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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to
adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? Thanks, PlainBill |
#2
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
My guess is that Arizona is very hot, dry, arid etc....
I would get some shade cloth, misters & a swamp cooler pronto! Cheers "PlainBill" wrote in message ... We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? Thanks, PlainBill |
#3
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
PlainBill spaketh thusly:
We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. Welcome to Phoenix, Bill. For each year you live here, they take off a year's stay in hell. Did you enjoy yesterday's recycling plant fire? They're getting regular enough you can set your watch by 'em. Wait 'till it hits 115, and birds spontaneously combust in midflight. If you remember three things about Phoenix (the 'Arizona' Cardinals are loser parasites, 'Qwest' is absolutely wretched, and if you park your car in the sun you get what you deserve), everything will be fine. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? What? They were shocked by being removed from Florida to 9% relative humidity? How could that happen? First off, Phoenix water is highly saline thanks to the remarkably unwise irrigation principles followed in the southwest. Get an RO system if you haven't already. John Talpa (known to peruse the group) can probably set you up with a water system that'll grow hair on bowling balls, even with the carbonate sludge that passes for dihydrogen monoxide down here. Get set up with a "low waste" or "zero waste" system if you can. Secondly, if they're on your back porch here in Phoenix, they're going to be toast in about a week. Today's high is slated to be "only" 102 F. I think yesterday was 108 F. Remember the old formula: higher temperatures are OK for intermediate and warm-growers, PROVIDED THE HUMIDITY IS KEPT HIGH. Of course, in an environment where saguaro cacti are having a rough year of it, I'm going to guess your cattleya and odontoglossum intergenerics are begging for mercy about now. There are options, of course. The great paradox of the southwest is that you get so much light, you need to grow your plants indoors under artificial lights. Any one of a number of "hydroponics" stores (actually for indoor dope growers) will be happy to help you. The "Sea of Green" on University is pretty good. Pay cash to stay off the D.E.A. lists. (John Ashcroft is watching you!) The alternative is to purchase some sort of structure, and swamp-cool the hell out of it. With luck, you can achieve 60% RH, and using misters you can probably throw that to 75-80% if you try hard enough. Make sure you have power from SRP (rather than APS- which should go without saying), or have one hell of a power backup. Either batteries or solar will be required to make sure that when the power goes out, your collection does not become compost in 15 minutes. That 15 minutes is pretty generous- more like 10 once August comes around. So, in reality, you only have a few things working against you here in Phoenix- the arid air, the extreme heat, too much light (or not enough), crappy water, and the possibility that Joe Arpaio will come kick down your door if he thinks you're growing dope inside. Come to think of it, I really can't think of a more hostile environment for growing orchids, south of the Arctic Circle, anyway. Despite this, there are two orchid societies in the Valley. Drop me a line at (not the e-mail addy in the header- it doesn't work), and I'll be happy to give you more information on the twisted, demented souls that insist on growing orchids under the worst possible conditions. There is no storefront orchid venue in the entire state. However, you can get pefectly wretched and mislabeled orchids at "Home Depot" and "Lowe's" hardware stores. Also try "Trader Joe's." If for no other reason, go to Trader Joe's for the food. Yum. Makes everything else in town look like a produce museum. Oh- one last thing. Those Chilean mesquites look awful nice, and give great shade, but for heaven's sake PRUNE THE HELL OUT OF THEM. Cheers, -AJHicks Chandler, AZ The e-mail address in the header doesn't work. Sorry. |
#4
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
On Sun, 8 Jun 2003 20:48:24 -0700, "Wendy"
wrote: My guess is that Arizona is very hot, dry, arid etc.... I would get some shade cloth, misters & a swamp cooler pronto! Cheers Wendy Bill - You said they were YELLOWISH... That is too much sun for the amount of water and fertilizer. Get them some shade. Also get some mist to raise the humidity and cool the temperature. Your plants like your skin is reacting to the dry air. They need more water and more humidity. I would be surprised if you can grow on your patio. It probably is too hot and dry. I can not see a way to bring the humidity up to 60-70% and hold it without walls. Your Florida Orchids are used to 80-100% humidity. They don't know what to do. There is less environmental filtering of your sunlight. You will need shade cloth. What is the altitude your at now? When we moved from Chicago to Colorado we found Mature plants suddenly doubled in size. They also required 50% shade even in winter. SuE http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php |
#5
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
Sue,
