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LostInPeru

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Australian orchid/ Phragmipedium kovachii suppliers

Does anyone know of orchid suppliers here in Australia that offer a selection of flowering size plants?
 
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I'm in Brisbane.

Have e-mailed all those contacts you people have given me and it seems I am just being diverted and passed around from one grower to another. No one sells kovachii. The people that do seem reluctant to talk about it. So much for a sucessful captive breeding program taking pressure off the wild populations- you can't even purchase this orchid in a country as affluent and with all the resources Australia has to mass produce this gem through seed. Can't tell me we can't match the Peruvians in ability to mass produce this plant and breed it successfully in a captive setting.

It's just a waste of my time making inquiries. I did have someone offer to sell me hybrids but lets face it if I am going to the expense and trouble of looking after a fickle orchid I would prefer the real deal rather than a hybrid. Plus the hyrids are so tiny I don't see them being fulfilling to grow for someone hell bent on seeing a kovachii.

Just came across this wonderous trip showing kovachii in the wild.

http://www.paphiopedilumsofdistinct...s/articles/186-phragmipedium-kovachii-in-situ

It's has an unrivaled unique beauty this orchid, truly is mesmerizing and the lushous full beauty of it is magnetic,the Angelina Jolie of the orchid world. We just had Angelina here in Brisbane for months and can't believe I was too stupid to realize and missed a great opportunity to meet this living goddess for myself! I wonder if she is aware of the existence of this magnificent orchid?! If Kovach had any brains he would have named the orchid after such a transcendent beauty as Jolie. I was too caught up in the kovachii story to be aware of anything else these last few months.

Unfortunately I have exhausted all options and this is me finally giving up.
 
Well I have inquired with the vendors in Peru and elsewhere and none are interested in shipping here.

Like I said I have exhausted all options. The people that do sell them clam up when you ask if you can pre-order. Their not serious about selling them and I don't even know why they list them for sale on their sites.

Well Angelina was reported as staying at certain places while filming so I could have always just gone to one of those places in the hopes of seeing her. Although it is idealistic to think I would meet her, just having a brief passing glance where she is aware of my existence for a brief moment in time would have been enough for me. I'm realistic in my expectations.

Afterall isn't the whole reason why people own orchids because of their ability to appreciate beauty? And a desire to want to be surrounded by beauty? I was only providing a complement to an extraordinary human being and can see the parallel where this orchid, like Angelina, broke all the conventions yet reamains the exception.
 
I will make a few inquiries for you.

Thanks but I hate to try and get blood out of a rock. Nobody wants to sell and I am happy to leave it at that. I never fully realized just how rare this orchid really was to find. I thought by now, 10 years after the discovery, in our moden day post 2000 world, that it would be somewhat common or easy to purchase. Plus Brisbane is so hot my chances of keeping one alive are slim. I am thinking of just going with the hybrid, although it's probably healtheir for me to find another interest. It's so easy to get caught up in this orchid and forget about reality.

Thanks for the offer but I don't want to push someone into a sale. I have taken on other commitments at this time and won't have free time to go doting over a delicate orchid and if I was to purchase one it would die.

My main frustration is that it is so hard to purchase medium sized plants that are easy to care for compared to the delicate younger plants. I'm just surprised no one in Australia has thought to make themselves a millionaire from selling kovachii and turned it into a commerical business opportunity. The complete lack of medium sized potted plants for sale is just weird and I don't understand it at all.

Regarding importing flasks, I think that is a near impossibility. Also looked at importing potted plants but unless your made of money their is no way that is a viable option. I'm happy to forget about it, and have it remain something of unattainable fantasy.

I will wait for you to get back to me here on the off chance their is a grower with an oversupply of kovachii that they are able to part with one for a reasonable price. But won't keep my hopes up and won't wait around forever. Thanks.
 
As someone who has communicated with vendors in Australia and imported a few tubers, the Australian government has made it fairly prohibitive to import or export to or from Australia. Live plants must be fumigated and then sit in a warehouse for six months or something like that. Kovachii isn't an easy grower and if plants came in as flask it may take a while for the surviving seedlings to get to any size. Costs and survivabilitu and wait times make it a huge hassle for aus importers, and if there are live plant importers they may be circumventing normal procedures which they would not want to broadcast of course.
If someone could be making a lot of money to do something, but seemingly nobody is doing it, there's probably a very good reason

