"Kelrosie" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

last summer I bought a lovely orchid. There wasn't any info with it, so I
don't know what type it is. It flowered lovely and then we got infested
with
ants in our house. I put the orchid outside and it has been out there ever
since. The petals obviously dropped off but the leaves still look alive
and
well.

You can get an idea of the genus by doing searches on Phalaenopsis,
Dendrobium, Cattleya, Paphiopedilum, Phragmipedium, Odontoglossum, Oncidium,
Miltonia, Epidendrum, Cymbidium, and probably in that order (since the most
common orchids here are phals, and thos elisted later I have only seen at
orchid society meetings). There is a website with lots of orchid pictures,
but I don't recall the URL (finding that will ease your search). There is
little chance of identifying it to the specific hybrid you have, but you
should be able to see if it is a lady's slipper or a phal or a catt or a
dend. Even that will enable folk to give you a better sense of what it
probably needs.

Should I bring it I now? Will it die if I don't?

First, you should have said where you're growing, but I could tell from your
email address you're in the UK. So, unless you're growing orchids native to
the UK, you probably ought to bring it inside if you want it to survive.
There are some that probably would survive, if it gets cold enough where you
are (they need a real winter), such as orchids of terrestrial genera like
Bletilla and Cypripedium, the former native to China and the latter native
to Canada and the northern US, but they aren't exactly the easiest orchids
to find. I understand some orchid societies here don't allow the sale of
Cypripedium here because of their inability to distinguish between plants
taken from the wild and plants grown from seed in a greenhouse.

HTH

Ted