Hi, Dan. I live in Indianapolis, Indiana, and have had great success with Cymbidium Fifi Harry. One of this hybrid's parents is Cymbidium madidum, which (from what I've read) is heat tolerant in its native Australia. If you're not familiar with Fifi Harry, I can assure you that it's both a beautiful plant (nicely strong and straight to arching leaves, not the floppy just-been-through-a-rain-storm look that many of the larger hybrid cymbidiums I've seen seem to have) and has amazing chrome yellowish-green, mildly fragrant flowers. There are frequently two spikes initiated for each new growth the plant makes, and (a nice surprise this was) the older growths sometimes send out spikes too. I grow mine outdoors in our hot and very humid summers, water the heck out of it, and feed it once in awhile (every source I've read has said that cymbidiums are heavy feeders; however, I tend to be kind of negligent--or forgetful--when it comes to fertilizing my plants). Although I let it stay outdoors day and night through the fall--at least until the nightime temps drop down to around 40 degrees F--we don't start experiencing those "spike-initiating temps" so important to standard hybrids until we're well into October. My plant also doesn't get any more than an hour of direct early morning sun each day during the summer (it's on a slat bench on the northeast side of my house, just under the eaves, where it gets absolutely no direct sun after eight a.m.), and it performs very well. Right now it has three spikes, one from each of the two new growths, and a third from a growth it made in 2004. On the down side, the plant tends to get rather large, and the spikes are also very long. They can easily cascade two to three feet below the plant when they've fully developed (and if you put the flowering plant outdoors in the early spring, don't be surprised to see numerous wasps, hornets and other insects crawling all over the spikes, helping themselves to a meal of the abundant sugary deposits that the flower bracts produce after the insects' winter hibernation ends). I got my plant around five years ago from Cal-Orchid, in Santa Barbara, and it was reasonably priced and of a nice robust size. I can also say that it was one of the best orchid purchases I've ever made over the years, as far as all around ease of growth and great performance from a hybrid orchid goes. I'm not sure whether they still carry this plant, but it couldn't hurt to contact them. Good growing to you!
Steve _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
