Morrison's stores (UK) are selling no-name mini Phals in a ceramic pot
for £4.99
Can't lose.
jc

John,

As Pat Brennan pointed out in a previous post, the only people that lose
when orchids are $8.50 at the store are the local growers.

Resist the temptation to buy plants at such prices and seek out a local
grower. If a local grower isn't available, try to find one from your region
or country. Join your local orchid club and educate yourself on who and
where to buy orchids so that your purchase stays in the local economy.

The wal-mart/tesco-ization of the world marches on. People's purchasing
decisions have a direct effect on the health and vibrancy of the orchid
growing ecosystem at the local, national, and international level.

This reply is not intended as a flame, but as an alternative viewpoint on
the state of orchid retailing.

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

"john carruthers" wrote in message
ups.com...
Morrison's stores (UK) are selling no-name mini Phals in a ceramic pot
for £4.99
Can't lose.
jc

You soon get bored with noids, i did after my very first few!It depends what
you want from your plants.You are right you cannot lose if all you want is a
house plant to stick on your windowsill,but they are no good when you get
serious ,want to show and your/societies pride is at stake.
Keith

Well, the ones I see at LOWE'S, HD and Wally World are the same ones I
saw there several weeks ago. They seem to be slow sellers. They are
also the most bedraggled plants there.
These stores are not driving the Orchid growers out of business, they
are just filling the worlds dumps with compost. My bet is that htey
will drop the orchids in two years as a lost cause, let's hope so.
Joe T

john carruthers wrote:
Morrison's stores (UK) are selling no-name mini Phals in a ceramic pot
for £4.99
Can't lose.
jc

I don't think so, Joe. The HD and Lowe's around here have been selling them
since we've lived here - 1999 - with no sign of stopping. Lowe's has pared
back a bit, but HD appears to have actually expanded their stock.

Diana

"jtill" wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, the ones I see at LOWE'S, HD and Wally World are the same ones I
saw there several weeks ago. They seem to be slow sellers. They are
also the most bedraggled plants there.
These stores are not driving the Orchid growers out of business, they
are just filling the worlds dumps with compost. My bet is that htey
will drop the orchids in two years as a lost cause, let's hope so.
Joe T

john carruthers wrote:
Morrison's stores (UK) are selling no-name mini Phals in a ceramic pot
for £4.99
Can't lose.
jc

Interesting...

The HD's I have been to carry scraggly, beaten-up phals, if any orchids at
all. The local Lowes, on the other hand, carries some really good looking
phals (many of which appear to be properly tagged), an occasional variety of
oncidiinae intergenerics and straight oncidiums, and even paphs every now
and then (although it's been a while).

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
. ..
I don't think so, Joe. The HD and Lowe's around here have been selling them
since we've lived here - 1999 - with no sign of stopping. Lowe's has pared
back a bit, but HD appears to have actually expanded their stock.

Diana

"jtill" wrote in message
oups.com...
Well, the ones I see at LOWE'S, HD and Wally World are the same ones I
saw there several weeks ago. They seem to be slow sellers. They are
also the most bedraggled plants there.
These stores are not driving the Orchid growers out of business, they
are just filling the worlds dumps with compost. My bet is that htey
will drop the orchids in two years as a lost cause, let's hope so.
Joe T

john carruthers wrote:
Morrison's stores (UK) are selling no-name mini Phals in a ceramic pot
for £4.99
Can't lose.
jc

It all depends on the nursery manager at your local store. Most are
clueless. Some actually know how to grow plants and will be able to keep
stuff in good condition for a while. It also seems that sometimes the box
stores will just order a box of mixed orchids and get some interesting
things. I got a Paph. exul one time in bloom at Home Depot ($20-$25?).
I've seen a Cycnodes at Whole Foods, and also a Grammatophyllum scriptum in
spike (around $30-35?). Trader Joes just opened here, and they seem to
carry phals fairly cheap.

I see a lot of comments about the evils of the mass market growers, but
frankly I don't see comments about some of the obvious evils of the
traditional orchid business. Has anyone noticed that most seedlings of
phals and paphs aren't very good, and if it's a new line of breeding they
are likely to be total crap? This can be especially bad with the slippers
where the seedlings can be priced quite high. At least the wholesalers are
mostly selling clones of plants that have bloomed out nicely once or twice
before they're propagated. What's happening in the orchid business is that
it's becoming more like the plant business in general. You don't normally
go to a specialty nursery and pay $20-30 for a speculative seedling between
two pansies or daylilies. What you buy in most groups of plants has been
selected from large groups of bloomed seedlings where the best ones were
then propagated for sale.

After saying that, I do still buy unbloomed seedlings, although there are
some paph vendors (quite well known) that I won't buy from anymore unless I
see it in flower. If you have a good knowledge of an area, or know a vendor
that will select the most promising new crosses from a group, you can still
bloom out some nice new things. I just really wouldn't mind a little bit of
a shift where many of the growers selling lots of crappy seedlings at high
prices go out of business.

-danny

"Ray" wrote in message
news:RG%_g.2070$Wp3.466@trndny05...
Interesting...

The HD's I have been to carry scraggly, beaten-up phals, if any orchids at
all. The local Lowes, on the other hand, carries some really good looking
phals (many of which appear to be properly tagged), an occasional variety
of oncidiinae intergenerics and straight oncidiums, and even paphs every
now and then (although it's been a while).

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!

