Louisiana Orchid Connection
 

Im just going to throw out some love for Louisiana Orchid Connection. So I have purchased a total of 13 orchids from their website, eBay, in person at shows- and they have never failed to impress! I have bought mostly bulbophylums, a few angrecoids, and some other little oddballs. The orchids that have been shipped to me are always been packed well, shipped quick, and extremely healthy. The plants have always exceeded my expectations. Tin and John are lovely to talk to and have such a wonderfully unique collection. Everytime I go to a show, their vendor booth is an absolute delight to browse through and I always seem to find something interesting that I can't leave with out:lol:

Ditto!

So far, they've never disappointed me.

I have positive experiences with them, also.
Except for very few cases, everything has been great.
The best part is that John seems like such a great person! :)

I agree completely, they are very professional and the nicest people to talk with. John has always been a delight and has helped me with decisions regarding a purchase on more than one occasion. I've purchased from them on eBay and through their website as well, never been disappointed. Their shipping is very low cost and fast, safe shipping. Top notch vendor in my opinion.

Reminds me, I should go check and see whats new there!

Old post, yes, but I agree! I have close to 60 plants from them, and I still have yet to meet them at a show [or to attend a show, but I'm working on that] but everything that I get from LOC or from them on eBay has been pretty much nearly PERFECT! I especially love their seedling 6-packs, because it's a great way for me to learn to grow them without going full-on mass-murder, a la "I'm definitely going to kill all of them" by buying a flask… which they also sell, incidentally. Very happy!

I just received my first plant from them, a Cattleya nobilior var rubra, and I'm more than happy with the experience. John worked with me on timing the shipping to avoid a cold snap, and when the plant arrived and I unpotted it to set it up in semi-hydroponic culture there were 2 separate rhizomes. Both were in excellent condition with healthy root systems.

I recently purchased Cycnoches pentadactylon and haagii, Catasetum tuberculatum and naso, and Galeandra magnicolumna 'Jumbo' from LA Orchid John. As always, tiny plants less than a year out of flask, but none of them tested positive for viruses. Compared to Orchids Amore, which has decently sized plants but all of them test positive for viruses, I'd take LA Orchid John any day.

If wouldn't necessarily recommend these guys for newer growers. For popular plants, there are other vendors with larger plants and better value. But if anyone wants a rare species, check out his ebay store.

I just sent an email to John. He told me they are exclusively online sales. Too bad because I live close enough to visit the greenhouse. I was disappointed.

Yes they are exclusively online but I know they will accommodate orchid society groups. I know the Baton Rouge and New Orleans ones usually go once a year. Not sure if the Lake Charles club does anything like that. It really is an impressive little space

Some places restrict visitors to protect their orchids from damage. For example...Mosaic virus can be spread by those who use tobacco. Spidermites and other pests can hitch a rid on clothes. It is a good policy to ensure that their plants will remain healthy until they are sent to their prospective owners.

My sister gave me a $100 gift certificate for LOC for my birthday. With that I was able to purchase almost 6 orchids (not including shipping), so I thought the price was great. I placed my order on a Monday, and requested that the order be sent on a Monday or Tuesday so they would be in transit as briefly as possible, assuming they'd be shipped the following week. They arrived at my house that Thursday.

I was a little worried about the Cattleya Scarlet Imp because some of it's leaves were buried in the medium when it arrived. I mounted the plant on cork and those leaves yellowed and fell off. However, my order was in mid August, and it is now mid September, and the plant has a new growth on it, plus had grown two new fat roots. The other plants all looked great when they arrived and are still doing well.

Based on my experience, I would definitely order from them again.

I placed an order with LOC on December 14th, 2021.
My order shipped on December 15th.
It was delivered on December 17th.

The two phal. equestris plants (fma. coerulea and var. riteiwanensis) I received were in good shape and packaged very securely for transit. The heat pack was well located in the box, kept damp during travel, and taped in place. No damage or other issues occurred during shipping.

The medium-large bark the plants were potted in looked good (hard, no signs of any deterioration), and the plants and root system matched the 4" pot size.

I repotted them into clear pots with #3 Kiwi Bark and placed them on a seedling heat mat where they receive 1,000-2,000 fc of diffused light from a south-facing window with a sheer curtain. Daytime temps are 72-82F/22-28C, nighttime temp is no lower than 67F/19.4C plus the boost from the heat mat at the root zone. Humidity in the house is kept at 50%.

It's now a month later and they're both growing a new leaf, both have 1 new root growing, and a few root tips on the existing roots are active again.

Overall I'm very pleased and would not hesitate to order from LOC again!

I did get some bad seedlings from them last fall; fungus in the leaves that could have spread and infected more plants, but I was satisfied with their response.

