What a great, fun question!
I have two Paphiopedilum purpuratum, my favorite species, that I got as a kid about 14 years old (I’m 50). When I moved to NYC, I parceled out nearly all my orchids to various friends. When I moved back to Chicago permanently in 2017, I started asking for divisions of some things back, which friends kindly provided. Not sure if this counts.
I’ve raised Vanda coerulea from flasklings to repeated bloom and have had them 8 years. Water culture works!
My oldest orchid, I cannot consider truly “mine.” In 1970, my beloved Aunt Judy purchased a small division of Cymbidium tracyanum. I believe it to have been wild-collected; she said it came to her bare-root and bedraggled. She built a full greenhouse around this plant and it always sat in the center.
When she passed, nearly two years ago now, my Uncle told me he would be unable to keep up the greenhouse; he’s 88 now. I took what I could, including the C. tracyanum and a large Rhyncostilis gigantea alba that’s about 30 years old.
The C. tracyanum now weighs about 150 lbs. it has spent two summers outdoors, watered mostly by rain, and one long winter in my living room. I just brought it in for its second winter, this time in my new apartment. I’m very anxious to bring it through.
Judy wouid only repot it every ten years. The mix would long have turned to slop and the plant’s roots and bulbs would bust the nursery pot and make a solid mass inside the terracotta outer pot, then spread across and penetrate the plywood table underneath until they were significantly responsible for holding that table together, until it softened and threatened collapse. Under these conditions, the plant would burst forth annually with over 600 flowers; Judy’s reluctance to repot was due to the fact that it wouldn’t flower at all for up to 5 years after repotting.
I had repotted it for her 5 years before she died and in her last living spring it sent up one lone spike. Of course by then the mix was already mushy so I unpotted it to bring it home. The plant alone weighed over 70 lbs. it appears to be doing well so far but I worry that my indoor light is never going to be enough. I live in a small apartment and the plant takes up significant space but I cannot bear to think of cutting it up. If the right home popped up, I would consider parting with it but the sentimental attachment is stronger than my frustration at having to share space with the beautiful monster. I do have a small division that fell away naturally during the repotting.
Here are some photos of my Vandas and Judy’s Rhyncostilis and her C. tracyanum. The Rhyncostilis also summers outdoors and has now bloomed twice under my care, with bloomings 6 months apart. Its slat basket is disintegrating and swordfern has taken over and the knowledge that I must repot it for the first time fills me with fresh grief at the loss of my beloved Aunt Judy, my best friend all my life.
See the thread below.
