Leafless Orchids

[Graphicgreg]

Here is a shot of the pile of orchid leaves I swept up this weekend. I also have an album of some of the damage here.
Here in West Palm Beach, we had ten nights with temperatures below 45 F and at least two nights temps reached freezing. We used to cover the shadehouse and put heaters in it (kerosene & propane). But as our collection got smaller from the 04-05 hurricanes that became more work than it was worth. So this year we moved the plants inside, but not all at once. Repots and seedlings near the beginning of the cold spell...choice mature plants midway through...deciduous Dendrobiums and anything else we had room for before the two really cold nights. Some things stayed out the whole ten days. One of those was a Cattleya percivaliana pictured in the album. It took quite a lot of damage which totally surprised me. I have seen its habitat in the Venezuelan Andes and know thatit is one of the highest elevation, most cold-tolerant cattleyas.

I guess it got colder here than we thought