V_coerulea wrote:
Maybe you could just buy a flask or 2, or a compot. Then you could
watch
them grow bigger and get to repot them larger. The compots don't take
too
much room, so you might deceive yourself that you still have plenty
of room
and buy too many. Of course, as they grow, you can then trade with
others
for some different ones you want. That is if you can bear to part
with any
of the "babies". That, of course, leads down the path of total
absorbtion.
Because now you have to have a greenhouse to house all the new
acquisitions
along with the "babies". That first greenhouse will be much too small
in no
time at all, even though you swore it was huge when you bought it. It
now
owns you: mind, body and soul. The only way to keep up with Rob's
Rules is
to buy a larger greenhouse. Of course, I really can't think of a
better
addiction that gives so much pleasure over such a long period of
time.
Cheaper ones, but not better.
Gary

That is very similar to the way I started my "collection". Members of
the orchid society would have seedlings to sell for $1 to $2 in dixie
cups and divisions for $5 or a little more, or I would buy assortments
of seedling size plants from various venders for $3 to $7 in 2 1/2"
pots. You can put a lot of dixie cups on a 2 X 4' table. Now however,
it has expanded to 3 tables, 6 wire racks that fit between, and about 6
boxes of the plastic shelves, and the floor space... Plants have
grown, been divided, or sent up keikis.

But when a vanda, that I purchased for $5 in 1999 (bare root, 3 leaves)
bloomed for the first time in 2004, I still got more excited than if a
previously bloomed plant reblooms. Go figure.

I prefer plants from seed to meristems. I don't want cookie cutter
blooms. In a new phase of insanity, I have considered ordering a bare
root assortment from a catalog. 22 new plants, ready to pot into 4",
and they won't bloom for 3 more years. But I get excited about not
knowing exactly what I will get in the collection. Yep, more pots and
more tables.

BTW, the catalog had 5 plant assortments of paphs. Grab bag here I
come.

Nancy G