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Re: [SHADEGARDENS] orchids

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, GeneBush wrote:

>     with this strong a  market I looked into finding someone who did
> wholesale them from a tissue culture process or seedlings from flasks. The
> last I knew there were seedlings and plants available from the lab, but
> they could not be kept alive once transferred to the garden. One company
> did offer some kind of solution to spray on the plants and soil to keep
> them alive. Very vague here, but that was a while back.
>     Do you have some latest up to date information on the lady slipper
> orchids and their availability to the trade? Has the feeding problem been
> overcome as yet?

I have not tried Spangle Creek's flasks of seedlings, but I know Carson
Whitlow has raised lots of transplantable seedlings and gotten them
established because I've seen his hybrids (there are photos in some of
the AOS bulletins, as I recall).  I'd suggest him as a good starting
place.  His C. reginae x C. pubescens (he may have called it C. calceolus)
is quite pretty, and seems to be a good grower in defined media.  I
don't mess with them myself because it's too much fussing for me...
and I was always out working on wild orchid population biology just
at the time Carson was doing the most fussing with his plants.  And
he's just a whole lot more patient with plant fussing than I am.  I'm
more of the "well, I've given you the right soil, water, and light...
now grow and bloom or it's the compost heap!" sort of gardener.

IMHO, there's another good reason to try for hybrid ladyslippers
in the garden -- there's no way you can get tangled up with CITES
or FWS and whether or not your plants were legally collected if
they are indeed hybrids that don't occur in the wild.  Saves mucho
paperwork and hairpulling.

Kay Lancaster  kay@fern.com
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