Cymbidian Orchid Beauty Snow White

Would love to be able to grow these outside, mind you would love to be able to grow them at all,lol, the only ones that ever survive for me are the phalaenopsis, I'm not good with house plants :-(

I have Phal's too, Simbad...know what you mean. Mine are back indoors after a summer in the shade. not doing much at present, either. These are a wonderful colour. How far up North Island are you?

Lori, I'm central North Island, & a three hour drive from the bottom of it ... so no coastline winds to contend with & relatively mild winters. I was presented with a wonderful cymbidian orchid in a pot in very early 2000. I left it behind at our previous house when we moved a few months ago, & it had spent all that time outdoors. It was still in the big pot . ... I kept meaning to put it into the garden, but never got around to doing that. Was looking a bit on the straggly side, but still flowering every year. I would certainly give the buds of these orchids some protection against late frosts, as I have had some of them sucumb to frosts before.
Simbad .... I'm not good with houseplants either, though I have managed to lovingly nurse a little cyclamen back to good health this year & it rewarded me with weeks of lovely pink flowers. Still flowering now, but once it stops flowering & becomes dormant, I am going to find a nice spot in the garden for it & really hope it will pop up again next year.

That is beautiful and my favorite orchid! Thanks for sharing!

It is a beautiful one isn't it Rk. Hopefully mine will turn out as beautiful. Good thing my OH & me will reach retirement age together in a little over five years from now, because there will be so many lovely things growing in the garden by then (I hope), that gardening will take up the greater part of our day.

Sounds like you have a good climate for growing a nice variety of plants :)

Oh I love cyclamen Dwyllis, I bought a couple of plants of cyclamen coum when we went to a Hodsock Priory (see my blog) a couple of years ago, great place to see snowdrops, planted them in our little wood and lovely to see in just a couple of years they've started self seeding.

Simbad .. cyclamen are lovely & such a dainty flower. I do hope mine survives & flourishes once I put it outdoors. It did spend many months outdoors over the summer last year & I totally forget about it, & was amazed to discover it again when we were moving house, & to see that it was sprouting. It has given me heaps of pleasure for a second winter season. I love snowdrops too, & we have them popping up all over the place along our fencelines in this new property. My OH asked me yesterday if they were a weed! lol.

Rkwright .. yes, we are in quite a good area of NZ as far as climate goes. We have reasonably good summers, & the winters are relatively mild, so really the only protection I tend to give plants which are not fully hardy, is a thick mulching of pea straw & they seem to be fine. The weather gets more hot & more humid as one travels up the North Island, so they can grow more tropical plants than we could in this region. Apart from the top of the South Island, which has lovely hot summers & mild winters, the rest of the South Island has quite severe winters (lots of snow), so their planting would be more in line with the UK I am guessing.

Sounds like a growers paradise! Do temperatures not drop below freezing there?

In the part of NZ where we live, low winter temps would usually be above zero .... probably around 5-7 celsius. We hardly ever see frosts. However, having said that, this year, right at the end of winter, we had what was referred to as a Polar Blast, & for the first time ever, we had snow in this area. It didn't settle for long, & was only light, but the temp went right down & a great many new baby lambs were sadly lost during the night. As I did not have a garden in at that time, the snow didn't do any damage. I will put a pea-straw mulch around any more tender plants as we come into winter again in a few months.