Hey T, I am pleased to hear that you like the challenge of orchids. But my point is even far more simple. If you grow orchids that suit your conditions, the whole process is so much simpler. It becomes difficult when the Orchids requirements are difficult for the owner to duplicate.
Fly Fisherman call it "Matching the Hatch". When insects are hatching you use the artificial fly that best matches the insects. But if you look at it in terms of orchids, you don't try to grow orchids that like to grow in the high Andean Cloud Forest nor do you try to grow sun loving Vandas if you can't provide a nice warm sunny spot. This would be futile.
With the orchid world featuring over 30,000 species and at least 300,000 hybrids, there are bound to be a few that can grow well in everyone's conditions! You just need to match the hatch!
I love Miltoniopsis. But since they do not like daytime temperatures over 70 degrees there wasn't much point in me trying to grow them in Southwest Florida where it rarely goes under 70 degrees!!
I feel that it is the same way about growing orchids hydroponically. It is not the way Orchids grow. Orchid roots need air/oxygen around their roots. Not circulating water. The art of watering orchids is no more difficult then watering an African violet or a tomato plant, you just have to read about it. You read, you understand and you water accordingly!
New world lady slippers can be found growing streamside in South America, not all, but some. Disas in South Africa I understand grow very similarly. To try to make epiphytes, that grow in trees or low hanging limbs,grow in water is making successful orchid growing much harder then it has to be.
If hydroponics was truely the way to grow them then why aren't so many more found in nature growing that way? They simply don't because it isn't.