Many grow orchids because of implied rarity or challenge; I used to spend hours online scouring for species to fill out the collection and the growing was seemingly secondary. Being too passionate for things with only physical beauty is a waste, because it fades quickly and leaves the viewer ultimately disappointed. What good is human physical beauty if it leaves the heart cold? Better to find something that has deeper beauty than just shat tickles the eye (not that physical beauty isn't pleasing for a moment but moments fade away). I do find it to be a little amusing that you are very excited that you can't get the species that you want and go to great lengths to explain your attempts and irritation, yet you still have not grown a single orchid (or maybe even touched one). It strikes me that this sort of feeling once imbued the minds of many of the first wealthy orchid collectors who spent thousands if not millions to send searchers into jungles to strip them of entire populations of desired orchid species and if they couldn't bring them all back they burned down the jungle to prevent their competitors from having any. Most plants died long before even getting to their destination or died soon after. Criminally wasteful. Also if you've mentioned to vendors that you'd like to grow plants to make more seedlings they don't want to help you become competition. That happened to me years ago when I was trying to get some phal lindenii

Good luck with your quest, I hope you find some plants that you can keep alive and flower


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As someone who has communicated with vendors in Australia and imported a few tubers, the Australian government has made it fairly prohibitive to import or export to or from Australia. Live plants must be fumigated and then sit in a warehouse for six months or something like that. Kovachii isn't an easy grower and if plants came in as flask it may take a while for the surviving seedlings to get to any size. Costs and survivabilitu and wait times make it a huge hassle for aus importers, and if there are live plant importers they may be circumventing normal procedures which they would not want to broadcast of course.
If someone could be making a lot of money to do something, but seemingly nobody is doing it, there's probably a very good reason

Many grow orchids because of implied rarity or challenge; I used to spend hours online scouring for species to fill out the collection and the growing was seemingly secondary. Being too passionate for things with only physical beauty is a waste, because it fades quickly and leaves the viewer ultimately disappointed. What good is human physical beauty if it leaves the heart cold? Better to find something that has deeper beauty than just shat tickles the eye (not that physical beauty isn't pleasing for a moment but moments fade away). I do find it to be a little amusing that you are very excited that you can't get the species that you want and go to great lengths to explain your attempts and irritation, yet you still have not grown a single orchid (or maybe even touched one). It strikes me that this sort of feeling once imbued the minds of many of the first wealthy orchid collectors who spent thousands if not millions to send searchers into jungles to strip them of entire populations of desired orchid species and if they couldn't bring them all back they burned down the jungle to prevent their competitors from having any. Most plants died long before even getting to their destination or died soon after. Criminally wasteful. Also if you've mentioned to vendors that you'd like to grow plants to make more seedlings they don't want to help you become competition. That happened to me years ago when I was trying to get some phal lindenii

Good luck with your quest, I hope you find some plants that you can keep alive and flower


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Although physical beauty is fleeting I don't see whats wrong with appreciating it, the fact it is momentary is even more reason to appreciate it. I'm unsure if you have ever listened to an interview or speech given by Angie but you would soon find her physical beauty complements her inner beauty, and one could say after listening to her is secondary to her inner beauty. Personally physical beauty on it's own has never held my interest and the person is soon forgotten, especially when they are really boring personality wise, which 99% are. I've never come across anyone that has been able to even come close to the emotional intelligence, honesty and vivaciousness of Angelina in my own life experience and is why I can't help but mention her. Academic intelligence is not something I have any interest in and don't understand how the majority of people see that as an attractive or desierable characteristic. It's useless on it's own. Interesting people, much like those that appreciate the beauty of orchids, are things that hold my attention. Although I daresay Angelina is the exception here and proves to also be academically minded acquiring her pilots license which is quite a challange mathematically.Angelina is unusual in that her physical beauty is so aesthetically pleasing to the eye in a way that nobody else is capable of, to the extent that one can not help but be captivated by it on it's own.

To be honest if depth or inner beauty you are reffering to is so important to you then why do you grow orchids? Everyone is captivated by the physical beauty of people and things in some way, it's only natural and I kind of hate how society conditions people to feel guilty for liking things just because they are physically beautiful.

I don't see whats wrong with wanting to idolize an object of beauty, such as kovachii , especially when the bloom is so unbeliveable with the bright colour and size. Whenever I have heard stories of discovery of these incedibly beautiful and amazing orchids, they have never lived up to the expectations I had in my mind once I see them, but kovachii is different and exceeded my expectations and inspired my imagination for what could be possible, and was just refreshing to discover when I am so used to nature being a dissappointment.

I have grown lots of plants in the past, have owned and cared for animals as a small child and while growing up, I am imbued with and aware of nature, so I am definately not someone who seperates the beauty of these orchids from the mundane unglamorous side of the day to day effort required to care for them. I see the whole process of caring for a seedling of this plant and being able to watch it grow as a great personal accomplishment and something of a challange and art that I would like to have a go at.

For me, my view of nature is of it as a uncaring cold harsh reality and when I see something beautiful and fragile like kovachii has managed to be produced by something as random and destructive as nature and survive I am amazed by that and want to appreciate that.

