What got you hooked growing orchids?

[DasEmpress]

I grew up with a family history of plant growers - nothing commercial, but everyone in my family can grow anything and everything. I've always been attracted to orchids...especially the slightly asian-feel of Phals and Brassias. About a month & 1/2 ago, I found myself couch-bound & on temporary disability. Very depressing, and very difficult to continue firearms training for clients whilst on said couch. So...I started a new money-draining hobby, and though I'm still on disability, I'm having way too much fun buying orchids on Ebay and waiting for them to be delivered!!

[ehuber]

What great stories everyone has! I lived in Rochester, NY for several years and halfway through my 6th winter there (this is last year) was so depressed by the snow and the gloom and I started madly filling my apt. with houseplants to make it feel more "alive." In early March I saw an ad for the Genesee Regional Orchid Show and thought, what the heck? They're nice to look at but I'm too clumsy/airheaded to grow them. Well it was amazing. I bought a gorgeous Phalaenopsis Golden Sogo that smelled lovely. The vendor (Marlowe's Orchids) told me that the smell would peak at noon every day and then gradually fade off. I thought, what the heck? It's a plant, dude, not an occult object. But it really did that! I got it in March and it is STILL BLOOMING!! At the same show I won a Dendrobium Kumiko Spring Dream in a free drawing. Luck was really trying to tell me something, I think. I now have 10 orchid plants, some of them rescued from Walmart and Lowe's, and am at this moment waiting for the UPS guy to deliver three more! They are complex, quirky, kind of eccentric, somewhat demanding, and lovely!

[Candice]

I have always been into landscaping, wether it would be weeding or cutting the two acres of grass for my parents when I was younger. So I was always outside in the country and when my mother got into raising monarch butterflies, we had to go search around cities for their host plant:milkweed. Then we had to buy and plant and not kill lots of flowering plants for the butterflies after they emerged. We were always going to Home Depot or local nurseries looking for plants, and I would always stumble upon the tropical plants and I was always drawn to the bright beautiful flowers of Phalaenopsis Orchids on their benches. I always wanted one, then come time when I was in college and I wanted a plant to keep company with my bamboo plant. I went to Home Depot and bought my first orchid,a phal NOID, which I killed a year later with three or four following its doom. That was all when I lived in Cleveland, OH and I decided to try again here in AL outside in this humid, hot weather. I am determined to bloom these babies!!!!!!

[orchidexpress]

I'm with First Ray Orchids as I've killed over a 1000.
Ha !
I started loving orchids when I was younger as my mother had a greenhouse yet I wzas not allowed to touch them...only look. Later on in life I started working at an orchid store and was told that they did not want me to know about orchids as they wanted to teach me their way. This store was known as Orchids & Ferns. I became a replica of my boss, Bridgett. I worked there off and on for 17 years. When the owner, Bob, closed the shop, I opened my own store. I was at one location for 5 1/2 years and now I am located on Heights Blvd., Houston, TX, in a much larger location. The name of my store is Orchid Express & Leasing. Now I work all six days a week, yet working all the time.

[Neverend]

I've always liked those commercial pink phalaenopsis, so one day I decided to get one, and it grew from there.

Funny thing now is that I don't really grow the commercial phalaenopsis any more, only have one white NOID left (Which I think is dying from spider mite attack)

[Ray]

OE - I'm glad to hear you're replaced O&F. I get down there periodically with my "real job" (chemicals). I'll have to find you next trip!

[reinbo15]

I took a tour of the MSU Floriculture Research Greenhouses when they were FULL of Phalaenopsis. Enough said.

[orchidexpress]

I love the frangrant phal that you show as you avatar.

[orchidexpress]

Ray, with First Ray Orchids....please let me know when you are coming to town as I may want to see if you can bring something fun. I regrow orchids but I also supplement them in so I have a large variety. At my shop I have orchids for sale, lease and rental for a day. My website is: Orchid Express and Leasing
The pictures are from the old store as I am still in the process of making this place a fantasy land. I have now expanded, other than orchids, we have bromeliads, ferns and tropicals. It's been such a blood bath with the pricing of orchids at the grocery stores.

[Angurek]

I got hooked on orchids very casually.

I've actually been growing houseplants for a long time. I had successes and disappointments with them, and in a way I was experimenting to see what grew in my home and what didn't.

I found my first orchid purely by accident. I went to go buy some poinsettias for Christmas at a local hardware store, and as I was looking around, I noticed they had a bunch of moribund or unwanted orchids on the discount rack. I'll admit that I used to be skeptical about orchids, and I was one of the many people who thought they were finicky divas who could only be grown by experts. I took home my Burana Stripe Dendrobium, and I didn't expect much from it because the canes were severely dessicated, and most of the leaves were gone (it was still the healthiest plant I could find). I took it home, hoping to bring it back to life.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. Not only did the plant perk up and grow, but it actually bloomed the same year! I can't tell you how excited I was when I saw the flower spike pushing out of the cane; the label didn't indicate what color the plant's flowers were, so I waited in anticipation. When they opened up, they revealed themselves to be white with hot magenta stripes. I got six flowers on the spike that year, and I'm sure the plant could have put out more flowers and spikes if it had been healthier.

With the success of my first orchid, I decided to go back to the store and buy another one. I got a Miltonidium Hawaiian Sunset that time. It actually put out three spikes a few weeks after I bought it. It was an interesting plant, to say the least; the flowers smelled weird. Unfortunately, the plant died shortly after flowering (It didn't like the growing conditions I had).

I've added more plants to my collection since then. After the Miltonidium, I bought an intergeneric Brassia seedling, then a Vanda Seedling, then a Zygoneria, my cattleya, two Angraecums, my Rhynchostylis, and then my Vanda sanderiana. Unfortunately, my Zygo died of Black rot, and my two angraecums didn't fare well (must have been a pathogen).

My beloved Dendrobium is still growing and blooming to this day, as are the rest of my plants. My Brassia actually set out its very first flower spike only a few months ago. Pretty much all of my plants have bloomed, except the young vanda.

My most recent addition is another Vanda seedling. It's supposed to have lavender-blue flowers, and is about two or three years away from blooming. I plan to add many more plants to my collection, and hopefully replace the ones that have perished.

Needless to say, the poinsettias I bought all those years back have long since perished.