What is your favorite orchid? Lets have some fun

[Theodoreorchidking]

Hello everyone this is just something fun where you name your favorite orchid, paph phrag phal etc, your first orchid, and your least favorite orchid. If you have photos/ storys of the plants please share.
1.favorite: Paph rothschildianum and paph sanderianum (couldn't pick one)
2. first: a purple moth orchid from my local supermarket
3. least favorite: anything that does not bloom . No, I think it would be cattleya orchid because they just do not seem to grow for me.

 

[DirGo]

1. Favorite: Paph. purpuratum forma album (the albino in my avatar) as my first successful flowering a more challenging albino species.
2. First: Vuystekeara Cambria 'Plush' a great example of old school hybridizing in the early 1900's into a new genus by the Belgian Charles Vuylsteke combined with the -at the time- new school technique of new mass meristeem propagating orchids in the 1970's.
3. Least favorite: that same Cabria 'Plush' as my long quest to replace my lost first orchid is still not yet finished...

 

[big923cattleya]

My favorite orchid has to be Paphiopedilum rothschildianum
second favorite is Cattleya walkeriana
My least favorite orchid is anything that I buy over and over again, and I kill it over and over again!!! Cattleya schilleriana and Cattleya aclandiae both qualify by that rather loose definition.

 

[Camellkc]

Paph. gigantifolium and stonei are the two most favorite Paphiopedilum for me. The former one can produce up to 10 cute yellowish flowers on a fully matured plant with huge dark green and spoon head leave; while the later one can produce up to 5 lovely flowers on a single spike with twisty yellow colored petals with dark red spots, a white dorsal, and sometimes with 4 curve dark red strips.

 

[Tony]

Favorite: Paph Wössner Black Wings. Maybe the perfect hybrid, I probably have at least 150 of them by now, two awarded, several more that I think will be awardable when they mature a bit, and tons of seedlings growing up.






First: Brassia Datacosa 'Coos Bay' AM/AOS

My orchid obsession started in 1993 when I just happened to go to the mall when there was an orchid show happening and I instantly fell in love with the big pumpkin spice scented spiders. In 2019 we lost power to the greenhouse on a 19° night and other than a few blooming plants inside my collection was a total loss including my Datacosa. Luckily the grower I bought my clone from back in 1993 was still alive and kindly sent me divisions from her mother plant, another Datacosa she never released and a couple of other Brassia. I have put several safeguards in place to ensure I never have another loss like that.



Least favorite: Hard to pick just one but probably standard Phals due to the damage that mass market NOIDs have done to the orchid hobby. So many great growers have been driven out of business in the last 20 years as cheap, disposable mass market clones undermined their wholesale business.

 

[Linus_Cello]

1. Vanilla planifolia- makes Coke classic.
2. White phal
3. none

 

[tomp]

Favorite: the next weird, wonderful and unusual thing I see, however IF I had to pick one it might be C. bicolor or maybe L. joungheana, C walkeriana or possibly a stunning C. purpurata, at the moment it is Angraecum arachnites. I like a lot of Dendrobium as well.

First: Can’t remember

Least: unfair question: If I repeated can keep them alive that’s on me. Dyed Phals just should be.

 

[tomp]

Favorite: the next weird, wonderful and unusual thing I see, however IF I had to pick one it might be C. bicolor or maybe L. joungheana, C walkeriana or possibly a stunning C. purpurata, at the moment it is Angraecum arachnites. I like a lot of Dendrobium as well.

First: Can’t remember

Least: unfair question: If I repeated can keep them alive that’s on me. Dyed Phals just should be.

Correction Dyed Phals just should NOT be

 

[Duck Slipper]

Paphs.
Rothschildianum
Hangianum
Sanderianum

 

[DrLeslieEe]

1. Favorite: Paph. purpuratum forma album (the albino in my avatar) as my first successful flowering a more challenging albino species.
2. First: Vuystekeara Cambria 'Plush' a great example of old school hybridizing in the early 1900's into a new genus by the Belgian Charles Vuylsteke combined with the -at the time- new school technique of new mass meristeem propagating orchids in the 1970's.
3. Least favorite: that same Cabria 'Plush' as my long quest to replace my lost first orchid is still not yet finished...View attachment 39525

Did you ever get seeds from this purpbum?

