I went to Lowe's yesterday. I went there, after telling myself that I was on the search for a Potinara Chief Sweet Orange, because my daughter has more than likely killed hers. I suspect an advanced case of rot may have done it in, we won't know for a while. Hopefully it will grow some new roots. She's heartbroken over this. I thought if I could find her a healthy plant right from the start, she would be more successful with it and it would heal the wound. Moms are like that. We don't like seeing our kids upset, no matter how old they are, and my daughter is a freshman in college. She's got finals coming up. I thought a healthy cattleya would boost her spirits and help her do better on those exams.
So anyway, I was
just looking. I was minding my own business. I do have some orchids on my personal wish list that I am also keeping an eye out for. If I were to find one of them on the clearance shelf at Lowe's, awesome. If not, well, no big deal.
As I was walking out, a guy brought in three large boxes that were marked, "Orchids" and the gal that ran the garden center came over to me and asked me what I was looking for. I told her why I was there and asked her if I could watch her unbox her orchid order, because I wanted to see how the orchids were packed for shipping.
It was kinda neat. The pots were placed at one end of the box and anchored in with two pieces of 1x1 pine that was stapled to the box from the outside, so nothing moved. I wondered how they got those orchids to the stores with their blooms in tact. Now I know.
Anyway, she was looking through the boxes to see if she had any cattleyas, and I saw this noid phal.
It's actually the nicest phal I have seen at a big box store. Eight huge leaves, one broken aerial root and a small scratch on one of the leaves, but otherwise, it looks fantastic... and then I saw the blooms. Pink! I've been wanting something pink and pretty! I have several yellows and whites with pink, and I do have a baby pink oncidium that I purchased at TJs, but nothing like this. This is a pink lover's dream!
I figured, after I had asked her to let me watch her unbox, the least I could do was take one of those plants off of her hands. So... here it is:
After I got it home, I discovered that the moss it's in is not what I'd call tightly packed at all, which is odd because when I usually get these orchids from big box stores, the moss is super compacted.
New NOID Phal Freshly Unboxed From Hardware Store
Hybrid Mode
