A few months ago, I bought my first five orchid plants. I did not know much about orchids then, but wanted to start growing orchids as a hobby. As a first step, I decided to look for orchids on Ebay. And so it began.

I bought my first five orchids simply because the listed price was the best, but, as I would learn later, I also ended up buying Cattleya Species orchids, the kind of orchids that had started the orchid craze in nineteenth century Europe. In a way, given my work as a postcolonial literature scholar, the history of Cattleya orchids –their collection and propagation in Europe–is a sort of microcosm of colonialism as it involved extraction, collection, and shipment of these beautiful plants to Europe by “field agents” in Latin America. More on this later, but right now let me describe the first five orchids that I bought out of sheer luck and through an accident of chance:

• C. Intermedia alba x self
• C. Jenmanii coerulea x self
• C. Maxima coerulea ‘Hector’ (mericlone)
• C. Trianaei alba x self
• C. Warneri coerulea x self

Now, these plants came nicely established in sphagnum moss in plastic pots. Not truly understanding the difference between seedlings and grown up plants, I decided to repot them in fancy clay pots (First of many beginners mistakes).

Luckily, though, even though most of these plants were repotted at the wrong time, they seemed to have survived and some of them have even started developing new growths, especially C. Intermedia. Only the C. Jenmani seems to be in trouble, but it has not died yet.

I will post more pictures of these plants in their current stage in another post, but for right now I just wanted to share the story about my first ever acquisition of species orchids.

The Ebay seller, by the way, happens to be a very generous professional orchidist who always answers my technical questions promptly.If you are looking for a reliable Ebay seller, I will be happy to pass on information about this trusted seller.

More soon.

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