Just had a somewhat strange experience with these folks. I made an order about six weeks ago, which was held up by the weather. I emailed last week asking if I could add plants to the order and combine shipping, was told "sure we can do that" Fast forward to Monday, the first order was shipped out. I figured maybe they combined the shipping without marking the second order as shipped. Receive order today, no they didn't. Second order shipped today, so now I paid shipping twice when I didn't have to. There were also some discrepancies in the order between what I ordered and what I received:

• One plant was much larger than what I ordered (4" basket vs 2" net pot). Cool!
• One plant was packed up against the heat pack (which by this point was unnecessary, but they included and charged me for anyways) and looking wilty
• One plant was smaller than expected
• One plant was a bit smaller than expected and had a black spot on the leaf (fungus?)
• The last two plants were exactly what I was expecting and looked awesome
• Two plants were missing from the order but I was refunded the morning the order shipped

I reached out to them about each of these, with pictures, and received this response. I also asked if I got so many substitutions and missing plants because my order was waiting to ship for so long:

• "I try to be fair to all of my customers, so fill orders in the order that they are received allowing for weather conditions. That is why I was not able to combine your orders" (then why did you say you could last week?) "We fill orders in the order received, so you are right that the larger plants go first."
• Apologizes for the wilty plant and says he will refund if it dies
• "We grow species and not all plants are the same size"
• He doesn't know what the black spot is but suggests I cut if off if I'm concerned

There were also a few somewhat choice comments suggesting I order from a different nursery if my expectations are so high. All in all, not what I was expecting from a nursery that people seem to have had really good experiences with. I don't think I would order from them again in the winter especially since the way their system seems to work currently it caused me to get plants that are below their average quality.

I don't think it's a good idea to order any plants during cold nor hot weather. It's hard to resist but now I do.

LOC is not a one-person operation. The person who committed to combining orders and the one who packaged them may not have communicated well, and the response may have been a “CYA” effort.

The “maybe you should order from elsewhere” comment is an odd reaction. I have only had a similar reaction once - but mine was “don’t even think of ordering from me again” - due to some ridiculous demands and a bad attitude on the phone. (I’m not implying that was your approach, by the way.)

Oh that makes sense Ray! I wonder if one person runs the website and email, and another runs the eBay and eBay messaging. I think the order confusion is an understandable mistake, not something that would cause me to not order from them again. The more concerning thing for me is that ordering in the winter guarantees shipment of the "runt" plants while all the good ones get shipped out to warmer climates. As estacion seca points out, definitely a lesson learned for the future.

I do have a question for the group. I decided to take a look at the roots of the plant that was looking wilty and re-pot it on the thought that perhaps it was not the heat pack that caused it but rather something up with the plant itself. I've attached a picture of the plant to this post. I don't think these roots look particularly healthy. The plant is a zygopetalum and the thin brown roots are not stained brown, they are quite dead. In fact, the plant has only one or two viable roots. I messaged them asking about it and sent this exact picture and they said "See what happens. You have shocked this small plant by re-potting it, which it does not like."

Are my expectations too high? I mean this as a legitimate question, not something rhetorical.

1. They sell uncommon plants people really want, so they sell out quickly any time of year. But I don't think it's worth risking temperature damage. Heat packs don't work well and shipping is unpredictable. That plant may be available in another year, or maybe not.

2. Others here disagree but I almost never would repot a tiny seedling on arrival no matter how it looked. It guarantees at least some root damage of a tiny plant that can't tolerate it. I completely disagree with the advice to repot all plants on arrival. I always wait for new root growth. Bad insects, bad medium, etc can be managed by proper care but roots damaged by repotting cannot.

I have ordered from LOC a few times, and have pretty consistently found that the plants which come from ebay are 'better' quality than those which have come from the site [I chalk it up to the fact that what's presented on ebay is typically a single specimen, with WYSIWYG photos--versus a generic single photo on the website].

