First, I feel I must apologize to the OP of this post, since I
really hijacked the post, so if/when I have further updates, I will just go ahead and start a new post. Since we are sort of all here though, I will post my findings thus far.
John at LOC got back to me really quickly, and he was really interested to see the blooms that JPMC posted way back nearly two years ago (at the beginning of this thread). He said that the only pics that he’d seen of this particular Phal in bloom where the one taken
in situ so I think that JPMC is quite a good Phalaenopsis grower, whether they believe it or not! So congratulations are definitely in order! With regard to John at LOC, he’s going to check with his partner who is in charge of their lab to see if they have a flask of these Phal zhejiangensis that’s ready to plant out, and that if and when they do, I can get a plant instead. This definitely makes more sense to me than buying a flask, because I’m still terrified about these, and I’m getting pretty good at hardening off the plantlets that I’ve gotten from flasks that I’ve bought, I’m still far and away from being truly good at it. I think I would have more losses than viable plants if I were to try these with a flask. I gave John the link to this post, so he could see the pic, so he definitely knows that it’s more than just me that is interested in getting a plant, and I mentioned that to him in my response to him, where I thanked him profusely for his help. So, yeah, once I hear more news, I’ll start my own thread (I’m sorry JPMC!) but I’ll probably send you three (Roberta, DirtyCoconuts, and neophyte) DMs when I do get more news. His plant prices are really some of the lowest that I’ve seen, and I have yet to be disappointed with anything that I’ve purchased from LOC (LAOrchidJohn on eBay if you all want to see what I mean). I’m really excited about this, because I’ve been looking for this one for over two years now. It’s funny that I have been looking literally halfway around the world for it, and now I will most likely be able to get it from someone who is less than 100 miles away from me!
Thank you Roberta for the link to Popow Orchids; I am pretty sure that I’m going to be taking advantage of the fact that I can pre-order from there, and then they take care of all of the paperwork for the importation and all of that fun stuff. I am very seriously considering going to Redlands, to be honest, and I may be able to talk DH into it, because it’ll be good content for our YouTube channel. I know that DirtyCoconuts wants an excuse to go, to, you know, pick up orchids for us, and I would hate to take that away, hahaha!
Also, to neophyte, I understand both of your dilemmas (dilemmae?): as far as the “biological need” for this one, along with the other, where you have your parents not wanting to be doxxed. If I do buy more than one plant from any source to possibly forward to you (or anyone else who might happen to read this, for that matter) I’m perfectly okay with making some type of “sale” via any app that makes it appear as such, like Craigslist or even eBay (although they have increased their fees since I last sold anything on there, wow). Heck, we can even make it a classified listing on this very website. But we can figure out something that will work once we get to that place, no worries at all. And thank you very much for your comment about the little accident. It’s still kind of a weird existence that my life has morphed into, but it is in this “new” existence that I get to spend more time caring for orchids, and I try to focus more on that as opposed to “but I’m such a dingbat now!”