Thanks for the useful insite. They plants are currently under a lattice screen with about 50% coverage. It will be easy to reduce the amount of sunlight they receive. Humidity will be a problem. Because of the layout it would be impossible to bring them inside and still give them sunlight (the roof overhangs the south side of the house about 15 feet). Phoenix is at about 1400 ft. PlainBill On Mon, 09 Jun 2003 22:32:00 -0600, Susan Erickson wrote: On Sun, 8 Jun 2003 20:48:24 -0700, "Wendy" wrote: My guess is that Arizona is very hot, dry, arid etc.... I would get some shade cloth, misters & a swamp cooler pronto! Cheers Wendy Bill - You said they were YELLOWISH... That is too much sun for the amount of water and fertilizer. Get them some shade. Also get some mist to raise the humidity and cool the temperature. Your plants like your skin is reacting to the dry air. They need more water and more humidity. I would be surprised if you can grow on your patio. It probably is too hot and dry. I can not see a way to bring the humidity up to 60-70% and hold it without walls. Your Florida Orchids are used to 80-100% humidity. They don't know what to do. There is less environmental filtering of your sunlight. You will need shade cloth. What is the altitude your at now? When we moved from Chicago to Colorado we found Mature plants suddenly doubled in size. They also required 50% shade even in winter. SuE http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php |
#7
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
One more thing not mentionned so far about AZ is its plant import laws. I
don't know how strictly enforced they are (I have shipped some Vandas to Phoenix without a problem - the box was not marked "PLANTS"), but I have read where AZ requires a photosanitary on some items and bans others completely. I guess it's always best to check out the laws before bringing any kind of plant material across state lines. If you neglect this 'rule' and your shipment is seized, you're the one out of luck. Aaron Hicks could also probably give you better advice on this since he lives there and deals in plant material. "PlainBill" wrote in message ... We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? Thanks, PlainBill |
#8
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
Aaron -
That is a classic reply. Enjoyed your humor mixed with useful information. Weren't you in Davis, CA, at one time? Tom -- From: (Aaron Hicks) Organization: Nyx Net, Free Internet access (www.nyx.net) Newsgroups: rec.gardens.orchids Date: 9 Jun 2003 10:54:07 -0600 Subject: Orchids in Phoenix, AZ PlainBill spaketh thusly: We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. Welcome to Phoenix, Bill. For each year you live here, they take off a year's stay in hell. Did you enjoy yesterday's recycling plant fire? They're getting regular enough you can set your watch by 'em. Wait 'till it hits 115, and birds spontaneously combust in midflight. If you remember three things about Phoenix (the 'Arizona' Cardinals are loser parasites, 'Qwest' is absolutely wretched, and if you park your car in the sun you get what you deserve), everything will be fine. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? What? They were shocked by being removed from Florida to 9% relative humidity? How could that happen? First off, Phoenix water is highly saline thanks to the remarkably unwise irrigation principles followed in the southwest. Get an RO system if you haven't already. John Talpa (known to peruse the group) can probably set you up with a water system that'll grow hair on bowling balls, even with the carbonate sludge that passes for dihydrogen monoxide down here. Get set up with a "low waste" or "zero waste" system if you can. Secondly, if they're on your back porch here in Phoenix, they're going to be toast in about a week. Today's high is slated to be "only" 102 F. I think yesterday was 108 F. Remember the old formula: higher temperatures are OK for intermediate and warm-growers, PROVIDED THE HUMIDITY IS KEPT HIGH. Of course, in an environment where saguaro cacti are having a rough year of it, I'm going to guess your cattleya and odontoglossum intergenerics are begging for mercy about now. There are options, of course. The great paradox of the southwest is that you get so much light, you need to grow your plants indoors under artificial lights. Any one of a number of "hydroponics" stores (actually for indoor dope growers) will be happy to help you. The "Sea of Green" on University is pretty good. Pay cash to stay off the D.E.A. lists. (John Ashcroft is watching you!) The alternative is to purchase some sort of structure, and swamp-cool the hell out of it. With luck, you can achieve 60% RH, and using misters you can probably throw that to 75-80% if you try hard enough. Make sure you have power from SRP (rather than APS- which should go without saying), or have one hell of a power backup. Either batteries or solar will be required to make sure that when the power goes out, your collection does not become compost in 15 minutes. That 15 minutes is pretty generous- more like 10 once August comes around. So, in reality, you only have a few things working against you here in Phoenix- the arid air, the extreme heat, too much light (or not enough), crappy water, and the possibility that Joe Arpaio will come kick down your door if he thinks you're growing dope inside. Come to think of it, I really can't think of a more hostile environment for growing orchids, south of the Arctic Circle, anyway. Despite this, there are two orchid societies in the Valley. Drop me a line at (not the e-mail addy in the header- it doesn't work), and I'll be happy to give you more information on the twisted, demented souls that insist on growing orchids under the worst possible conditions. There is no storefront orchid venue in the entire state. However, you can get pefectly wretched and mislabeled orchids at "Home Depot" and "Lowe's" hardware stores. Also try "Trader Joe's." If for no other reason, go to Trader Joe's for the food. Yum. Makes everything else in town look like a produce museum. Oh- one last thing. Those Chilean mesquites look awful nice, and give great shade, but for heaven's sake PRUNE THE HELL OUT OF THEM. Cheers, -AJHicks Chandler, AZ The e-mail address in the header doesn't work. Sorry. |