 

[DrLeslieEe]

Fave all time: Cattleya warneri albescent

Fave Paph: javanicum album and purpuratum album

First: Dendrobium hybrid (Phalaenopsis type, white/purple flares) at age 13 (while living as expat in Bangkok) my mom bought me, but first exposure to my grandma’s massive multigrowth multi spiked Phal amabilis at age 7.

Least fave: Odonts and Bulldog paphs lol though I appreciate their beauty in their class.

 

[Theodoreorchidking]

Fave all time: Cattleya warneri albescent

Fave Paph: javanicum album and purpuratum album

First: Dendrobium hybrid (Phalaenopsis type, white/purple flares) at age 13 while living as expat in Bangkok) my mom bought me, but first exposure to my grandma’s massive multigrowth multi spiked Phal amabilis at age 7.

Least fave: Odonts and Bulldog paphs lol though I appreciate their beauty in their class.

O no, don't hate on the bulldog paphs. Those are some of the coolest .

 

[spujr]

Favorite : sanderianum , I remember early days when there was such a hype for these plants. I traveled to Kauai to pick up a flask in college, totally broke but had the best time sleeping in the car.

first: I think I had some complex green yellow bulldog paph, but I remember lowii being a close first

least fav: I never liked the bulbaohyllums, spelling? Tiny little flowers and a lot of work.

 

[tnyr5]

Hmmm....
Fave, I'd say roth, they offend my sensibilities the least
First: Bletilla striata
Least fave: Aa colombiana, complete pain in the *** to grow, and look at it:

 

[DrLeslieEe]

O no, don't hate on the bulldog paphs. Those are some of the coolest .

Hehe I don’t hate them. Just my least favourite.

 

[Theodoreorchidking]

Hmmm....

Fave, I'd say roth, they offend my sensibilities the least

First: Bletilla striata

Least fave: Aa colombiana, complete pain in the *** to grow, and look at it:

Something when wrong with the making of this flower: someone got fired

 

[dodidoki]

Zieckianum, bougainvilleanum, wentworthianum, anitum and intaniae.
I can t choose.

 

[BrucherT]

you know Paphiopedilum purpuratum is my fave as well and I wonder, did you ever find out anything about my seed pod….?

 

[kc6847]

Favorites: too many and I go through many cycles, but general groups are multifloral paphs, cattleya species/primaries, lepanthes/dracula, and angraecoids. If I had to choose specific plants from my current collection, my mature highway robbery SVO Paph. sanderianum, my stupidly heat tolerant Soph. coccinea 4N from Andy's, and Catt. trianae var alba 'Joe'. Current favorites not in my collection include Catt. Triumphans, Soph. pygmaea, and Lepanthes/Dracula in general (when I get the right conditions for them someday)


S. coccinea 4n, 2020, while my pleurothallids were dying, this thing thrived in 95F desert heat mounted with 25% humidity. It quadrupled in size in 6 years and divisions I made in November flowered in January, the last bloom withering just days ago.

First orchid: NoID Phal from 18 years ago, picture below is from 2016. Its still chugging along at my family's home though it needs to be repotted and fertilized more. First non-phal was an Oncidium Sharry Baby that struggled for most of its life.



Least favorite: Anything that rambles. They're hard to contain under home conditions and need to be watered daily if mounted. Also, Maxillaria tenuifolia. I have a specimen of this thing that refuses to bloom for years but will get sunburnt if put in cattleya light. A mounted cutting of it bloomed a few times but this thing is just so frustrating to get to bloom and the foliage gets so scraggly so easily.

 

[southernbelle]

Correction Dyed Phals just should NOT be

Funny, i read it this way in the first post because it’s obvious Dyed phals just should NOT be. It’s sort of like ‘Just Add Ice’