The Australian government is so controlling about importing anything that I agree most people would not bother trying to import plants. But surely their are wealthy collectors here who do? If it is legal to import flasks here, of which I am unsure, then I would definately try imporitng one and see how I go. I have read flasks imported here are instantly thrown in the bin on arrival and destroyed. It's the expense that is stopping me at this time and just thought their would be someone in Australia growing them.

Hearing about how the wealthy would poach entire wild populations is so interesting as this kind of behavior sums up the personality type of those who become wealthy through academic intelligence. I am certainly not greedy like that and would never endanger the wild population or take plants from the wild. This is why I can't understand why their are not more for sale in captivity as I would have thought the Peruvian government would want to make sure it is able to safeguard the wild populations.

The only reason I even contemplated wanting to own a kovachii is because I see people on forums such as this who post about their kovachii all the time and they don't give the impression of being impossible to grow for a first timer.

I'm not trying to be amusing or purposely going to great lengths to explain myself, I am simply over enthusiastic about this orchid, and perhaps my eagarness to share my everythought about it is a sign of my needing to get a life, but I just can't help it. I've never found it to be the most normal thing to be posting on forums anyway and thought others who shared my interest would like the details of my postings. But I have come across this on other forums I used to be on with other hobbies and am always amazed when people pull me up for being overly passionate about something they also have an interest in. When you think about it the thought of people growing plants so that they can see them produce genitalia and call appreciating their genitalia a hobby is definately weird when put it into that perspective, wouldn't you agree lol.

Hopefully I can find one kovachii and watch it grow and bloom and thought coming into this that would be easy and just a matter of purchasing a relatively easy to care for blooming size potted plant from an expert or collector here in Australia. But after finding out the whole process is going to be more involved and complicated with raising plants from flask at this time I have pretty much given up finding one. Have taken on another interest. I was inspired by an extraordinary person. For me this person holds more interest than the maths or robots ever could, but as those things are a symptom of their life experience that so fascinates me, I can't help but be interested by them. When you consider their pursuit of thinking machines came form their love for another human being one can only be in awe of this person. The person I am referring to is Alan Turing, the father of computers, and the book is entitled "The Enigma" by a person called Hodges and is recommended reading.
 
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....OK....
There are only a few people who have grown Phrag kovachii to bloom from flask, at least in the USA. I deal w/ most of them personally. There are some decent sized/priced plants going around Europe right now, the problem is getting someone to ship to your country with legal documentation. As I said, i will make inquiries for you. If you find something to your taste, there is still the problem of importation and the government toadies response; you would have to deal w/ that.
 
....OK....
There are only a few people who have grown Phrag kovachii to bloom from flask, at least in the USA. I deal w/ most of them personally. There are some decent sized/priced plants going around Europe right now, the problem is getting someone to ship to your country with legal documentation. As I said, i will make inquiries for you. If you find something to your taste, there is still the problem of importation and the government toadies response; you would have to deal w/ that.

Wow it must be amazing to have such connections! Thats kind of why I joined this place! Thankyou so much for the generous offer of using your spare time to make inquiries on my behalf. I really appreciate your genorosity.

Ok so did a bit of digging around and yes you can import whole mature plants into Australia but it is pricey.

I just looked at the Fees and Charges for Importing and Quarantining live non-flask plants here in Australia and they are just outrageous! Although I guess on the bright side the plant is going to be in such a state of near sterilization after all it's treatments by the quarantine people that it will be healthy and disease free.

It looks like it will cost over $4000.00 just to import a plant the right way.

http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/import/plants-grains-hort/fees-charges

But if you do come across a decent sized blooming kovachii I guess it would be worth it. Will be patient and wait this out for a while and start saving money in the meantime.
 
Even if you do have the 4000 to spend on an orchid import, ask other Australians how many of their orchids died just as a result of the fumigation. A dead plant may be sterile but not very satisfying. Brett here whose name starts with an s and then lots of numbers, can provide lots of details since he recently imported plants to aus. So, if you're going to spend a few thousand to import, might as well spend a few hundred more in the hopes that one will survive. Then you have to hope it survives quarantine and then you get it to stay alive until it flowers :)


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I believe Brett, or s1214215, can help you out. He has a lot of Taiwan resources, though not Phrag by nature, they may be able to get you in the right direction. He is good about responding to inquiries.
 
Great news I have just had a reply to an inquiry that I made to an American supplier of this orchid and am overwhelmed by the positive response.

It looks at this point that owning kovachii may be a realistic possibility.

Perhaps I am over estimating the cost but some of the treatments listed are over two thousand dollars and the information does not specify the quantity of plants. Looking back over my earlier post their is no way I could afford to spend thousands of dollars on one of these orchids at this time.

Will let you know if I ever end up acquiring one. If I don't reply it just means I have not been successful.
 

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