# get to know you



## Cinderella (Jan 18, 2007)

how long growing and how many orchids? 

If this was done in a previous thread sorry for being boring.

I'll start with my meager little collection:

growing 3+ years, 50-60 depending on recent DIMPs


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## Heather (Jan 18, 2007)

Just about at my 3rd anniversary also. 70 slippers. Probably going to need to downsize again this spring. Blah. 

If anyone wants a couple of decent (8-10") sanderianum young 'uns, let me know (they won't be terribly cheap but nor will they be astronomical).


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## Barbara (Jan 18, 2007)

I bought my first orchid something like 7 years ago, I killed it naturally. Bought a couple more, didn't kill them and felt encouraged. Got my sister addicted and we ordered a few and slowly built the collection up from there. Now that we have discovered a very good orchid grower here in Ontario, we are building the collection a little more quickly. We just have around 65 different ones now. We have 22 different paphs and phrags. A modest collection compared to many.


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## NYEric (Jan 18, 2007)

I've been growing, or trying to grow orchids maybe 7 years. Through my travels around the country and the GNYOS show I've been able to collect many different types but unfortunately until recently didn't have the time to do the research in how to keep them alive. I have the tombstones [ID tags] from hundreds of different plants.  
Since I'm compulsive I tend to water everyday so I now am good w/ Phrag besseae hybrids. I live in a _WARM_ sunny NYC apartment so I also have lots of luck w/ Tolumnia and Phals. Not so good w/ catts. I also grow some Pleuros and Madevallias near the fans and ultrasonic foggers. I hope to get a real digital camera soon so I can send in some photos. Thanx.


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## Leo Schordje (Jan 18, 2007)

All of you are makeing me feel old. 
I have been growing one or more orchids for roughly 35 years. (since junior year of high school) Have had more than 50 orchids for 27 years. Currently have somewhere around 1000 or so orchids. About 1/3 Phrags, 1/3 Paphs and the rest are all manner of oddity. 60:40 ::species:hybrids. 

Oldest plant in my collection was the second orchid I ever bought. Calanthe Veitchii, I still have it 35 years later. Second oldest is a Paph callosum at 34 years, the mistake I made with the callosum was dividing it back down to single growth. It is currently a one growth plant, but will bloom this spring. 

I grow everything in my basement, under lights. 
More than a little out of control, you think?


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## Jon in SW Ohio (Jan 18, 2007)

Working on 11 years now (holy cow it's been THAT long?!!?!) and have more plants than I'd care to count. I'm sure it's only in the hundreds though.

I can blame ALL of it on an old book by Wilma Rittershausen called _Exotic Orchids_ that I got when I was about 10 years old. The last page of that book has a pic of Psychopsis papillio and five years later a friend of my mom's grew orchids and she asked him to find me one. He did, it bloomed, and the rest is history...

EDIT: after seeing Leo's post, I thought I'd also mention I still have my second orchid as well, a grocery store Dendrobium phalaenopsis hybrid. I lost the first Psychopsis to root rot, but it has since been replaced by a half dozen more species and hybrid ones that grow in it's honor. My first slipper was a Paph. Psyche in low bud, which died from crown rot a few months after blooming. I didn't take an addiction to slippers until I met my dear friend Tom Cox later that year and through his friendship and teaching I've come to have a higher percentage of slippers than anything.

Jon


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## Heather (Jan 18, 2007)

I admire those of you who started so early in life!  

Leo, what sort of records do you keep? Or, do you just have a super duper memory? 

I killed my first orchid, and I do not have my first paph - it was a Maudiae Coloratum (can you believe it?) and I realized I didn't like them as well as the multis well before it bloomed. Space constraints led it right out the door. 

Wow. The only plant I still have from my first 6 mos. of growing is my roth. 'MM' x 'Rex'!


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## smartie2000 (Jan 18, 2007)

I started growing at a young age with my mom and we have around 30 plants. Orchids have been around me for around 9 years. first orchid was a noid pink phal

Anyways I started my own separte collection recently last year and bought 61 plants in 2006 that are mostly slippers. I grow my collection under fluorescent light and in my closet (strange place eh?). I would have used my basement but its too warm because of the furnace....They'll outgrow my closet soon lol. Hehe...and yes those orchid books I read when I was young and internet stores helped me go wild when I had purchasing power in 2006!

So my house totals to about 90 orchids. Maybe a hundred? I didn't really count the ones my mom waters. My self introduction when I joined here is http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2007 and it includes my grow list. It hasn't changed yet....but when weather permits im sure a few plants will be added


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## Ron-NY (Jan 18, 2007)

I had a few orchids in my early 30's but didn't seriously get into them until 8 years ago. I suspect my collection numbers around 350 + chids. As you saw the other day, most of my Paphs are roth primaries. About 90 of my chids are Paphs, 20 or so Phrags, 80 + Bulbo species, 30+ Maxillaria species and the rest a mix of various species and hybrids


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Jan 18, 2007)

I got into paphs maybe a year or 2 after i started growing orchids, after I picked up a Maudiae at a Brooklyn Botanic Garden spring sale....once it bloomed, I was hooked...I'd say almost 25 years of slipper growing now. I don't have too many survivors from my earliest years, but my insigne (same one in the photo I sent, normal variety...) has been with me about 23 years, at least...my haynaldianum about 21 years. Take care, Eric


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## SlipperFan (Jan 18, 2007)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> ...but my insigne (same one in the photo I sent, normal variety...) has been with me about 23 years, at least...my haynaldianum about 21 years. Take care, Eric


These must be huge plants!


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## Marco (Jan 18, 2007)

I started last spring.


