Longest living Orchid Kept

[ronaldhanko]

I have an Epicattleya Frances Dyer that I have owned for 28 years (yes, I know they're not called Epicattleyas anymore, but I can't get used to and don't like the new names). It has gone with us from New Jersey to Texas to Northern Ireland to Washington state and survived. It was one of my first orchids, I think the fourth orchid that I ever owned, and the first that I was successful with. I was given it by a gentleman who had obtained it originally from the estate of W. Avrell Harriman, a former Democratic Presidential nominee and US Ambassador to the USSR and Britain (this gentleman once worked for him as a groundskeeper and horticulturist). I only know that he obtained it in the 1950's. The cross was registered in 1955, so it must have been in the late 1950's that he obtained this plant which would make my plant somewhere around 50 years old.