Hey Josh, It's pretty bad here. We got an eighth of an inch of rain yesterday and it evaporated before it hit the ground for all practical purposes and then the last rain we got was about a quarter of an inch well over a week before that. Other than that, no rain since May 12th... and none forecasted in the next two weeks.
People's wells are going dry left and right and you can see the contractors out there re-drilling all over the place. Three now in my neighborhood alone and that's less than 30 homes. We went dry last year with that 12 week drought so we already re-drilled. Very costly and our well was only 3 years old. I fried out the pump to the well because I was out there trying to water plants and didn't know the well was dry. That was another lovely added expense. Currently, our water pressure is poor, very poor. I watered my new native trees/shrubs and other native herbaceous perennials using the water from the kids' swimming pool. Kids were not happy. When that 3500 gallons was gone, I ordered a tanker for home and am getting ready to order another one. My oldest son does water trees in the yard and in my little orchard using the garden hose on Sundays but we won't let him water more than 3 hours and no more than 5 minutes per tree. Last weekend, he took it upon himself to water several of my CP bogs with well water that is testing at 268 parts per million. Oh I about had a heart attack as there is no way to flush out anything recessed into the ground. First time that happened and it will be the last.
In addition to all the bans (never did understand why people bothered watering their lawns anyway as they just go dormant and bounce back with rain), several water mains broke in the area so there are boil orders in effect and in other areas there are boil orders thanks to the geese and deer feces leeching into the water table so needless to say, the shelves are wiped out of both RO and distilled water and people are calling around to find out when the trucks are coming to deliver more so they can be there to get it. I was one of those people.
I bought the RO unit. It is mine. RO is not efficient at all and RO/DI is even less efficient. I currently am bypassing the DI phase. My husband placed some sort of a little plastic valve on the discharge tube to slow down the discharge and build up pressure in the unit to pump out more water. The unit is set up at my office (Lake Michigan water) and I am lugging the water home in my car every single day. I have the RO water emptying into a 50 gallon barrel and the discharged water emptying into another barrel. I use some of the discharge water to fill up my birdbath at work. I also have a neighbor from another office who has a birdbath and she comes over and gets the discharged water for her birdbath which is also placed outside her office window like mine. The birds are having such a tough time that we see them in the gutters of roofs in the morning trying to drink condensation. Our building maintenance is using the rest of the discharged water. Gosh, I hope everyone who is using RO units is not wasting the dishcarge water as it is perfectly fine for most landscape plants as well as birdbaths and all you have to do is collect it.
Regarding my RO/DI unit, even city water is losing pressure now and is down to 55-60 psi so we just ordered an Aquatech 8800 Booster pump for the RO unit which should push the psi to 70-110 to enable it to produce more water. I have a need for 25 gallons a day. On days when the temps are high, the need is greater. Although rated for 100 gallons a day, my unit is barely able to produce 25 right now. So, my husband is picking up supplemental distilled water for me from where ever. At least we aren't out there trying to buy distilled water 100 gallons at a time anymore and comparing notes over the phone of which retailer is out and who has it.
What is an OR towel? I have no issues with mosquitoes. I use the dunks you can buy at Home Depot. You can break the dunks down to smaller pieces to use in birdbaths and other water features. I promise you they will not hurt your CPs. It might be a time saver for you to use them as they last a good 45-60 days. Here's a thread where they were discussed-
http://www.petflytrap.com/cgi-bin....17;st=0
Back to misting, I started misting the plants after the sun went down a few days ago in an attempt to increase the relative humidity around the plants. I am afraid to do it during the day because as you mentioned, orchids aren't in full sun and Sarrs are. I haven't been growing CPs all that long either so I don't know if you are in trouble or not by having let your tray dry out a few times. Even when my trays are bone dry, the medium is still nice and damp so maybe I should have clarified. My medium has never been allowed to dry out. I have stopped using 6" pots though. With this heat and me being gone during the day, I found they were drying out a little too fast for my liking. The 8" and 10" pots seem better capable of withstanding the trays drying out during the day without the medium drying out. My plants are on concrete as well as up on some sort of concrete sills. The brick is light colored as is the siding on the home so I have an ideal patio for growing these plants in that they aren't heating up from anything radiating heat back at them. The other thing is that the patio is in full sun and is a wind break so that is reducing the rate of evaporation. I could be in worse shape.
Everyone all together now! Let's do a rain dance for the flora and fauna out my way! Speaking of which, the deer are coming in close to my house. I have found their little hoof tracks up to two of my preform ponds. Ugh.
erlite or sand. That way, you can keep the pot in a saucer of water, and not have to worry as much about root rot.
