I bought this Psychopsis four years ago at the annual National Capitol Orchid Society show/sale. It flowered on the same spike, as they do, for....well, it stopped about 3 months ago.
It just popped out a new flower every three or four weeks. That's more than three and a half years. Wow. I'm donating to the Arboretum today. According to my calculations, that means that if I see an orchid I'd like at the sale it'd be okay to buy it.
Things have changed over the past four years. I remember spending 600 dollars at that show. The Psychopsis cost, how do I remember this?, 55 dollars. I got my money's worth. We don't spend money like that anymore for all kinds of reasons. Property values dropped so our empire doesn't have the value it once did. Our income, knock on wood, has gone up a bit but buying stuff just isn't the same anymore. That's probably a good thing. Oh, yeah, over half of that money was spent with a vendor who sells orchid embroidered shirts, linens, etc. so much of the total went for holiday presents. Still that leaves a few hundred dollars of plants. Nowadays we buy orchids in Florida, use them as cut flowers while we're there, and bring them back. If we're driving.
She really needed another one; there aren't more than 50 of 'em in the garden now, mostly plastic. And maybe a hundred more in the house. Apparently after she bought her own 10$ worth of tickets, both Stephanie and I added a few to raise the odds. One probably would have been enough; what's meant to be is meant to be. I only wish Ruth Dix could have been there.
