Cattleya sources Europe

[stevendown]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone living in Europe has advice. I used to live in the States and there were a huge number of -to me- great options to source cattleyas. I am thinking about the breeders primarily, such as SVO or even Krull Smith.

There seems to be a number of nurseries in the EU, I am familiar with the bigger German ones, or even the likes of Orchid Garden in Poland or Luke Orchideen, but I don’t seem to see anyone who would be bringing in new hybrids from the States or would be doing their own hybridizing.

Where do you all go for new breeding, or for the classic hybrids? I find my self hard pressed if I wanted to get something classic even, think along the lines of George King, or Ports of Paradise. I understand some places will ship to Europe, but of course the shipping and phitosanitary costs can be a pain, even on a pooled order.

Why would there be such a shortage of breeding, similar to what we see in the US?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience, and hopefully, your favorite places to shop.

Best,

[bernardomantas97]

Greetings, Steven!

I am by no means experienced or knowledgeable when it comes to this topic, but here's my two cents, considering what I've seen and heard here in Portugal:

Phitosanitary costs are overwhelming, and the whole process is incredibly bureaucratic, which tends to put most nurseries off of the idea of bringing plants in from overseas. We are a considerably small country, and the orchid market here is incredibly niche. We also have no commercial agreements, as far as I have been told, with the US regarding live plants, so the only way to get those plants would be to bring them into Europe via Germany (or other countries where there is a commercial agreement in place) and then ship them to Portugal. This process is obviously very costly, and ends up being reflected on the final price customers will be paying. I assume it might be the same for other european countries that may not have those agreements as well; for those that do have them, I hope someone from said countries might have better input.

Having said before that the orchid market over here is quite niche, that is also one of the reasons most nurseries end up not investing in breeding - the lack of good matrixes and the overall low demand for those plants (while they're small seedlings, at least) could be reason enough to not put in the time, effort and money. However, that I personally know of, we have Hilmar at Asendorfer breeding and selecting plants, and producing award quality offspring. Still, for the average nursery, this is not an option; the budget to invest is just not there.

So, how exactly do we get our hands on some of our favourites? Well, over here we have a few different options, each with its own drawbacks:

1. Attend orchid shows (and pray to either be able to request what we want from other American breeders, for example, or that they actually have those plants on their pre-order lists)
2. Purchase online from foreign nurseries whenever they have the plants available
3. Get in touch with local orchid societies and/or nurseries and try to get your wishlist plants via bulk imports

Again, all of this is mostly from a Portuguese perspective. Personally, I try to keep my expectations relatively low when it comes to trying to get specific plants, as I know already it will either be a years-worth-of-wait task or half-a-paycheck-for-one-division situation. *cries inside*

I hope this wall of text might be useful in some way, and that someone else can provide more cheerful insights, ahah!

Edit: forgot to add some suppliers. So far, I've gotten most of my orchids from the following sources (the rest were either lucky finds at local nurseries or purchased at orchid shows):
Orchideen Lucke
Lotusland
Großräschener Orchideen
Asendorfer Orchideen

[stevendown]

Dear Bernardo,

Thank you for your thoughtful reply!

I thought about as well, I suppose Europe has been hit by two wars since then, perhaps did not have the same craze around corsages, and perhaps less climates where it is suitable to have them? Although, I imagine a C. Purpurata would be just fine in southern Spain/Italy/Portugal, not to mention Madeira or the Canary Islands.

Sometimes I wonder if in the US, it really was a supply made industry after the corsages might have gone out of fashion. I imagine a lot of growers had plenty of stock that might have needed to be repurposed.

Best,

[rbarata]

I will post my experience also in Portugal...usually I only buy plants when I can see them. This means I rarely make online orders. My main sources (for Catts or any other orchids) are:

- one gardening center that has a section dedicated only to orchids where they receive new orders every month

- Other gardening centers that sell orchids, although not sodedicated as the first one.

- As Bernardo mentioned, place a pre order to an international vendor (when not available here) and receive the plants at an orchid show or buy the plants there directly without any order.

Orchid trade here is growing (supermarkets and all big stores alwys have hybrids for sale) but in terms of orchid societies, I agree, it's a niche. But it's always possible to buy exquisite species if you're patient and know how to get them.

[bernardomantas97]

Complementing my neighbour rbarata's reply and my own, sometimes it is also a good decision to trade with fellow collectors. It is hard to get some of the rarer species over here (blooming sized plants, at least, and selected clones or crosses), mainly the south american ones (trianae, mendelii, quadricolor, lueddemanniana, mossiae, rex, for example). If someone close to you that you happen to meet at shows or even online has a nice sized specimen that you would be interested in, it might be worth a shot to ask for a division.

