hi wrote in message ...
Hi,

I've got a couple of beginner's books for keeping orchids and want to get
some. I've read that Lowe's, Home Depot and the like carry extremely
inferior orchids. This may be too much but is it possible to buy a decent
orchid for $20 or less? I'm not sure where to look for them. I live in
the oklahoma city, ok area. Also, any help on what to look for in an
orchid would be great.

The problem with Home Despot and Lowe's isn't that they have inferior
plants. The plants are often excellent quality mericlones. The
problem is that they are often incorrectly labeled and poorly cared
for by the store.

It looks as though there is an orchid nursery about 1.5 hours drive
from Oklahoma City in Ardmore. http://www.sworchids.com

Also check out http://orchidmall.com for a huge number of mail order
sources. You'll be buying correctly labeled plants from a small
business instead of from a giant box store. If you buy seedlings, it
is certainly possible to buy a quality orchid for less that $20.00.
Sometimes they are less than $10.00 (check out H&R Orchids, for
instance).

Nick