Fair enough then......maybe they will get it to flower as they have different conditions as well.

Sometimes that can happen too.

Showbenching and 'dogs'.
 

I have a friend who refers to any orchid that is not worth benching as a 'dog' :lol: ...

I still like growing dogs because with each plant, my experience and therefore understanding of how I can grow healthy orchids that will bloom to their best potential improves....

Possibly down the road sometime I might get rid of them but for the time being the education and personal pleasure they give me outweighs my desire to have only those good enough to show.

Besides that I'm still a novice anyway and I tend to grow more obscure plants that others at my local orchid club don't even know let alone grow.

It would be better if seller's admitted that they can't get the particular plant they're selling to bloom :roll:

But on Ebay there are so many 'rare' and 'hard to find' plants that in fact are not :angry: I started off my collection with a lot of plants brought on Ebay but now I only buy from nurseries that are reputable according to my friend or through people I personally know, such as members of my local orchid club.

It is nice to buy from nurseries but we don't have any over here. So we need to order abroad via middlemen who charge twice the nursery price. Plus shipping costs. And the quality is not guaranteed. Sometimes I wait for an ordered plant as long as a year and when I get it I have to waste it because it was dead few months ago.

Shadow,
that sounds postively awful!!!l :( .

I've ordered from nurseries and bought and received plants from interstate that arrived in good to excellent condition.. I guess I'm lucky there is so much available in Australia! :nod: .

I did lose a mounted Dendrobium lodgesii seedling once ..it looked ok when it got here but rapidly lost all it's leaves.. I still have it sitting there but I doubt it will recover- not enough energy left in the tiny little canes.

Is there much available over there from personal growers who have built up collections? Is the Ukraine cold?

It is possible to buy orchids from personal growers in Russia but most of them are unnamed hybrids from Hollland or the plants with defective blooms, no award quality plants. And there are only few experienced people with decent collections in Ukraine . So the middlemen are still the best ways, just need to find the most honest one. But the price will remain high (don't forget the cost of import permits, other paperwork).

The last winter was very warm but the temperature can go down as low as - 30 degrees (Celsius).

Do you have a main orchid society there that judges and awards plants?

-30? :shock: Brrr, that is cold! And I thought 5 degrees cecius was cold :blushing:

We don't have any registered orchid society in Ukraine. No meetings and definitely no awards and no judges. We do communicate via Internet or phone, but it is not an organized and registered community. :(

Darn :( Does that mean you are more careful and selective in choosing what orchids to buy and have a smaller collection as a result?

I agree the shaping good be better, But still a nice little catt flower. The colors are wonderful :D