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## wilbeck (Jan 18, 2007)

I have had orchids for about 2.5 years and started growing after reading "The Orchid Thief." My first orchid was a Paph. Through the first six months, I bought five more orchids, a Phalanopsis, two Oncidiums and two Vandas. I gave the Vandas away to friends because the plants required too much attention. I didn't add to the collection for sixteen months, but am now up to 22 slippers (nine of them seedlings and ten of them species) and ten other orchids of several types. I haven't killed one yet, though one can't really say I know what I'm doing.


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## Park Bear (Jan 19, 2007)

My wife bought a couple of phals for me for my birthday at Trader Joes about 6 years ago. I killed one and I still have the other one and I almost killed that one, but have since learn to not listen to the people at Trader Joes. They said to keep it wet all the time.

I like slippers and bulbos; and I'm thinking about getting some scaphos this year. If it looks strange or weird then I will probably like it. I have more plants than I want to mention on the web, no sense in giving the wife ammunition.


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## ohio-guy (Jan 19, 2007)

I got my first orchid back in 1992, and tried to grow cats and phals at various times thru the years, with a smattering of paphs and phrags. Most recently I got interested in the slippers again, when i realized the majority of the 20 or so plants that I have managed to keep alive are paphs and phrags.
I grow under lights in my basement during the winter, and move my plants out side in the summer. I seriously need to repot and start to fertilize a little more regularly, as i have only a couple maudiae types that are setting up bloom spikes this year. 
My recent interests seems to run to complex paphs, and the windowsill phrags, with long petals and besseae influence for color. 
Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have also recently discovered e bay auctions, and manages to acquire over 20 new paphs in bud before the cold set in, and now am anxiously awaiting seeing them begin to bloom. ( half of them came from unclem2, who had a special of 10 maudiae types in bud for 75$! (he sells for orchids of los osos) which was quite the deal!....nothing like instant gratification!!!)


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## Sandy O (Jan 19, 2007)

Hi---

I've just been lurking so I would have time to water! I've been growing orchids for about 28 years...I started with catts but soon branched out into paphs and phrags. I've always prefered the long-tailed phrags and for many years I have been buying and growing any caudatum-type I could get my hands on. Now that phrags are "popular" again, thanks to besseae and kovachii, I'm very happy! 
I grow in northern Indiana in a greenhouse (15' x 20', south and east exposure, attached to my basement---my house is on a hillside) and under about 7,000 watts of fluorescent and HID lights in the basement. (I know one day the police will be knocking on my door, wondering why the whole area lights up from 9 pm to 7 am---off-peak electric at 1.8 cents per kwh!) Greenhouse has lots of vandas and dendrobiums, some bulbos and coelogynes, and a few catts and oncids. Under lights I grow lots of phrags and paphs, plus miltoniopsis and trichopilias, and some oncid intergenerics and assorted other orchids. I have no idea how many orchids I have and I'm afraid to count. I like to grow from flask and compot, so I have way too many, but as Rob (littlefrog) says, there's always room for one more orchid...or two... or another flask... :wink: 

---Sandy


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## smartie2000 (Jan 19, 2007)

whoa 7000 watts! Lets hope they don't raid you for drugs or take any plants thinking they are rare and illegal

I had to carry 4 shop lights on the subway and bus because I knew my mom would reject the idea of growing under lights. I had to make two trips and it's weird carrying lights on a bus! By chance it was the same bus driver and some same passengers...I wonder what they were thinking A young asian guy with lights and bleached hair in a semi-mohawk on a bus full of snobs(I moved to higher class neighbourhood)...I also have some lights where my window where everyone sees that they are on untill 11PM. It's for bonsai trees and orchids in bloom display...i've joked that I'm growing weed lol


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## TADD (Jan 19, 2007)

Well, I began growing about 3 or 4 years ago.... I was given a HD dendrobium for my B-Day present. I bought two more HD phals in the winter and eventually in March of 2003 I got my first paph. I, like most first timers, bought various different types of orchids, but the paphs kept pulling me back in.... I now grow mostly paphs maybe a 100 or so or more not sure don't keep records these days. I have a few of my earlier plants still, but tend to favor the slippers, almost no phrags at all. :evil: I love the fairrieanum flower and it's hybrids. I have recently started to grow my second obsession -Neofinetias. I am not usually an obsessive compulsive type of person, but hey it's an addiction right? Actually I just placed a small order with NWO and will recieve them next week. I grow inside under my 400 watt MH light and like smartie2000 my friends think I am growing weed! I wish I was ,then maybe I could make some damn money! oke:


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Jan 19, 2007)

Actually, they are not large...the insigne is in 3 pots, all moderate sized plants...the haynaldianum is in one pot with 3 growths...the other divisions were traded awhile back....the main division I have got retarded because it dried out...hadn't noticed that the medium hadn't been properly jammed all the way down. Hardy as a rock, it survived of course, but needs to fully revive.....last year was the first time it ever blasted a bud....but it will be fine. Take care, Eric


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## BotanicaLtd (Jan 20, 2007)

Reading these brings back a flood of memories!!! Our first orchid...a cattleya division...which we potted in soil and sat next to the cactus in the window. And then we started learning. It lived despite our early treatment 23 short years ago and we still have it. As we moved around, we used to decide where to live based on light/windows. At one point we grew under 1000 watt MH light in a basement. The next step was a multi-level 14x24 greenhouse...a great place---and still growing orchids (by an AOS judge in Seattle). We moved back to Montana with over 2,000 plants and kept them at nursery until we got settled. It remained a hobby until we built a 30x60 greenhouse in our backyard; we sell them mostly via our website (though I reluctanly admit the internet sales started on eBay). My husband and I are equally obsessed...there's never been anyone to say "you've spent enough time/money on that now". The greenhouse is lovingly called the black hole of time and money...time passes differently in the greenhouse! We'll always grow orchids...


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