When I first read your message my off the shoulder response was - my youth. LOL As to orchids, two immedately come to mind. One is C Korat 'Spot' x Chocolate Drop which was drop dead gorgeous. The other was my wonderful C aclandiae that I lost when its treefern mount disintegrated. I tried unsuccessfully to extricate the roots,which dropped off and that was that. I have replaced it with a small division and only hope that it becomes as wonderful a plant as the original.

Marci

I used to have a really lovely C. Hardyana that I miss quite strongly. Also, I wish I had that Cattleya bicolor my friend who later died gave me.

-Cj

Den Super Ise x Den Yukidaruma 'King.' Bloomed all year, beautiful fragrance with lovely flowers. Tried giving it the cold treatment one year and killed it. Miltonia spectabiles - Moreliana. Gave this away as a gift to a friend who was going through a bad time. She loved it but killed it. I loved the flowers and it bloomed for months. I had so many other plants I wish she would have picked.

I have quite a few but the following I miss the most. A Laelia pumila which flew off my balcony never to be found again and a Comparettia speciosa which I recently killed.
cheers
Rodrigo

OOOOH Good Question!
I can tell what I wish I didn't have :-)

Who I miss; Shelob Tolkein. Twisted off an old PB a little too early. The plant just kind of imploded after that. It was a good bloomer but young

Clara

C mossiae 'Willowbrook'FCC/AOS. It was an ebay purchase supposedly from the Jerry Rehfield collection. The plant was swiveled and ratty looking, but it had drop-dead gorgeous red blooms every late spring. After every blooming the plant would look a little worse until finally it just couldn't hang on any longer.
Sherlene

Well, I'm going to have to start with youth, beauty, and wealth before I get to the orchids :P

Orchids, I lost a beautiful Phal Sogo Grape 'Y.N.' Beautiful lacquered purple. It was around a lot a couple of years ago, now no one has it.

I used to have a ton of stans, colegynes, angraecums that I got rid of or killed mostly due to light issues. I now have a huge and deep western facing screened in sunporch that those guys would thrive in. The one stan I still have is slowly but surely coming back to life and the angreacum and aerangis I've bought are beside themselves with happiness. The aerangis has more than doubled in size in the past 2 or 3 months and it bloomed too. Cool to intermediate growing orchids thrive on the north side of the porch.

I will never ever again be without a screened in porch in Florida. The only reason I haven't turned this porch into a "greenhouse" is that we are only renting and this porch is unusually big. Don't want to buy too many that I won't have room for later or will have to "farm" out between bloomings.

The amount of microclimates I have and can have is sinful. I'm already growing plants for and planning my terrestrial orchid garden. Yup, they are going right into a prepared raised bed and will stay there. I have a sobralia that is hip high and growing like a weed. I can only imagine how great it would be doing in a flower bed and not a pot and I can only guess how much bigger the phaius' would be. I only thought my orchids were thriving in NC. In Florida they are doing a happy dance.

You asked.

I guess I can't give you a list of specific plants, but I regret the death of the babies (seedlings) the most. When kind of tiny, these can be really difficult to keep going unless you're willing to spend a lot of time coaxing them along. I guess I'm kind of spotty with infant care. Good thing I don't have any real ones.

Kevin

Picotee & Mehitabel,

You're so funny. Yes, youth - just got my new driver's license, complete w/ a picture of 5-year older me staring back. Humbling.

Clara - that's another good thread - what you wish you didn't have. Hah! Are some of your foundlings wearing out their welcome? On my list of orchids, I've been marking ones to sell at the society plant sale next month. This is in theory only, you understand.

Mehitabel, I have a Sogo Grape (Phal. Super Stupid x Phal. Princess Kaiulani) that's a beautiful, lacquered purple, smells wonderful, has always had 2 spikes, and has had flowers since mid-March. It's on the sell list. Not your YN, but e-mail me privately if you're interested in a trade - address on my member page. I've got pix, and you can see it on OL's site. The OL flower shows up lighter in color than mine.

WC8

Here is a link that might be useful: Phal Sogo Grape

Den. victoria-reginae mariae...at least I think I'm spelling that right.... and a Phal Buddha something or another which went south so long ago I don't even remember what it was, only that it was really, really pretty....

Whitecat, I would love to arrange some way to have your Sogo Grape. I have been trying to email you thru GW, but the email function doesn't seem to be working. Email me at argent3@earthlink.net and let's see what we can do.