First off I don't have many plants, about fifty. Secondly I try to find
something that is fragrant, famous, bloomed, F1, ploidy and big. This
holds down my collection size and rules out HD and friends. Right now I
am looking for a C Rex, probably won't find it at HD, but, I always
check ;-))
Joe T
My middle name is Rex and I collect mostly CATTS. (I do have a few
dogs). Many of my plants are throw backs. I bought a blooming plant and
give it to some desirable female and she throws it back when the blooms
wither!
Many vendors want you to buy seedlings that are new unbloomed crosses,
yeah, right! Secondly they sell old plants from lists with no photos.
Well not to me.
Enough chatter.

danny wrote:
It all depends on the nursery manager at your local store. Most are
clueless. Some actually know how to grow plants and will be able to keep
stuff in good condition for a while. It also seems that sometimes the box
stores will just order a box of mixed orchids and get some interesting
things. I got a Paph. exul one time in bloom at Home Depot ($20-$25?).
I've seen a Cycnodes at Whole Foods, and also a Grammatophyllum scriptum in
spike (around $30-35?). Trader Joes just opened here, and they seem to
carry phals fairly cheap.

I see a lot of comments about the evils of the mass market growers, but
frankly I don't see comments about some of the obvious evils of the
traditional orchid business. Has anyone noticed that most seedlings of
phals and paphs aren't very good, and if it's a new line of breeding they
are likely to be total crap? This can be especially bad with the slippers
where the seedlings can be priced quite high. At least the wholesalers are
mostly selling clones of plants that have bloomed out nicely once or twice
before they're propagated. What's happening in the orchid business is that
it's becoming more like the plant business in general. You don't normally
go to a specialty nursery and pay $20-30 for a speculative seedling between
two pansies or daylilies. What you buy in most groups of plants has been
selected from large groups of bloomed seedlings where the best ones were
then propagated for sale.

After saying that, I do still buy unbloomed seedlings, although there are
some paph vendors (quite well known) that I won't buy from anymore unless I
see it in flower. If you have a good knowledge of an area, or know a vendor
that will select the most promising new crosses from a group, you can still
bloom out some nice new things. I just really wouldn't mind a little bit of
a shift where many of the growers selling lots of crappy seedlings at high
prices go out of business.

-danny

"Ray" wrote in message
news:RG%_g.2070$Wp3.466@trndny05...
Interesting...

The HD's I have been to carry scraggly, beaten-up phals, if any orchids at
all. The local Lowes, on the other hand, carries some really good looking
phals (many of which appear to be properly tagged), an occasional variety
of oncidiinae intergenerics and straight oncidiums, and even paphs every
now and then (although it's been a while).

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!

jtill wrote:

Many vendors want you to buy seedlings that are new unbloomed crosses,
yeah, right!

If you have the time and resources to research the parents, that's a
fun way to go. Some of my best plants were purchased as bare root
seedling assortments, venders choice at that. The plants and blooms
were not inferior, just untested. I don't know the criteria for being
in the assortment, but many were the same crosses that were listed for
2 and 3X the price of the calculation on the per plant price for the
assortment. Of course I did have to keep them alive and wait a few
years for blooms, but it's been worth it (at least to me). I still
keep hybridizers' listed that sell seedling crosses in that manner.
It's my "happy birthday to me" gesture. I can anticipate their
arrival, research the parents from the cross, and be pleasantly
surprised by their blooms for years. Talk about bang for the buck!

Then again, if I was looking to make my own cross, I would want a
particular orchid with an objective in mind. I would still have to
keep it alive and thriving, and wait, and wait, and wait. Most of the
hybrid pedigrees I've researched average 20 years from registration of
the cross to when it was used in a hybrid. Humbling when an orchid
baby is still 5 years or more from blooming, but the cross was recorded
nearly a decade before.

Some of my orchids are clones from awarded plants, most are progeny
from awarded plants. A couple I would like to have evaluated and
judged. I know it sounds naive, but some of the sibs from my crosses
have been awarded, and I don't think their blooms are any better than
mine.

Nancy

Just because a few plants from the cross were awarded doesn't mean they're
the best ones. Better ones may just not have made it into a receptive
judging center, or bloomed at the wrong time of the month for judging.
There's also a problem where if someone else gets a plant with blooms
exactly like yours awarded first, judges may not give more awards to other
plants in the cross with the same quality. They will wait to see if
anything better shows up.
-danny

"Nancy G." wrote in message
oups.com...
I know it sounds naive, but some of the sibs from my crosses
have been awarded, and I don't think their blooms are any better than
mine.

Nancy

Danny,

Good points, and ones I personally would have never considered, being a
species person.

It also help support the oft-heard advice: Buy all your orchids in bloom!

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

danny wrote:
I see a lot of comments about the evils of the mass market growers, but
frankly I don't see comments about some of the obvious evils of the
traditional orchid business. Has anyone noticed that most seedlings of
phals and paphs aren't very good, and if it's a new line of breeding they
are likely to be total crap? This can be especially bad with the slippers

I was happy to see danny's comment too. I've noticed the same thing.
There's a paucity of good crosses out there. Its almost like Harry
Anderson's comment that 'a fool and his money were lucky to get together in
the first place'. A good orchid hybrid is a stroke of luck. That said I
prefer to buy un-named crosses because when I get a good one its like
finding gold in a stream bed.

K Barrett

"Eric Hunt" wrote in message
...
Danny,

Good points, and ones I personally would have never considered, being a
species person.

It also help support the oft-heard advice: Buy all your orchids in bloom!

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

danny wrote:
I see a lot of comments about the evils of the mass market growers, but
frankly I don't see comments about some of the obvious evils of the
traditional orchid business. Has anyone noticed that most seedlings of
phals and paphs aren't very good, and if it's a new line of breeding they
are likely to be total crap? This can be especially bad with the
slippers