Anyone know where I could look for some good quality Paph Sanderianum? Anywhere I look everyone has seedlings @ 50.00. Are they that expensive?

Yes, they are expensive and their prices have actually come down a lot just from less than a couple of years ago. Buy from a reputable vendor or you may end up getting a hybrid instead.

thanks. I spoke to Suncoast orchids and they have compots available by the end of the summer. This is a good grower and I have purchased about 5 plants in the past 3 months. Check em out!

thanks. I spoke to Suncoast orchids and they have compots available by the end of the summer. This is a good grower and I have purchased about 5 plants in the past 3 months. Check em out!

I bought my first 6 or 7 orchids from Suncoast. They are a good vendor, though what they labelled as blooming size has turned out to be more like NBS.

Marilyn Ledoux of Windy Hill Gardens has (or at least had) small sands for $45. That's the least I've seen them for lately, but they are wee, be warned.

i don't know a thing about this vendor except that when i tried to view their website on my mac it keep crashing, but Shamrock Orchids in Arizona seems to have them in several sizes/prices

Ok, I checked them out, I don't think their prices are bad for 'Jungle Warrior' x 'Jungle Monarch' (or vice versa, can't remember now.)

I do find it, um, interesting(?) that they are breeding/growing pleuros in Arizona (hottest dryest town=Phoenix!) :shock: ....but heck, I don't know how they are growing them. I lived in New Mexico for five years, I would not try growing pleuros there! Maybe not even Paphs! Phoenix is WAY hotter/dryer than that even...
I can barely keep my masdies happy here in humid (summer) New England.

Anyway, kind of interesting....

Wow- the Shamrock Orchids price on sanderianum is about the best I have seen! That is a good deal for plants that size.

I am going to have some good sanderianums available in 4-5 months, but they will not be that cheap lol. I am figuring $40-50 for 4-5 inch LS on a good OI cross, and $60-75 for the same size in a really good OI cross that was not generally released.

But I may have to come down on that price :)

There is certainly no harm in waiting- as I think down is where sanderianum prices are headed.

3-4 years ago, $400-500 was the going rate for a sanderianum flask from the few breeders offering crosses made from select plants out of decent sized populations of bloomed sanderianums.

Last time I ordered sanderianum flasks about 10 months ago, I believe I paid around $175 per flask.

So, the 6-8 inch leaf span plants available today from growers who bought flasks from the major breeders are priced based on flask prices double the current going rate.

And I see more downward pressure on prices for two reasons,

1. A LOT of people are growing sanderianums. This is one reason I have tried not delve too deeply in that direction. I predict there will be an increasing supply of young seedlings coming to market in the next few years as hobby growers seek to recoup some of their initial investment.

2. Most sanderianums are pretty unattractive. Sorry, but they are! lol. Unlike rothschildianum, sanderianum has not proved to be some superstar parent. And it is not currently to a stage where selective breeding is yielding significantly faster growing plants with a high rate of quality offspring. Maybe in 20 years that will happen, though to some degree I do not think it ever will get as good as we have it with roth.

The market seems to agree with me on #2. As sanderianum prices have gone down, the cost of really high end roth flasks has gone up. I have 2 new sibling crosses of roth in compot now, and I paid more for those flasks this spring than I paid for my sanderianums last year!

That results I think from the perception/realization that an investment in a top roth flask is more likely to give faster growing plants with higher quality flowers- and also more potentially good breeding plants.

In any event, if $50 is too steep- just wait it out.

And I agree with Pete- be VERY careful where you buy these plants. The one downside to so many hobbyists selling sanderianums is that you run a much higher risk of fraud. You also do not have the best assurances about how the plants were treated. Sanderianum is not hard to grow- but I have discovered that they, like bellatulum, can be very slow to recover from poor culture.

Thanks, all very good and interesting points!

I've been a Hausermann customer since the late 70s and I just asked about prices for a Sanderianum...we'll see.

I got my first sanderianum seedlings from Sheerwood Orchids in CA a couple of years ago, and I think I paid $50 or $60 each at the time. I just bought one from Fox Valley (with good roots) for about $35, and between FV and Orchids Limited they are ususally at the high end of the price scale.

I think the key to sanderianums is very humid and very breezy.