Survey about orchid spending
 

I don't know if there's already a thread like this (let me know if there is).

Two simple questions:
1) What's the most $ you've ever spent on an orchid?
2) What's the most $ you're willing to spend on an orchid?

Just curious.

1) About ten years ago, I spent $75 for a single growth micranthum from Orchids Limited, which never bloomed on me.

2) Hmmm. No more than $100.

BTW, take a look at this Japanese Neofinetia auction site. It is being asked for $3,000 for a tiny plant with two 'sad' roots.

Japanese Neofinetia

1) The most I've ever spent on a single orchid was about $75, on a Pescatorea cerina from Orchids Limited (I don't regret it one bit, though. They sent me an awesome plant).
2) My limit on a single plant is $80, and my limit on a haul is $150.

:)

The most I have spent on one plant is $125 fpr a specimen sized Den chrysotoxum. (Which is not doing so well, by the way).

Usually I don't spend over about $150 in one shopping trip (orchid show or auction).

The most I have ever spent on a seedling is about $100.00

I can not truthfully say what is the most I would be willing to spend. It really depends on the plant in question.

I'm in line with the others, the most that I have spent on a single plant was $75 on Cym. Sweet Devon 'Sweet'; though I have spent upwards of $400 on an order--I visited a nursery when I was in Peru that was going to be at the WOC in Miami and had them ship me plants when they were in the US for the show...

the most i have spent on a orchid is RM150, which is less than USD50 (maybe about USD 48?). it is a phal gigantea with two leaves. i wanted to have a phal gigantea so much...

but anyway, how much money i am willing to spend really depend on the plant in question, and whether i am capable to take care of it. i am not willing to blow my money if i am not sure i can take care of it, say maybe a mule ear oncidium? i am not good in oncidiums anyway

i am willing to spend up to RM200 (~USD65?) per plant - provided i really wanted it... most i would spend per haul is RM1000 (~USD322) which is very2 seldom!

The most I have paid is $55 (£35 GBP) for a good sized Cym L.B.S 'Black Magic'
I don't know what I would be willing to go up to price wise for 1 plant, it would depend on the type of plant and it's size.
The biggest order I have done for multiple plants was $450, but I had to save hard to get that amount of money together :lol:

The most I've spent is £35 GBP (I'll go with UKCat's estimate of that being about $55) for a massive NoID Cym. It may have been a noid but the size was worth the price.

I would pay up to about £50 GBP without having to think too hard about it, I would go up to £100 if it was something I really really wanted (been looking at some Phrags which are aproaching that for a decent size plant).

I've spent arround £200 in a single show visit before, usually an online order is more arround £65 per order.

The limiting factor of course is more not upsetting the hubby... if I didn't have him to keep me in check I could easily spend far far more in a single order. :coverlaugh:

The most I have spent is about $250 and I wouldn't like to spend more.......well not at the moment anyway.

I guess I'm the cheapy, I haven't spent over $45 for a orchid and that was mounted, huge, and had 32 blooms. But at the shows I do spend 150.00 easy on several orchids.

In the last 2 weeks I have upped the ante beyond what I thought I would ever spend.

The first plant was an HP Norton Fritz Schomberg (kovachii x besseae) 2 growths and in spike for $100. Then, last weekend, I was seduced by another Phrag (serious weakness here) Phrag Lutz Rollke specimen size with 2 spikes for $125. Before that, the most I ever spent or thought I would spend was $75. What has happened to me, I'm not sure, but the trend has me concerned.:blushing:

My per orchid costs are fairly low - it's the bargain hunter (cheapo) in me. I don't think I've ever spent more than $50 on a single orchid. I've received a few for free and paid as little as $4.50 for rescue orchids from my local grower/greenhouse.

But it's the aggregate costs that I'm not too proud of. My collection has around 40 orchids now and at an unscientific average of $25 per orchid.... yikes.

I don't think I'd ever spend more than $50 for an orchid. It would have to be something really special. That said, we have a big orchid show coming up next week, and.... well, anything could happen.

- J

Survey about orchid spending
 

I get a bit antsy when the price approaches $50. I have seen some plants at a nearby GH that were priced above that and after thinking about it a few minutes, decided to pass. I guess I'm not into rare, expensive and perhaps hard to grow orchids. It hurts too much when even a relatively inexpensive one dies, let alone an expensive one.
Beverly A.

I am on the cheaper side. Haven't spent over $50 on a single orchid. It would depend on what it was and how bad I wanted it plus my funds at the time as far as a top limit on a single goes. I think my largest single order has been about $120.