I can tell you that so far, since I started collecting cattleyas, I've discarded 3 "species" plants that were not exactly cheap for ending up blooming with odd deformities that did not improve on a second flowering (and honestly barely resembled the species they were supposed to be). These were my "rookie mistakes", if you'd like; I really wanted those species, and didn't feel like waiting for months to pre-order selected plants, and ended up having to do it anyway and tossing these in the bin.

On the other hand, I did sell some of my plants last year to another collector (I'm not sure if he's on this board) and he was very pleased to find some rarer Brazilian species he had been looking for but couldn't find in the Netherlands. I also got my hands on a monster of a schilleriana coerulea and a gaskelliana alba from another collector in France. At least you're guaranteed to get what you're looking at instead of being surprised later down the road (and not all surprises are good...)

For hybrids, instead of species (save from some classic crosses that are not that common), most local nurseries and garden centers should have them from time to time, especially the Taiwan hybrids, that are far more common nowadays. Something more specific might be harder to come across, and would fall on the pre-order / online wait-to-purchase category.

[estación seca]

I don't know about Europe, but importing flasks into the US is sometimes easier than importing larger plants.

[Roberta]

I'm not speaking from experience since I'm on the other side of the pond. Has anyone in Europe ordered directly from Vacberot & Lecoufle? They have been around for a very long time, have many awarded hybrids over the years. I think M. Lecoufle retired recently, but the company appears to still be active, and selling on the Web.

[SFLguy]

Originally Posted by stevendown

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone living in Europe has advice. I used to live in the States and there were a huge number of -to me- great options to source cattleyas. I am thinking about the breeders primarily, such as SVO or even Krull Smith.

There seems to be a number of nurseries in the EU, I am familiar with the bigger German ones, or even the likes of Orchid Garden in Poland or Luke Orchideen, but I don’t seem to see anyone who would be bringing in new hybrids from the States or would be doing their own hybridizing.

Where do you all go for new breeding, or for the classic hybrids? I find my self hard pressed if I wanted to get something classic even, think along the lines of George King, or Ports of Paradise. I understand some places will ship to Europe, but of course the shipping and phitosanitary costs can be a pain, even on a pooled order.

Why would there be such a shortage of breeding, similar to what we see in the US?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience, and hopefully, your favorite places to shop.

Best,

I know this is an older thread here but I do have at least a little bit of insight on this. Realistically, the reason that you don't see much breeding in Europe is simply because it's not economically feasible there anymore.

The Dutch wholesalers are fantastic growers, but they are also fantastic at dropping prices to the lowest possible point and they have branched out into many exotic groups of orchids and made them extremely affordable. This is great in the short run for hobbyists, but small nurseries that have to take years to grow out a crop of seedlings just can't afford to compete with those prices. I spoke to a bunch of nursery owners and generally people in the business there and any surviving nurseries are almost exclusively buying plants in from overseas or buying wholesale from the Dutch to survive. Think of how companies like Amazon and Walmart have out competed small mom & pop stores.
This is not to say that orchid hobbyists are not willing to pay more for some plants, but there isn't a large enough population of hobbyists to support many orchid nurseries - especially when they're competing with nurseries that are just buying and reselling plants.

Look at where a lot of the nurseries that hybridize orchids in the US are. Most are in Florida or California or can easily travel to these places to sell to people in a milder climate that can grow these plants much more easily. In South Florida, any member of the general public can tie a Cattleya to a tree outside and they will do fine year-round. This means you have a larger population of people that are willing and able to pay a bit more for an orchid. If the general view of the public was that orchids should be much cheaper, these markets would not be feasible anymore.

It's a good reason to always try to buy from nurseries that breed orchids rather than those that only buy and resell. Don't get me wrong - the nurseries that breed their own hybrids also buy and resell to supplement the business and that's fine, but their contribution in breeding is much more important than anything else for a healthy orchid community.

tl;dr the public in Europe has come to expect orchids at a cheap enough price that smaller nurseries can't afford to make a living by hybridizing anymore. Shop local and support breeders.

[rbarata]

One more thing...sometimes I ask resellers if they can order a specific plant and sell it to me.
Most of them don't mind to include it in their order pack as they know it will be sold.
This is easier if you establish some level of confidence with them (multiple buys, meeting them in person at their places, etc).