Importing Orchids MyOrchids.de
 

Hello! I joined this board yesterday hoping to gain some information about how to import orchids from Dr. Beyrle. A discussion earlier on my welcome thread with @Roberta was helpful, but when I did some more research it became increasingly impractical. Among other things, while the permits may be free, the actual USDA inspections and such are hideously expensive, and could total 200 bucks in total all on it's own if I'm not careful. Does anyone know if there's an extant open group ordering from Dr. Beyrle into the US and where I can go to get in contact with it?

(Also I am so sorry if this is the wrong place to put this thread haha)

Placement of the post is perfect. This is the most-visited subforum. And welcome again!

The way to get orchids imported more easily is to make friends with a vendor who already imports orchids from your targeted overseas vendor. Many smaller orchid vendors actually sell orchids as a hobby (they have a job to pay the bills and to help support the hobby). They might not mind adding a few extra orchids to their order if you are already a good customer and offer to pay a part of the import fees. It is very complicated and expensive, though, to import orchids if you are not in the business.

Another option is to see if the vendor ever attends shows in your country and will bring the orchids you want when they bring their other orchids (often called 'pre-ordering'). Some will then send the orchids to you once they reach the your country.

Good luck!

hi,

not to hype another website here (:shock:) but you may wanna try over at lonisorchideen. it is a german orchid forum and if you use translator maybe someone there would have more specific information.

viel gluck!

Has that changed?

It has been a while since I imported anything, but the APHIS inspection and clearance, plus express shipping onto me, was at no charge as a “hobby importer”.

Have you checked with the vendor if they have any relationships with US vendors/individuals that may do bulk imports? Or if they ever attend shows in the US? This would significantly reduce the stress and expenses for you.

I know that the owner of myorchids.de (Dr. Beyrle) does not come to shows. It is a small operation, not a full time job for him. I'm just guessing, but I suspect that the European and especially the Australian terrestrials that Tarzane Group has sold came from there. (Especially for the Aussie ones, I don't know of anybody else in the northern hemisphere who is selling them... and it's a huge benefit, since flipping seasons on highly seasonal plants is difficult with a low success rate, these come already acclimated since they are grown from seed)

This effort by the Tarzane Group is quite new... they sold some European terrestrials in 2021 and again in 2022, then fairly late season they had a few of the Australian terrestrials. They were very successful, so perhaps they will import more next year. (like most of them were sold out within minutes of the "drop"... I lost out on a couple of things I wanted in the time it took me to enter my credit card info after entering them in my Shopping Cart.) Of course it's great to get these from a domestic vendor - they have done all the import paperwork, that's something they do for a living.

Do you think that if I reached out to the Tarzane Group I could ask to add in a few orchids to their next shipment into the US?

They're a business... they sell these. Get on their mailing list, they do give advance notice since they are in high demand. Then set your watch to jump on as soon as the "drop" happens. And express your interest - I expect that they will import more if they know that they can sell them. Prices are quite reasonable - about the same as you'd pay if you were ordering directly, maybe even less by the time you figure in shipping and CITES. They also may have other sources for the European terrestrials, but the Australian ones very likely come from myorchids.de.

I'd be curious about this as well; it's been a bit for me as well, but it always used to be free of charge to hobbyists/non-commercial license holders. The only time there was a fee involved was if APHIS had to hold plants for secondary inspection [which was extremely rare]