Probably my last order with Ecuagenera

[katsucats]

Originally Posted by sweta

Thank you for this post and warning. I was really tempted to order some from this vendor looking at the affordable prices. But 2 out of 3 being virused is too bad.

To be fair to Ecuagenera, my overall track record with them is more like 4 virused out of 31, and maybe 4-5 more sick looking plants that died pretty quick. The point of my post besides venting my frustration is to point out

1. Someone else could have gotten an order of 10 orchids that look healthy, but here I was sent 2 virused orchids out of 3. It's unpredictable.
2. Most virused orchids I've tested looks healthy. So when I see people talking about quarantining or testing only when there's symptoms, I think they've missed 70% of the virused orchids that enter their collection.
3. Ecuagenera, sadly, has no reliable return policy. If you pester them and get lucky someone might respond.

However, I have gotten a number of large-ish plants from them that are healthy that probably would have cost an arm and a leg from domestic vendors.

On another note, I'm getting pretty tired of virus testing every orchid I get. It just greatly inflates the cost of this hobby, every random purchase becomes an ordeal and makes me pretty disappointed at the industry at whole. I looked over my past purchases and realized I have pretty good luck with vendors out of California and Hawaii -- not all of them to be sure. I think I'm going to just cut down on this hobby and only buy plants from a handful of vendors I trust, like SVO, Andy's, Cal-Orchids, HR Nurseries, Tropical Orchid Farm, and Big Leaf. And then maybe most of what I buy will be compots or flasks since they should have a low rate of viruses.

Otherwise I'm here on the Vendor Feedback forum complaining about all the vendors everyone else loves, that send virused plants out to people because they know no one tests.

Outside, I have an herb garden growing in raised beds where every plant touches other plants and no one says that they shouldn't. Herbs are susceptible to viruses too, so why doesn't anyone at Home Depot advise people that plants shouldn't touch each other? That's because every industry besides some ornamentals don't have a huge virus problem that they've been shoving under the rug for decades.

Alright, I'm off the soapbox. Thanks for listening.