I was dating a young lady in 1996 who later became my wife (her problem, not relevant to the issue) and quickly discovered that yellow roses made her go goo/goo/gaa/gaa and had a positive effect on her romantic output. At $40 a pop and watching them hit the trash 1 week later I soon did a cost/benefit analysis.

Soon after that I wandered into an orchid nursery, '4 Seasons Orchids' in El Monte, and saw a beautiful yellow Cattleya for $30. I bought it and was impressed that it lasted nearly 3 weeks and after wards I still had the plant. Cymbidiums and Phaelies lasted even longer. Giving her these plants instead of the yellow roses seemed to produce the same beneficial results and the cost/benefit ratio took a decided turn for the better.

The plants started accumulating and eventually I bought a book on their care and learned more about them. Strangely enough, after the marriage, the arrival of many new orchids seemed to produce the opposite effect they had before the marriage. Just one more reason to think twice, three times or even more often before tying the knot that binds. Never the less a new hobby was born.

Nick

I went to an orchid show in Baltimore, waay back.
I followed up with a visit to Kensington Orchids
Merritt Huntington convinced me to join the AOS.

My first AOS membership -- 1978.

--Stitz--

Heth, I see the parent issue, they get nervous at anything a 13-year-old does. They'll grow out of it.

To occupy my time that January I bought a small light cart to grow outdoor/dirt seedlings. Happened to be in a box store and bought myself a lipstick Phal 'Happy Girl' to celebrate my birthday. Converted from dirt seedlings to orchids over the next 6-12 months, killed boatloads over the next 7 years trying all different genera.

Lost over 150 this spring including the 'Happy Girl ;-(, cleaned up and restarted in April and now have about 50, mostly seedlings at this point. Plan to stay at around 50-75, we'll see.

My wife is pretty supportive and has bought me a "real" light cart and a 55 gal aquarium/terrarium set-up for different occasions.

Bob

Ironically, my mom brought 2 orchds (noid dendorium)home from a grocery store and I managed to remember to water them and eventually they bloomed (still have one from 10 years ago). After killing nearly 10's of them (phals do not like full sun or a swamp) - I finally got it right about 4 years ago.

A girl I met at work also kept some dilapitated ones on her window sill and I watered them for her and got some dates out of the interaction - and now we are engaged 4 years later (the plants are dead) but as much as she will never admitt it - she enjoyes buying orchids about 10% as much as I do.

So now my mom and fiance remind me I have way too many orchids and if I by one more I am homeless....so I am in the market for an orchid addict to swap plants, but the ladies won't let me make plant friends.

Fishing is not a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that.

Remind the ladies that orchids also fall into that category.

Nick

It took three years for me to learn how to care for that pretty noid, but once it bloomed again (2004) it continued to do so annually. I still have it.

Sc

A dear friend in Florida sent me an Epidendrum cutting... and the rest came quite naturally. I wanted to keep my "friendship plant" alive and thriving, so began my quest for cultural information. Along the way, I've collected and been gifted with several more orchids, and I'm doing alright at keeping everyone alive.

I attended my first orchid festival last fall, and came home with a box full of orchids from Oak Hill Gardens.

I have even managed to bloom a young Phal, and re-bloom a larger Phal... I've also managed to root a few Epi cuttings and grow a few Den keikis.

As time goes by, I'm getting better... learning more... and there's always room for just one more plant! I have full support and cooperation from my wonderful husband, who patiently sat through an afternoon at Oak Hill, while I got lost in their beautiful greenhouses! He helps me choose plants, and even enjoys the flowers.

It's a wonderful addition to my gardening hobby, and I anticipate collecting many more orchids in the coming years!

Jump 10 years, and she had retired to Miami and was happily growing her orchids there. And as newlyweds, my husband and I had been transferred down there as well by coincidence. We had just bought our house and who do you think comes sailing up in a taxi from Miami Beach with the backseat full of orchid plants? Yup, my great-aunt was intent on hooking me, on making me an orchid addict. And she suceeded beyond her wildest dreams. I have grown them everywhere I have lived since, even during my years of work in Central America and now up here in Pensacola.

My great-aunt died about ten years ago at 107 still tending a handful of orchid plants on her windowsill at the assisted-living home. I am still alive with hopefully lots of years to go and lots of orchids to grow.

Nick, I'm married to one of 'those' fishermen. I'll give him the 'better than life or death' line! A fun thread!

Sheila :)

A year later it rebloomed even with benign neglect.

Bought some out of bloom $5 'chids at the grocery. They thrived and bloomed. I started eliminating plants I was growing under lights and slowly but surely all available places where dedicated to orchids.

Three years ago for Christmas - big greenhouse.

Brooke

Soon after I bought nice hyrbids, and learned how to bloom those. Then I got an Aerangis luteo alba var rhodosticta and rebloomed that exceptionally well, I mounted it and knew species were my thing. Since then, Ive aquired a modest collection of obscure Angraecoids, tiny Lepanthes, and my jewels the cuthbertsonii.

I should probably mention that I've sent more than one orchid to its death, and I'm sure a good number more will meet their demise as I learn what types grow best in my environment, and my collecting continues.

I find it a fascinating hobby, and am awed at the sheer numbers of different hybrids and species, and at their different modes of growth and natural habitats!

