Hello from Connecticut!
Hello.
I've been keeping orchids for about 3 years. It started with a mini phal and then I just kept getting more! Most were phals- some I bought from the discount rack from Lowe's because their flowers had already fallen off (fun anticipation to see what color they would be when they bloomed again). I got two dendrobiums there. One died- I don't know why. And then the other one flowered last fall with beautiful pink flowers (it was one of the ones I'd bought after it had already finished blooming). I got a cattelya, but I think I had it in the wrong place in my house and it died.
So as of last Friday I have 7 phals and one dend. All are in bloom (including my first orchid who hadn't bloomed since I'd gotten it!) except the dend which finished right before the phals all spiked.
Then on Saturday I went to the orchid show at the New York Botanical Gardens (amazing)! They had some for sale in the garden shop- sooo many kinds I'd never heard of and had only seen there in the show. There were about 5 of them that I wanted to buy but they were sooooo expensive. lol. I'm embarrassed to say that I spent $80 on two orchids- a tolumnia (because they're so tiny!) and an oncidium hybrid (because it was so bright yellow and beautiful).
Let me tell you a story about one of my phals. I bought my grandma a phal at Home Depot for Easter about 2 years ago. It bloomed for the longest time! Way longer than the typical period (it was about 7 or 8 months before the flowers fell off). But about two months later it started spiking again! That time the flowers didn't stay for quite as long- maybe 3 months. Then it took a couple months off and then spiked again! There were less flowers that time, but they still lasted about 3 months. After the flowers fell off, a couple months went by and then my grandma passed away this past October. I brought her orchid home with me and within 2 or 3 weeks, it was spiking again! I took that as a little "hello" from my grandma :') Well, it grew a new spike that forked into two, and another one started growing at the end of the old spike. It's in full bloom now (with another branch off of the new spike that's still growing). This orchid is amazing. It looks like it needs to be repotted because the bark looks like it's breaking down. But it's almost constantly spiking or in bloom so I haven't been able to! But apparently it's happy so I don't think I really need to.
Well, sorry for the long post!
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