What did it for you?

[jrodpad]

I've always had a green thumb, but never really did anything with it beyond keeping an ordinary houseplant or two alive. I wasn't into plants or gardening - I had a few ordinary houseplants around out of a feeling of obligation more than interest (what kind of a house doesn't have at least 1 green plant? Right?).

I don't think I could have identified an orchid at that point in my life - any orchid. I had heard that orchids were expensive, extremely difficult to care for and easy to kill. I thought that the only people who collected orchids were wealthy, monocle-wearing philanthropists with their own greenhouses and a staff of horticulturists sleeping in the servants quarters. I was under the impression that orchids came from jungles, were scavenged by Indiana Jones types, and were worth thousands of dollars a piece - especially the black ones. Right?

I would have never, never guessed that it would be something that I spent so much time and energy cultivating as a hobby. Even now, if I take a moment to step back and think about it... I'm still shocked that this is what I'm into these days. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Like many others, it was a gifted NOID phal that started everything for me. A simple, white-flowered, big-box (Home Depot, I think) phal that I was certain I would kill... but I didn't. The flowers stuck around for a few months. After they died, it rebloomed. With that first rebloom came pride, intrigue, confidence and a curiosity to see if it was a fluke or whether I could actually keep orchids alive. I was half convinced that I happened to have the one immortal orchid... the highlander of orchids, of which there could be only one (Phal Duncan MacLeod?). So I went to Ikea and picked up a second NOID Phal. Purple. The bad news was my first orchid was not immortal after all. The good news was I could keep orchids alive. I blame that first rebloom for all this madness. To this day, I still feel a rush that makes me want to go out and get 5 new orchids to add them to the collection.

Great topic. Thanks for posting it.

-J

[scy]

I've never had any kind of plants before. When I got married, I decided I was going to do my own flowers and fell in love with cymbidiums when looking at cut flowers. I couldn't get pink ones I wanted and settled for yellow cymbidiums. Three months after the wedding, my husband surprised me with dendrobium orchids in my favorite color (plum) and a pink cymbidium insigne, because I couldn't get the pink ones I wanted. He said, "Now you can enjoy them everyday!"

[pedidiva]

I bought many resting orchids for $4/each. They were an assortment of different types--dendrobiums, Phals, Paphs, Phrags, epidendrums, oncidiums, etc. I did not know what they would look like when they flowered. To my surprise--they all survived & have begun to flower. Amazing.

It's been a trip.

[Connie Star]

I've always been fascinated by a technical challenge and I love flowers. I have a masters degree in Botany, but literally never saw "my" plant (Vinca rosea) whole, studying potassium transport in tissue culture. In fact, i have a bit of a "brown" thumb. I live in New England, and I go stir-crazy indoors in the winter. When we moved in with my husbands elderly parents to help them all of their plants had died. I decided to try orchids. I read books, and went to an orchid show, not quite 2 years ago. I bought a phal, and a phal type den and I was off and running. I now have about 75 plants. Many of them owe their lives to Orchid Board!

[camille1585]

I love plants, and I started with 2 orchids (a cym and a phal) that were just another houseplant to me. One day out of curiousity I was looking up some info about them and came across OB. After reading around a bit I was very surprised to see how vast and diverse the orchid world was. So I stuck around on OB to learn more, and got completely sucked into orchids. Thanks OB!

[ASP]

Hello I'm new and from the UK - I haven't introduced myself yet - until now!
I have always had an interest in "exotics" as I grew up in East Africa and my mother is a keen gardener so it rubbed off on me I suppose.
I have had a Phal for fourteen years and the poor thing has suffered quite a lot of neglect but has hung in there and is now quite big. Over the years I have always thought that I must start this orchid collection that I want but somehow never got round to it. Quite recently I decided that I must re-pot my Phal and did a bit of research online and suddenly I was ordering seedlings and young plants left right and center!
Now my stepsons bedroom has become my grow room and I'm completely hooked! (So much so that when we move house it will have to be somewhere either with room for a greenhouse or a conservatory - or ideally - both!!!)

[RosieC]

Welcome ASP!

For me it was my Mum who first bought me a Phal for my Birthday about 4 or 5 years ago. I liked it and to my suprise (I thought they needed special conditions to flower) it flowered again for me, and again a second time.

I bought two more NoID Phals in early 2008 because I was so pleased with my success. Arround a similar time my Mum had mentioned that she had bought a book which said they needed repotting every couple of years, so I came online and read about repotting, then bought some bark from the local store and went for it.

Well that was the start of the problems I now know, except it took me a long time to realise, that the bark was already too decayed and that it was the poor quality bark which almost killed that first Phal.

I came back online for help and signed up to OB to ask what to do. I made lots of further mistakes when I ignored advice but finally this year that original Phal rebloomed.

And the rest? Well once I was on OB I became addicted to looking at the photos others posted and through those I became addicted to all sorts of orchids... it's the pictures you guys post which really got the addiction going

[Paul Mc]

My obsession started very slowly. I never had a green thumb and always tried for years and years. Slowly, I started to succeed where I had always failed before. My apartment was always filled to the brim with tropical plants (mostly non-blooming), so much so that my friends referred to my apartment as "the jungle." LOL...

One day at home depot, I saw a phal that I really liked and thought how the color of the flower would really add to my tropical collection. It was cheap and I was terrified I'd kill it, so I bought it to try out. Well, I still have that orchid and after it rebloomed the first time I decided to try another one. The next year when they both rebloomed I started getting the itch.

The straw that broke the camel's back was going to my first Orchid Show. I left with 9 new plants, lol...

I can't really say that there is one in particular that I'm really addicted to since I love them all!