8 years and a horticulture degree later, life is good, orchidly speaking. Still have the white phal, though it must be a mule or something because it has always languished next to other thriving phals. Den died long ago.

Florrie

July 2009 I found a Phal, foliage only no flower, for half price. It was still $17, but that's much better than $35, so I snagged it up. Took it to the counter and they rang it up. Came on the till as full price so I pointed out the half price sticker and they click clacked on the computer and 'fixed it'. I'd also bought a bag of dirt. The teller then tells me the total. $6 (ish). That really didn't sound right to me but I could figure out why (I think it'd been a long day) and the teller didn't notice so I paid and left.

I looked at my receipt when I got to my truck and turns out, the teller had voided the sale and the attempt to put the actual price in apparently failed, so I got my first Orchid for free. How exciting. My mother was totally jealous. I'll be honest, I felt a little guilty. But hey, it's still alive, so that's gotta count for something, though it hasn't flowered yet.

Nick

Many times it was just one orchid that was gifted which led to our collection.

In the 90's, I belonged to a Garden Club where one (1) member was an orchid grower. I was interested in her Greenhouses (not orchids) when I visited her. Upon leaving she gave me a handful of sticks that had a few small leaves on the top, assuring me, that they were orchids and would bloom easily. I have no explanation why I kept the green bunch for 10 yrs., other than my incorrigible belief in hope.
A move later, I happened to come upon an orchid exhibition at the local mall. There I was told of the name of my 'orchid' and how to grow it. The following spring the Dendrobium Kingianum bloomed and a new hobby was born. Now, in a large basket, it fills the room with it's pleasant fragrance. It can also be blamed for a lot of money spent on orchids since, together with hours on end of research.
Funny, what we owe to an insignificant stick with a few leaves on top. Yes, Jane?

Helga.

Mom had random phals in the house throughout my childhood and when they repeatedly fried into brown husks because they were too close to the window, I didn't even bat an eyelash. My relatively wealthy aunt regularly buys huge (expensive) white phals that she uses as decor in her upscale apartment...I remember plucking off the little 'balls' (buds) at the end of the 'sticks'(spikes) and then getting yelled at for doing so.

At Canada Blooms 2004, an annual gardening event, I was volunteering and happened to wander through the sales area as they were tearing down and thus selling everything for 50-70% off...picked up two phals in spike from a brand name garden centre and the rest is history!

Oh no no no. Don't worry Nick. I know more than that. I bought the dirt for my million and a half other plants. I use Orchid bark for my Orchids. Wouldn't that be something if I could keep my Orchids alive in dirt? Poor things would probably hate me to the point of slapping me with their leaves every time I walked by.

One of the orchid books says that, if you can grow houseplants, you can grow orchids. To me, it sounded the same as my mom's statement that, if you can read, you can cook. Believing her, I'd become a good cook years earlier, and I believed that orchid guy.

In 2002, at a garden/craft chain store, I bought a purple NOID Phal and put it near sliding glass doors that faced E/SE - no lights, no air circulation, no extra humidity - no nothing. Sure enough, it rebloomed numerous times, sitting there among the houseplants.

A couple of years later, a staff person at a local garden center said that, if the Phal was reblooming, I could grow many different types of orchids in the house. I literally got chills of excitement. She said there was a commercial grower in the area - turned out to be Orchids Limited.

It was a freezing cold February night. I raced home to get directions to this place and drove up to the one greenhouse you can see into from the parking lot. Magical magic beyond magic! Lights were on inside, and the water rivulets on the windows made the blossoms and leaves inside look like a Cubist painting.

The next day, I left the office early to get back there before closing. If you've ever walked into a luscious greenhouse when you were brand new to orchids and when it was about 0F degrees outside, you may know what I'm talking about. The warm, damp air. The verdant scents making introductions to your nose. The sights that thrill your third eye, to say nothing of the other two. And the sound of water falling into a pool when everything outside is brittle and frozen.

Jerry Fischer (and later son Jason Fischer) was gracious and patient in answering unending questions from a complete novice. I bought a few plants, once we established my growing conditions. And then... and then... the annual AOS Show came to Minneapolis that April, 2004. Oh. My. Gosh. My senses were overwhelmed, and I had to take regular breaks to come back to earth from the overload.

DH has been supportive in his way, asking what good are the orchids if we can't eat them. When I walked in w/ more, he groaned in jest, saying they were just more mouths to feed. But then, I asked him to spray the mounties a few times when I was away, and he was terrified he'd harm them somehow. Good guy.

Before I lost all energy, give-a-sh--, and orchid love from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) last fall, few plants had just up and died, perhaps because I researched and read, plus grilled vendors on orchids' growing requirements before buying, trying to make sure my place was a good match.

For a couple of years, I had 120+ orchids in the house and then cut back. Who knows how many of the current 70-80 will make it after not being watered and otherwise neglected for about the last 3 months, but the SAD symptoms are lessening slowly. Maybe one of these days, the 'chids will seem a joy again, rather than a burden and source of guilt. I'd offer them to folks, but they all may die in the next few months, plus I have zero energy to pack them up.

May the Orchid Angels smile on us all and those gorgeous beings. :)