Challenge: Orchids for dry Colorado

[ChickadeeGambeli]

Browsing all the different cultures of orchids has been getting me thinking.
I certainly can't afford to get anything fancy, but I'd love to have some ideas for orchids that would do well in my area when I have money to burn in the future.
I hope this might be interesting for you guys to figure out?

As mentioned, I live in CO. I believe I'm in zone 5b- Denver area, foothills.

My conditions as far as I know:

Humidity: anywhere from 40-50%, sometimes 60%. it might be dryer in my home with our heater/AC. Most of my orchids are grouped together on a table, some on gravel trays. I could keep a few in my room where I have a small humidifier running at night.

Temperature: In my house, 65 at night, 72 during the day. It might get up to 75 in the warm window they're in. My room definitely gets up to 75 during the day, esp. during the summer.

Light: Most in a south window. I've never had a problem with sunburn- our windows are double paned and filtered. I have a west facing window I might be able to put some in as well.


I've never (in my ~2yrs experience) put my orchids outside for fear of messing something up. I hear it can be a great booster with the extra light.
If they were outside, they'd be on a protected patio that gets a lot of direct southern sun, with some shaded spots I could fit them in. I also have a patio table that always has an umbrella above it that I could put them under- cuts the southern sun by about 1/2 or 1/3 I'd say.

Here's a picture of a wall on our patio that faces the north that I could mount things on. The only other wall available for mounting faces the west, and is pretty full.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...erstuff047.jpg


Hopefully this will be a challenge for you guys! I'm fascinated by this kind of thing. Thanks for any input!

[Alice-NJ]

No one from Colorado seems to be responding. What you might do is check this site or do a search for a list of the orchid societies and see if there's one near you. They should know what works best in your area.

[ChickadeeGambeli]

Funny you say that, Alice. I finally checked out Denver Orchid Society a couple days ago- and realized I'd missed their convention/sale by 2 days. You can imagine how miffed I was!