Silva orchids may not have a red phal, but they have the most beautiful Christmas red Potinara Redheart "Neptune" that I ever saw. Carter and Holmes wanted $75 for their red one, but Silva only wanted $35. My plant is fully grown now and I get six or nine gorgeous red flowers every year. Parkside is well worth the effort to see. The six greenhouses are all neat and clean, and the plants are meticulously well groomed. The staff is very patient and helpful. They have far more plants than they list on their website. Thirty-five dollars may seem like a lot of money, but a healthy plant doesn't require money spent on insecticides and weeks of trying to eradicate a seige of insects or weeks of trying to coax roots on a plant that was overwatered, or months of patiently waiting for a flower spike.

Its always a fun time. Hope to see some of you there

I cut the plants off the stalks, leaving what they were attached to and just sort of stuck them in little pots with orchid planing soil -which looks like is just bark and vermiculite. They were looking good but last night I think they were discovered by some slugs. I am soaking them and I'll put them back in their pots. Oh, and I fertilized them with some very weak fertilizer. I need to get the little wooden baskets. They're pretty fugly as is, between the chewed up leaves and their temp pots. I'll post pictures when they are looking a little better.

I started growing with the same question. Which flowers are the best ones. A better question is what orchids will grow and thrive in the environment I want to grow them in. Because the number of species and hybrids is very large you still get an enormous menu to choose from. The best specific advise will come from someone that lives in your area or who has lived there with orchid experience. What I do in Florida will be different than zone 8. http://www.aos.org/about-us/affiliated-societies/affiliated-societies-lookup.aspx is a link to the list of affiliated local orchid societies. This by far is the fastest way to ramp up your knowledge on orchids. And a good place to buy orchids. They invite commercial growers to speak and they bring orchids for sale. The senior members know all the local tricks and love to talk about orchids. You can go to the meeting as a guest and see what you think. The best advice for you will come from that group!