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.

Cinnamon, Thank you! Your post leaves no room for misinterpretation! :-) --Stitz--

I've seen some 'dwarf' varieties of arundina on EBay. If they are IN FACT a dwarf variety, I'd like to have one. While staying on Hawaii Is I picked so many from their road ditches (They grow like weeds) and they kept well in vases too!

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!