Orchids are wonderful things. I Suspect that this has more than a little to do with the genetic variation in the species.
A vendor at the orchid show this weekend explains to me that there was a lot of variation in hybrids. He had some plants the looked more like the mother plant and another batch that looked more like the father plant.
We can see the same variation, but perhaps not to the extremes that you would see it in different individual plants, in the orchids that we grow.
Then there is also the fact that we grow plants in completely different conditions from those in which they are raised before we purchase them. Our conditions definitely have an impact on the size and the shape and the quality of the blooms that we get. There's no way that we use the same fertilizers that they use in the green houses where these plants are raised from seedlings, so you have to expect that whatever new growth you're going to get is going to be somewhat different from what it looked like when you purchased it.
For example... this is my before and after of a rebloom of a mini phal that I purchased last year.
This is what it looked like after it was purchased, these are not my blooms, but greenhouse blooms:
And this is what it looks like a year later, under my care:
Notice how the shape of the petals is completely different? These new flowers are also bigger and more vibrant and you can't tell it well in my second photo, but the lip is a deep red.
I think the plant's happier with me, and is happy to be growing on its own schedule.
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