Jack,

For Phals to spike one needs about 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit day-night
difference for about a week or two, just until they spike. But once the
Phals are in spike the day-night temp difference no longer matters.

Do you have a fan in the enclosed shelving unit? High humidity + no moving
air = environment for fungus. I am experiencing much more mold or white
fungus (not sure what it is) on the media of some of my orchids when the
humidity is high if I forget to keep the ceiling fan running in the room
where they are kept.

Catts and dends need more light than phals. Are they arranged in your case
with that in mind?

A cattleya lasting 3 weeks may just be normal for this individual plant.
Catts' flowers don't last nearly as long as Phal flowers. Maybe it will stay
in bloom longer the next time it flowers though -- I find with one of my
catts that it seems to alternate between a good flowering season and a
mediocre one (two seasons in one year) so far, I don't know how typical this
is, though. How old/young is your blc? If it is a small plant, close to
seedling size, its flowering season is likely to get longer in the future as
it matures. Also how long have you had this Blc? If you got it in spike and
this is the blooming that just happened and lasted 3 weeks, it may be that
it still needs to acclimate to your environment which is bound to be
different from the greenhouse where it probably used to live. Especially if
you bought it at an orchid show, I think shows tend to stress out orchids
quite a lot (since it's not an ideal environment and there is a lot of
environment changes that are not gradual), so they need to recover from
that, and as a result a shorter blooming season is not unusual at that
point.

Hmm, what do you mean by withered? how much? Can you post a picture to
alt.binaries.pictures.orchids if you have access to it (or post a picture to
a Web site, and send us a link to it here)?

I assume that the problem is that your father-in-law did not water them at
all? 3 weeks without watering one time only should not be a big deal for the
Phals (unless they are seedlings). Too much watering is generally worse than
not enough water. I once forgot to water a Phal for a whole month, and it
was fine -- its leaves were just wilted, but it perked up soon after that
with no lasting effects. In general a onetime deviation from usual watering
will likely be fine, since in nature they have to be able to survive an
unusually dry season. It's the overall pattern of waterings that makes more
of a difference.

Best,
Joanna

"Jack" wrote in message
ups.com...
I have 3 phals, 7 cats, 2 dend and various other species (19 in all) in
an enclosed shelving unit with a watering system. This solved my
humidity problem, but I don't know if all my orchids are enjoying their
new enviroment.

all my phals are in spike, one of my cats (bl. golden Glory) just
bloomed, but only lasted 3 weeks. One of my brassavola is in bloom. I
have a cheep room heater in the bottom of the stack to keep the temp
above 60F.

Also, I was away for 3 weeks and my father-in-law looked after my
orchids, they are in s/h and are primarly watered by misters, they all
are withered now, how long will it take for them to flesh back out (oh
I installed a secondary drip system after I came home, was alittle
****ed, guess I should be happy that they are still alive)

Jack