Phalaenopsis Species & Primary Hybrids

I've just started trying some of the smaller Phal species at home. I've read that these need a little more light than the hybrids and some show more seasonal behaviour. Time will tell if this is so and if I can successfully grow them here on windowsills.  I learnt a valuable lesson from the Phal pulchra. I made a big mistake with this plant. When I bought it it was in horticultural foam and I was told by the grower to repot it as soon as I got it home into the growing medium I was used to (a standard bark based orchid mix). As it was in flower I thought I would risk it....Well a few weeks later almost all the roots were rotted. I repotted it and after a few months it started to grow again. I don't think it will flower for a while so I have probably missed my chances of a reblooming this year. The lesson was if a plant is a totally different medium from the one you are used to it's worth doing a repot (yes I know there will be times when that won't work, but that's what I'm going to try!!)

Left, Phal pulchra "Brian Chambers". Phal pulchra was formally known as a variety of Phal. lueddemanniana and is not accepted yet in some quarters as a "good species". This clone has white flowers very heavily overlaid with magenta, about an inch across. I don't think it's fragrant.

Right, Phal tetraspis x sumatrana, this one is more like sumatrana, flowers are about an inch, incha and quarter and are incredibly fragrant, filling a warm room with scent.

Left, a bit of a cheat, a Phal hybrid that looks like Phal lueddmanniana. When I got it, it had 5 or 6 spikes of semi pendant flowers,on long stems (about a foot long). Again unfortunately not fragrant.

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