Personally, I feel that most hobbyists have a skewed expectation vs. reality perception of mail order plants--this is by no means unique to orchid hobbyists [just check out an Aroid forum sometime...]so it can be hard to be fair/realistic about what's just arrived in the post. Should it be well rooted [if that was indicated in the listing]? Yes; it should also, at a minimum, be in the same size pot as stated; same goes with plant size, if it says two bulbs and a lead, that's what it should be. If it's not as indicated, then hobbyists have a right to ask a seller to make it right--by and large, most do; you might get a bigger plant, a discount, an extra plant, etc., all these are seller attempts to please the customer. Many of the long-standing nurseries regularly do these things in addition to letting you know in advance that there's some aberration to an item ordered.
The flip side of this is what's 'on' the hobbyist; winter shipping and all its risks [likewise shipping at the height of summer], failing to note the plants will ship bare root vs. potted, basic misconceptions of plant size [ie expecting something mature [FS], when descriptions state seedling] & mechanical damage [ie leaves were bruised in transit, buds fell off, etc.] all fall on buyer. Pests [scale, thrips, mealies] are the responsibility of the seller; something coming out of the box with fungal damage is debatable [wet & warm or wet & cold are both prime conditions] and fall equally on both parties in my book.
Standing down from the soapbox and to the plant in question, I would agree that the roots are not in great condition; to me the seedling looks like it was potted on from a community flat into an individual pot [which is pretty common treatment for Cymbidium & Zygopetalum seedlings; they go from flask to community flats/pots for a year and are then 'dug up' and potted on individually.] Typically though, clearly dead roots are removed during this process, or, in the event that there are only 1-2 live roots on the seedling, the dead roots are trimmed back to about 1", to give the seedling additional anchoring in the new media. For a plant this small, I would likely not ask for a refund; had this been a mature [ie of flowering age, with 3+ pseudobulbs in leaf] plant arriving in a similar condition [barring it being an import that is], then I likely would.

For what it's worth, the plant does have a new root growing! I think it was hidden in the picture. Fingers crossed that it will work out. I only decided to do it because it seemed to be currently growing and the medium it was in is not great for my watering schedule and I want to changed it in the next few months anyways (I haven't mentioned this before but the listing specifically said it would be in spaghnum but I got my plant in pretty coarse bark, which in my indoor climate dries out too quickly for the amount of water a zygo is said to need). And there didn't seem like a better time than now, since it is growing. And the bonus was I got to inspect the roots :)

This is good to know and helpful to set my expectations and learn the etiquette of online orchid ordering (particularly seedlings). I've had very good luck buying succulent plants online, but their growth habit is so different from orchids I think it makes them easier to ship. I also think I was spoiled by an order I recently got from Olympic Orchids where every plant was very robust and healthy looking and had essentially perfect roots.

I would not be happy with that zygo, and would let them know.

What Zygopetalum is it? Some Zygos will put out new growths two to four times a year if they are happy while others only have new growths once a year. Before making any decisions, it might be best to determine how often this one will put out new growths. Louisiana Orchid Connection might have felt this to be perfectly fine if this orchid is going to put out new growth a few times a year. I just bought a tiny one-growth Zygo that probably isn't long out of the Com-pot...it was advertised that way.

One last update on this. I unpotted another plant from the order, a chysis bractescens a few days ago to find that it had no viable roots whatsoever. What I had initially thought was a decent root system with flashes of green was actually a volunteer clover plant growing in the basket, choking out the chysis roots. There were zero living roots on the chysis. Before cutting off the clover, I sent them a message with a picture asking if my interpretation was correct. Their response: "You may be right." No offer to refund. So, taking Ray's advice from another post on how to deal with vendors, I specifically asked for a refund or replacement and eventually received a refund.

I also sent an email to the person who originally agreed to combine two orders for me (John) asking for clarification on why the orders didn't get combined (as a reply to the original email saying "sure we can do that") and have heard radio silence on that front after several days. In conclusion, I'm disappointed and will not be ordering from them in the future.

Sorry about your experience.

I ordered a flask of Mormodes rolfeana from LAOC. It's my 2nd flask. First was a Clowesia glaucoglossa, also from the same vendor, but I only have about half a dozen that survived so far, mostly due to neglect. Well with that under my belt, I'm a lot more confident this time around. Threw them into moss today in a covered plastic tray, and I think it should be okay like that for a few months, though I'll check periodically.

My personal recommendation for this vendor is to get the flasks. In my opinion most of their plants that they sell are tiny, maybe a year out of the flask. For 90 per flask, you get 25-30 seedlings. But if you buy their plants individually, he charges you 15-30 for a single plant.

The only exception to this is that I picked up a pretty decently sized Catasetum naso from them a while back.

LAOC has some pretty rare species from time to time, but considering how tiny they are, it's easy to accidentally kill them. Get the flask so that you could survive the purchase even if you kill a few. Most of my single plant purchases from this vendor have perished. I don't know whether to blame my inexperience with seedlings or the vendor. Probably both, since the auctions definitely make it appear as if you'd get a bigger plant. My :twocents:

If I'm correct, LAOC is run by John Nelson and Tin-Wein Yu, the latter of which is the breeding expert, goes on trip to find rare species to sell. John seems to be responsible for the business and logistics side. I haven't had much luck getting info out of John. His responses to my email inquiries have been... terse. I feel like, to me at least, buying the flasks is the best way to take advantage of Tin-Wein Yu's findings without having to deal with whatever that's going on in the greenhouse operation.

Me neither.