally compatible!!!

On a more serious note, I am sorry about your loss Lien, but hopefully the majority will pull thru, and for those that don't you have that much room for more!
Little solace perhaps too are the great photos you have shared with all of us...did you ever post pictures of your green house? If you did I missed it. But the flowers are always inspiring, and you still have great pictures.

 

[Ron-NY]

Lien sorry to hear this...it is good to hear that most will pull through.

 

[John M]

Lien, this is so terrible. I am very sorry that you've had this happen. Have you figured out why the heater plug got pulled out of the outlet? Have you checked the operation of your back-up heater to find out why it didn't come on? Man! You were so unlucky. This is a real tragety. If you're a heavy sleeper, couldn't you hook up the alarm system to a louder bell / buzzer? What about rigging it so that it sets off a smoke alarm, or, one of those big, loud, red fire bells that you see in public buildings. Put the whole thing on an automatic timer so that your birds don't suffer through hours of noise if you're not home in the day. If you're not home to hear it, there's no need for anything to be ringing anyway. I have a large greenhouse and freezing is always a big worry in the winter....that and high winds during serious summer thunder storms! I am so sorry for you. Don't throw out anything until every last scrap of it has turned black and mushy. You may be surprized how many tiny dormant eyes are still viable on very old psuedobulbs. The oldest ones, in the centre of the plant will have had the best chance of not being destroyed by the cold. Good luck!

 

[Leo Schordje]

I once left a beautiful Lemboglossum bictoniense in the car, overnight, and the outside temps dropped to zero F, (-16 C for the Euro crowd) The pot and pseudobulbs froze solid. I brought the plant in and left it in a shady spot on the side. Mush. peeled off the mushy parts. Two months later a flush of tiny new growths came up from the rhizome connecting the stubs of frozen off pseudobulbs. 5 years later I have a couple pots of this bictoniense that have reach the size of first bloom seedlings. A horrible set back but miraculous that the plant was not completely lost. Don't throw anything out of unique genetic value, sprouts may come.

 

[Jason Fischer]

Oh man, sorry to hear about that! Another local nursery here had this problem years ago and lost an entire greenhouse full of orchids to freezing.

Santa Barbara had the lowest temps since 20 years ago, reaching down to 23 degrees along parts of the coast! There are many L. anceps growers there who have them outside. Some of my friends said that they are suffering from freeze damage, but the plants are still alive. I'm guessing many of your large divisions will suffer cold damage, but also slowly recover. The big plus is there was no wind chill as they were enclosed in a greenhouse. I wouldn't loose all hope. All you can do is slowly bring them back to normal temps and go easy on the water for a few days. I'm hoping many of them will recover!