Clockwise from top left are Phalaenopsis amboinensis, Phal. bastianii, Phal. Timothy Christopher x javanica, and Phal. javanica. The white one's a hybrid; the other three with stripes are species Phalaenopsises. The amboinensis is spiking, and should bloom within a couple of weeks. Sorry for the pixilated pictures--snagged the links from the vendor's site, and Blogger/Blogger Beta blew them up, even after I chose "small" from the size options. These four orchids arrived today from a supplier of mine in southern NJ.

Sounds a little like a drug dealer, eh? If you're that much into growing orchids, I suppose getting a few new babies in can be a bit of a "high," maybe? For newbies to growing orchids, certainly, but I've been at it for well over a decade, so it wears off, but new arrivals are still greeted with anticipation, and undergo the inspection routine. I've ordered from many other places over the years, some excellent, and some not so good. Frank Schimpf runs Chesterfield Orchid Co., as well as Chesterfield Dahlia Co. I've never ordered dahlias from him--they wouldn't grow any better in my swamp of a yard than German bearded irises, anyway--two years maximum before they rot into oblivion.

I've been ordering from Frank since the early days of his orchid business, but I can go a year or almost two between orders with him. Still, he remembers me, and makes sure that he sends me very nice orchids for my money, along with personalized customer service.

Let me explain that last remark. I placed an online order last week, but instead of having him ship it to my office in NYC to avoid NJ sales tax, I had him ship it to my home, since I'm on vacation this week. Frank normally ships out orders on Mondays. He decided to go fishing last Sunday, making good use of an unseasonably warm weekend day, IMHO, so he left a note for his staff on my printed order instructing them to personally hand pick my plants (as opposed to just grabbing any old plant that had the right tag without looking it over first).

On my order, under "special instructions," I had merely reminded him that my weather was the same as his, and explained why I wasn't having him ship to my office as I normally do. The plants looked great, and I replied to their automatic shipping notice to let him know they'd arrived, looked great, etc. Within an hour, he replied to my email in person. Nice guy, with reasonable prices. Not every plant I've gotten from him has been stellar, but 90%+ have been, so I have no complaints.

This shipment is totally up to snuff . . . and sniffing when they bloom. All are fragrant, and not in a bad way, as some orchids can be. Most floofy big hybrid Phalaenopsis have completely lost all scent, even though they look pretty.