The day before our orchid club sale, I picked out only 2 new orchids for myself as we were setting up. My first vanda:
Ascda. Peggy Foo 'Pink' x Vasco. Tham Yuen Hae 'Blue Queen'


Her roots alone are over 20 inches long!




And my first Encyclia, a big near-specimen in a 4 inch pot with 6 spikes. The tag says "Enc. cordigerua x Nursery Rhyme". Not quite sure if it IS Enc. Nursery Rhyme (a cordigera cross) or if it's Nursery Rhyme crossed back again on cordigera. but I don't care, cuz I like it.




I was buzzing with excitement when I got home, I couldn't wait to properly stage them-just grabbed my camera to take pictures, mindless of the dried blossoms and the calendar and the laundry detergent.

The next day, helping out at the sale, I knew I would be taking home my first Paph. I couldn't decide which to get and they were all in tight bud. What if I picked one and didn't love it?What if I killed it and had to wait til our fall sale to try paphs again? I had to choose 2 just to cover my bases. Paph Magic Leopard x Paph callosum should be opening soon. Paph. callosum 'Hilo Fire' AM/AOS x Paph. Hilo Ruby 'Winery' might take a little longer.

Right in the middle of the sale while we were very busy, a lady came in with a sad looking Milt on a pile of stones in a gaudy red pot, the whole thing about half full of water. She asked for the club president, but he was up to his eyeballs in the checkout line. She didn't want advice, she wasn't looking for a replacement, she just handed the whole works to me and said to give it to Jim and tell him she was sorry it looked that way but that her husband was sick and she didn't have time to care for it.

It had been happy in her care at one time. There were three young growths since she bought it at last fall's club sale and the pbulbs were in reasonably good shape. But it was obviously drowning. Jim told me to take it home. The newer pbulbs were already trying to push out new roots.
Milt. Andrea West 'Wild Wild West'


As we were closing up, a specimen size Miltdm. Rosy Sunset caught my nose (heavenly!) and then my eye. It made 3 more orchids than I was planning to go home with that day.



The last day of the sale, I was not buying anymore orchids! Until one of the other big Ascocendas kept perfuming the room whenever anyone walked by it. I knew I wouldn't have room for another giant hanging basket and one of the other members wanted that one, so I turned my nose on the mini-vanda tray and felt a craving for grape Skittles candy. Into my basket lept Rhynco. Colmarie. Looks & smells like a juicy black grape:


Towards the end of the sale, business was slow and we were futzing as orchid people tend to do, rearranging pots, pruning dried blossoms.

I spotted a spike with lots of tight buds and one dried out bloom. "This looks like Encyclia cochleata!" I exclaimed.

"Don't you mean Prosthechea?" someone asked.

"Nope, the tag says 'Epi. Green Hornet'," added another.

And with that exchange, my last impulse control brain cell succumbed.

Orchid Collection: +8
Me: Hopeless