The most I ever spent on an orchid was $2,500 (in 1989 dollars) for a division of Paph. Skip Bartlett 'White Pepper' HCC/AOS. Let me emphasize that this was a business investment for the company I was working for at the time (Inverness Greenery Orchids). I made some hybrids with it and the company recouped more than the cost of the plant through the sales of flasks within 2 years.
More recently, I spent $125 on a select Soph. coccinea from J and L orchids. I spent north of that on the first division of Slc. Seagull's Apricot 'Cupid' AM/AOS (a real bargain!).
I'd rather buy one great plant than 20 seedlings that probably won't yield one that's as nice.
Right now, I probably wouldn't spend much over $50 on a plant. The only plants I'm adding to the collection right now are species Lepanthes - they're easy enough to kill that I won't spend more on them!

Interesting to hear from you all!

Haha, I've been on the "low cost" side--my most expensive to date is $36. Many of my orchids are only in the $15-20 range.

I started this survey to personally justify spending much more than usual on two orchids that I absolutely fell in love with. :rofl: Ah, what can I do. That's what I get for looking around websites too much. Now I can barely sleep.

Keep the replies coming! :D

I spent $35 or $40 for a big NOID Dendrobium at Costco that I later found had two different Dens in it. Still does, because I haven't figured out how to divide it so that the two different plants are separate.

That's the most to date. I've had two others at $30 and $35 each, but the rest are much less. $16, $9, $18, etc.

There have been other, more expensive ones that I've wanted, but not to the point where the cheapskate in me was able to give in.

I should mention I've never been to an orchid show.

75 dollar phrag
 

75 bucks for an andean tears phrag which by the way is growing like a weed in my phrag tank...:biggrin:

Tried to obtain a Specimen sized paph well into a few hundred from SBOE, but nay they dont answer emails from curious would be INQUIRING customers who have more money than sense. Yeah I could call but thats not the point.

I look for package deals on the plants I like, phrags and paphs...you know buy 4 and save 20 or 30 bucks.I still havent figured out how I just spent 150 bucks and I saved money...You Get more plants and they cost you less to experiment on em ..(Ive only killed one paph out of 30)...Everything else is dEAD DEAd dEAD and no they arent just resting.

Dont care bout much else orchid these days but paphs and phrags.
I enjoy blooms and good looking leaves.No more crap in a pot for me.

When I order online I go for at least a round 100 dollar figure...not worth their time for anything less IMO.

Look for the package deals and SaVE SavE SaVE :evil:

I recently spent $65 on a specimen size Phrag Schlimil Rodney Wilcox Jones that I got at our local orchid society sale, directly from another member.
I tend to average $20- $25 for my plants, and I've collected about 80 in the past 2 years.
Then there are the lights, shelving, drip trays, humidifiers, wood for the shade table, rain water collection system.
But I don't spend a lot on clothes, I never buy make-up, rarely buy (costume) jewelry, drive old cars. I do spend a lot on photography and travel. So maybe I'm not TOO crazy. Then again, maybe I am crazy.
I guess I'm spending my kids' inheritance. :biggrin:

Forty dollars is the most I've spent on a single orchid and that was for my Trichoglottis bracheata that's mounted to a palm tree and slowly dying from the frost damage it sustained last winter.

Last September I spent about $75 on a 3 plant combined purchase and the total price included shipping.

I've never considered purchasing a specimen sized plant. I'd rather spend conservatively and grow one myself. :lol:

There's a wonderful plant that has been awarded as Phrag. schlimii 'Wilcox' AM/AOS and as Phrag. Cardinale 'Birchwood' AM/AOS. They are the same plant - it is a Cardinale (Sedenii x schlimii). I wonder if that's what you got? It's a great plant. Phrag. schlimii itself is kind of a tiny thing, while Cardinale is much larger. The hybrid is also very vigorous and free-blooming - one of my favorite orchids.

i believe my spending pattern have changed as my experience in orchid progresses... i used to spend less than rm50 (usd16) per plant in the earlier days, the lesser the better, and which usually i'll get a seedling. after a few too many dead seedlings, i decided to wise up and spend more and get a flowering size or more mature plant... its the best decision i ever make, and no, not more rm100 (usd 32) with the exception of the phal gigantea!

Orchid spending
 

Average money spent would be $20.00 to $35.00, including shipping. Very few orchids available around here and those there are are all phals. The most I ever spent was over $95.00 for three vandeous type orchids. What the most I would spend is hard to tell. There is a black orchid for $100.00 I like, but I am not that tempted to buy it at that price.

I've only spent about $40 tops. BUT there is a little guy on my wishlist that is $75 at Andy's (Cleisocentron Merrillianum). I'll go ahead and take the plunge, once I am confident that I will not kill this $75 cutie!

I think I may have spent $100 in one stop, when I first started collecting. Now it is more like $60 - $80.

30 on a both a vanda and a cymbidium

50-80 on a haul is my limit

however, i do judge the price by plant size and how much i desire the plant. i wont spend more than 10 on a phal or oncidium type, 20 on a catlleya or vanda, 30 on a nice cymbidium, 15 on most dens. once i spent 30 on a miltoniopsis which is WAAAY over my limit for oncidiums and GREATLY regreted it because it died of erwinia 3 days later.