#9
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
I just noticed this on my latest H&R catalog. A whopping $40 for
phytosanitary certifications! Wow! Up from teh usual $25 that I *think* Hawaii charged.... man o man. K Barrett "V_coerulea" wrote in message ... One more thing not mentionned so far about AZ is its plant import laws. I don't know how strictly enforced they are (I have shipped some Vandas to Phoenix without a problem - the box was not marked "PLANTS"), but I have read where AZ requires a photosanitary on some items and bans others completely. I guess it's always best to check out the laws before bringing any kind of plant material across state lines. If you neglect this 'rule' and your shipment is seized, you're the one out of luck. Aaron Hicks could also probably give you better advice on this since he lives there and deals in plant material. "PlainBill" wrote in message ... We have just relocated from Forida to Phoenix, and are managing to adjust. However, the orchids are not doing so well. We kept them on the patio of our Florida home, and they seemed to thrive. We have them in a similar location here in Phoenix, and they are not doing so well - from my inexperienced eye, I'd say they are looking awfully yellowish. Does anyone have any suggestions on raising orchids in an arid environment? Thanks, PlainBill |
#10
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Orchids in Phoenix, AZ
tbell spaketh thusly:
That is a classic reply. Ah! So, you know Sheriff "Showboat" Arpaio and his six-figure publicist! Excellent. Enjoyed your humor mixed with useful information. Any useful information dervied from anything I write is purely accidental. If it works for you, there's a good chance it's coincidence. Weren't you in Davis, CA, at one time? Wow. You mean visiting? Probably. That would have been back in '85; I haven't been to California (LA area, specifically) since... '96, I think it was. Before moving to the Phoenix area, I lived in Socorro, New Mexico- a spectacularly wretched place. Aside from the drunk driving, water shortages, corrupt police, absurd medical care, tire fires, drought, price gouging, the "produce museums" known as supermarkets there, intermittent explosions and who-knows-what kind of fallout from research performed for the past 50 years at EMRTC, and New Mexico Tech itself- which defies description- yeah, sure. Everything was fine there. 'Cept those matters. The sunsets were great, I gotta admit that. But you had to drive 70 miles each way to Albuquerque if you wanted to see a movie, unless it was showing at the 1-screen theater in town. To give you a better idea about Socorro, you must understand the story of Elfego Baca, a self-appointed sheriff who survived a 33-hour gunfight with 80 cowboys in 1884. With a mail-order tin badge, he arrested a local cowboy who considered "entertainment" to be making Mexican citizens dance by firing at their feet. When approached by several cowboys who wanted their buddy, McCarty, to be released, Baca shot one cowboy in the knee, and a horse reared up and crushed the foreman. Baca got away, but when McCarty was released, Baca was ambushed by a contingent of 80 of cowboys who didn't see it quite the same way as Baca did. Baca ended up hiding in an empty house that, most fortunately, had a floor that was 18" below ground level. In a veritable fusillade of bullets, Baca was shot at with approximately 4,000 rounds into a tiny building; the front door sustained 367 holes alone. A stick of dynamite was chucked inside. But when dawn arrived, he started cooking breakfast- still alive, and uninjured. As an interesting aside, one cowboy made a shield using the door of a cooking stove as primitive armor, arguably the first time body armor was worn into modern combat. Baca grazed the man in the head, sending him running. Indeed, Baca's ability to return fire had caused the cowboys to string up blankets so they could walk around without getting shot. Baca was acquited of murder twice from that particular event. If memory serves, I don't think he was injured in the event. The lesson to be learned? New Mexicans like their guns (which I have no problem with), but white men can't shoot. Four thousand rounds into a building the size of most people's living rooms? Good heavens. Anyway- that event pretty much defines Socorro, except it would be a lot harder to find 80 people sufficiently enthused to attempt to murder someone in that town these days. It's tough to find 80 people that want to work in Socorro, let alone kill. Today, the Elfego Baca Golf Shoot memorializes Baca; golfers tee off from the top of M Mountain, at 7,243' ASL. The "hole" is a helicopter landing pad, 2,550' below, and about three miles distant. The first shot can carry 600 yards if done correctly. The next one is this Saturday, 14 June. Top prize is $500, and bragging rights. Mike Stanley has won it most years; I used to work with him at the EMRTC. He holds the record at 9 strokes. http://www.hiltonopen.com/Elfego.htm If memory serves, the Elfego Baca Golf Shoot is considered one of the two most difficult golf tournaments in the world. The other is in South Africa, I understand. -AJHicks Chandler, AZ |
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