I wish I had Blc. Adario 'Sun Acres' AM/AOS back. It was such a slow and bad grower. I had the plant twice. Both died. I wish I had taken better care of it. And when it was offered once by Penn Valley Orchids years ago, I didn't take advantage of buying it. When I decided I would. Penn Valley went out of business. I also had Bc. Hartland 'Fields' 20 years ago. It was a slow grower and the leaves showed virus. So I threw it out (I had a fit about virus and got rid of plants that tested positive for virus). Turns out, most of these very old plants have virus. It took me another 20 years to find another plant of Bc. Hartland 'Fields'; it too grows very slowly and most likely virused but I'm babying it and it's seems to be doing okay. The blooms are excellent. Great historic breeder. Another is C. Peetersii FCC/RHS. Stewarts Orchids had the plant decades ago when they were open in San Gabriel, CA. I had the opportunity to get a division of it, but because it was virused, I passed on it. It was such a rare plant, and bloomed without any visible sign of virus, i should have gotten it. Now Peetersii is lost forever. I don't know anyone who has that plant.

Blc. Ranger Six A Ok :( and a lot of my oldies
I had to farm out during a move . Most were rotted by the time I could take them back . Gin

C. amethystoglossa v. coerulea 'Mailbu' about six years ago. One of those plants you get that just never does well and each year loses more ground until there is just a dying crumb left and pooof!

Sherlene, Hausermann's is selling seedling mericlones of the C. mossiae 'Willowbrook' if you want to give it another shot. Not a fancy division but probably a lot healthier.

Phalaenopsis violacea 'Blue', stands out among my list of seedlings that never lived to bloom.

Shaun

Lc. Liptonii 'Snowflake' AM/AOS We had the actual plant that was awarded, then it caught virus somehow. There must be thousands of mericlones out there; but I've yet to find one.

Those of you who know my "love" of phals will really laugh at this one! I am happy to say I do not miss a single plant that has died. Don't get me wrong, I probably mourned, but I have undergone so many changes in "orchid affections" that I really don't miss any of them. And the ones that I gave away or traded? Well, good riddance!

OK, so the ONE? A phal!!! And the only reason why I miss it is that DH gave it to me (a HD phal), and it eventually spent a tortuous summer getting sunburned, and then, since I can't stand phals, (but they hate me too, and refuse to bloom) I decided to give it to my mother as a starter orchid. Well, close to it being mailed, I noticed a spike! Well, I felt committed to giving it to Mom, and against DH's advice ("She'll kill it!"), I sent it to her. She killed it.

DH and I really had no sentimental value attached to this plant. But a shade plant that took A LOT of direct sun (my live or die regimen), got sunburned to hell, and THEN decide to bloom?! I should not have sentenced it to certain death. That's why I miss it. It didn't deserve death. And I deserved it's bloom ;) Besides, I could have given it Mom after it bloomed :p

Carolyn

Carolyn, Maybe you can comfort yourself w/ the possibility that the blooms were a last gasp survival scream from a plant that couldn't survive in its situation. It might well have succumbed anyway.

You can always atone and placate the Orchid Angels by treating another Phal well. Whitecat8

WC8, LOL!!! Another Phal?! Only if someone leaves one on my doorstep like Clara ;)

Nah, this became a very healthy phal - I hung it in a sphag net bag upside down (as they grow naturally) w/ pretty direct NE sun, and the undersides (now topsides) burned, and then lots of new leaves. I really wanted to keep it, but had promised Mom 'one in spike'. She wasn't ready and killed all of the 10-15 plants that I sent her during that period. On the happy side, she's finally listening to my advice and has 12 or so that she bought at a local show, and she tells me that they're doing well (altho I'm convinced they're underlit).

Nope. I should have kept it. I finally had made peace with the Phal God, and now...

The one plant I seriously miss? That one is an ordinary mericlone bought in the garden-department of a home improvement store.
It was a little beauty but had already gotten damaged which was the reason I got it downpriced.
At least twenty blooms, all soft pink, purple leaves and pretty sturdy. I've kept it alive for years without roots and no idea what I was doing. And then one day my kitten got a hold of it. It was up on a higher shelf (sadly I know how he got up there) and he grabbed and dropped it behind the bed. I noticed days later when I was doing the round and by then it was too late.
Someone told me that this phalaenopsis had likely been a Taisuco Smile. And perhaps it was.
Worst thing though, is that it's been impossible to find another one. :(

ginge,

You maybe able to find Blc. Ranger Six 'A-OK' at Owens Orchids or Waldor Orchids. I got mine from both of them.

C. Fred Cole 'White Christmas.' I got this early in my orchid days, but it was one tough cattleya--bifoliate with big white perfumed and yes floofy flowers (usually 3). Of course I offered it low humidity, too much water, a repotting in the middle of winter, so it finally succumbed. Just think what I could do with that plant now!
Margo

Thanks toyo going there to look :) Gin