I have spent $50 each on 2 large Ascda and Rntda hybrids only to discover that there is no way I could ever get them to look as nice as the awarded ones.

Now I would spend $50 on a flask but I would have to really want it. I try to stay under $30 per plant and less if I can.

Connie,
I was doing stream-of-consciousness about your Phrag. yesterday. I hope I didn't confuse or offend!
Here's a pic of Phrag. "schlimii 'Wilcox'" in flower.
Phrag schlimii 'Wilcox' AM/AOS -
Here's a pic of a real schlimii in bloom:
Phrag schlimii culture sheet - growing tips
Here's a cute article about Rodney Wilcox Jones:
From Underwear to Orchids, 102-Year-Old Rodney Jones Is a Blooming Marvel : People.com
What came to mind when I saw that you had gotten schlimii 'Rodney Wilcox Jones', was that there was a very famous plant called, variously: schlimii 'Wilcox' AM/AOS, schlimii 'Birchwood' (I believe also with an AM/AOS), Cardinale 'Birchwood' AM/AOS and Cardinale 'Wilcox'. Everett Wilcox had the plant. G. R. ("Dick") Clements got a piece of it from him. Mr. Wilcox got the plant awarded and put the name 'Wilcox' on it. Dick got his piece of the same plant awarded and put the name 'Birchwood' on it. Dick recognized some years later after seeing collected plants coming in from Colombia that his plant was a Cardinale, and he changed the label, re-showed it, and got it awarded again (I got this from conversations with Dick in the 1990s). It was a relatively common (if unsavory) practice for growers to put their own names on plants at the time... If I had the plant, I would label it Cardinale 'Wilcox'. That said, it doesn't take into account that the plant had probably been in cultivation for many many years before Everett Wilcox ever started growing it, and it may well have been awarded by the RHS in the way-back days...
All this speculation and meandering aside, the plant you have came from Rodney Wilcox Jones, who is not Everett Wilcox. And so it's probably a real schlimii rather than Cardinale. At which point I've subjected you to more confusion than I ever intended to. Again, I meant no harm - I was merely musing. Please forgive the stream of consciousness!

The most I've spent is $75 for a Cattleya. It was one of my first three orchids, and it's still alive (although I've killed many others). I'm not sure about the most I would spend, but probably around $100.

Hmmm...the most I've spent is 175 for a Laelia autumnalis division. Most of the plants I've bought this year were around 100 or so. Shrug.

Ummm...the most I've spent in one lump sum...I have no idea. Maybe 400 dollars? I can't recall (it's all fuzzy LOLOLOL.)

The most I would spend: it depends on the plant really. I think about 1k. I'm comfortable with that figure.

Peewee, will you adopt me!!

Survey about orchid spending
 

You all are a bad influence. :rofl: I went over my self-imposed limit yesterday. I spent $50.00 for a plant without a name no less. It isn't a NOID, however. The grower I bought it from told me the name of the hybridizer and I hope to see him next Thursday at the HOS meeting. The plant is in full, glorious bloom and I will take it to show it off. It resembles a Bc, Maikai 'mayumi' but larger. I also bought a Goodaleara Tahitian Dancer 'Lambada Cutie' AM and a Dend. glomeratum I hope I can keep alive this time.
This particular grower has a "club" whereby for every $25 you spend, you get a punch on your card. When full you get $25 credit or a free plant on your next purchase.
So, instead of spending $97 for my three plants, I spent $77. He had so many tempting buys but three or four plants at a time is enough. My poor GH is going to be bulging come cold weather.
Beverly A.

What! We are a bad influence? Never... :whistling

When purchasing high end plants you have to know your sources. OR no people that know their reputations. There are people out there that well are not the most honest and hope no one here ever gets bitten.

i cant remember how much the plant was exactly and how much the shipping was. but the total was $40 for a nice laelia anceps.

im a bit of a cheapy though, under $20 is what i try to look for,

the most ive spent on a haul was $52. im not sure how high i am willing to go though

Can you deduct your 'chids as dependents on your taxes? :evil:

I think it is all relative anyway. We spend money on what we think is valuable to each of us individually.

I am already saving more money for my next order and my want list just keeps on growing.

Sadly no. HA!! I wish I could though. BLECH.

i totally agree! some girls spent a lot on money for new clothes, shoes, handbags, make-ups every month... talk about being vain in here! and guys spend money for their cars, motorcycles, games etc2... i prefer to spend my dough on orchid coz i love that!

The most I have ever spent was 40$ on a vanilla planifolia 12'' cutting, 2nd most 37$ on a Paphiopedilum Maudiae Curtisii "Napa Valley". I've spent over 250$ total on orchids, and I don't think I would ever pay more than 50$ for just one!