A jungle for a living room

After moving to northern Kentucky in September 2015, I found that our winters were long and cold compared to South Carolina (not bad compared to, say, Minnesota, but I felt that SC was cold enough already, and the Ohio river valley seems frequently gray and overcast). So, I decided that we needed some plants and bright lights in our living room to cheer us up during our long, dismal winters. Instead of just growing orchids in pots, I decided to build a paludarium (like an aquarium/terrarium combination, with both water and land portions). The project mushroomed into a riverbank paludarium (you could also call it a riparium, although there are some differences between the two) with a waterfall, two sub-irrigated planters, and a small aquarium, complete with metal halide lights, a humidifier, a reverse osmosis filter, and an automated rain system. I visited Papua New Guinea years ago, and thought it was one of the most fascinating places on Earth anthropologically, linguistically, botanically, zoologically, tectonically, and in many other ways. So, all the plants and animals I got for our exhibit are from mainland New Guinea (the second-largest island on earth) or the surrounding islands (e.g. Solomon Islands).

 

Raven (and JE) I primarily grow intermediate/warm species, exclusively from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Temperatures are 65° low, 75° in the winter, and 75° low, 85° high in the summer. My wife has a similar setup in a thirty gallon aquarium in her office.

I also just finished building a refrigerated New Guinea highlands paludarium to grow species like Dendrobium cuthbertsonii and Dendrobium hellwigianum. I'm currently stocking it. If anyone has good sources to recommend for some of the harder to find New Guinea highlands orchids, I would appreciate the advice.

Here's a (possibly incomplete?) list of species in the main, warm paludarium and connected planters:

Orchids
Aerides quinquevulnera
Bulbophyllum arfakianum
Bulbophyllum fritillariiflorum
Bulbophyllum gracillimum
Bulbophyllum grandiflorum
Bulbophyllum macranthum
Coelogyne asperata
Dendrobium aberrans
Dendrobium anosmum
Dendrobium antennatum
Dendrobium atroviolaceum
Dendrobium chalmersii
Dendrobium chrysopterum
Dendrobium convolutum
Dendrobium discolor var. broomfieldii
Dendrobium lasianthera
Dendrobium lawesii
Dendrobium macrophyllum
Dendrobium mirbelianum
Dendrobium nindii
Dendrobium pseudoglomeratum
Dendrobium purpureum
Dendrobium rhodostictum
Dendrobium smilliae
Dendrobium spectabile
Dendrobium tangerinum
Dendrobium trilamellatum semifuscum
Dendrochilum longifolium
Diplocaulobium aratriferum
Grammatophyllum scriptum
Grammatophyllum scriptum var. citrinum
Liparis condylobulbon
Phaius tankervilleae
Phalaenopsis amabilis

Other Plants
Asplenium nidus
Ceratopteris thalictroides (water sprite)
Davallia trichomanoides
Hydnophytum formicarum
Microsorum pteropus (Java fern)
Nephrolepis cordifolia
Nephrolepis obliterata
Platycerium bifurcatum
Cordyline fruticosa
Epipremnum pinnatum
Hoya subcalva
Jasminum nitidum
Nepenthes maxima
Nepenthes treubiana
Vesicularia dubyana
Vesicularia reticulata

 

Here's a link to my Flickr account with paludarium photos: Chesedwemeth