Orchids for awhile...
Louis and I started growing orchids together in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1995. Since that time, we have really taken our hobby to the next level. In 1996, we moved to Arkansas were I started a new job and Louis finished his undergraduate work. Once we found a place to live, the first thing we had to do was to find a way to procect our orchids from the sun.. At first it was fairly easy. Since it was August in Arkansas, we took some shade cloth and made a ‘tent’ under which we placed our various orchids. These orchids numbered about 150 - 200 at that time. When we moved from Charlottesville, we drove them to our new home in a U-haul truck. Granted we also had our orchid pots and other orchid paraphernalia to move, so therefore we needed a truck.
Anyway, we built a tent. This worked for about three months and then it started getting cold. We both knew that our orchids would need to be provided with warmth if they were going to make it through the winter months. Our new home did not have any place for the orchids. The windows were all fairly small (why didn’t we think of this when buying a place??) and did not let in much light. We had to find another solution. So, we took some plastic and wrapped a small gazebo that was on the property. We placed the orchids inside and put in a portable electric oil-radiator type heater in the center of the space, and then completely sealed off the gazebo with plastic. The next spring, when we opened up the orchid gazebo, we found that most of our plants that were on the outer edges of the gazebo were frozen/dead. The ones hanging above the heater and the ones right next to the heater suffered some damage that would set them back for some time, but at least they were alive. This knocked our orchid numbers down to about 25 plants. A mixture of cattleya type orchids and vanda type orchids. That summer we decided it was time to build a proper greenhouse if we were going to keep the remaining plants alive.
