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Paphluvr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2011
Messages
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Location
Base of the Thumb, Michigan
It occured to me that I've been growing orchids now for about 50 years (specializing in Paphs) and am starting to think about what is going to happen to them when I no longer can. It's always been my hobby, not my wifes although she appreciates them. I wouldn't expect her to care for them if I was unable to. Are there any members here that are facing or have faced the same situation and what did you do about it?
 
In the event of death, you can specify what should be done with them in your will, but one problem is they would need care during the period when that is executed which becomes a hassle.

Do you have a local orchid society? You could arrange for the plants to be given to members or possibly donated to the nearest plant conservatory.

Or as you continue to get older start donating/selling them off to downsize, but this process can be a lot of work as well.

It is definitely best to make a plan early so that it is one less detail for your family to deal with.
 
In the event of death, you can specify what should be done with them in your will, but one problem is they would need care during the period when that is executed which becomes a hassle.

Do you have a local orchid society? You could arrange for the plants to be given to members or possibly donated to the nearest plant conservatory.

Or as you continue to get older start donating/selling them off to downsize, but this process can be a lot of work as well.

It is definitely best to make a plan early so that it is one less detail for your family to deal with.

I do have a provision in my will to donate any of my plants to local schools if they can be used as teaching aids.
I used to belong to the Michigan Orchid Society but am no longer in touch with any of the members. As for downsizing the collection, I have been selling off excess divisions as several of you here know. I have several plants that have been with me since early in my orchid growing adventure that I especially cherish. They would be the last ones to be sold.
 
I do have a provision in my will to donate any of my plants to local schools if they can be used as teaching aids.
I used to belong to the Michigan Orchid Society but am no longer in touch with any of the members. As for downsizing the collection, I have been selling off excess divisions as several of you here know. I have several plants that have been with me since early in my orchid growing adventure that I especially cherish. They would be the last ones to be sold.

I still have a piece of your Paph concolor :)
 
Our local society recently picked up and auctioned the collection of a former member who was unable to care for her plants anymore due to age and poor health. They had been neglected for a couple of years before someone got in contact with the society but plenty of plants were still salvageable. The ideal solution I think would be to have a designated person ready to take on a collection when needed, but I know it would be hard to make the call to give it up. From the state of most botanical gardens I've seen I think I'd rather hand mine off to a another grower than see them donated.
 
I have been thinking also about what will happen to my orchids. Am 73 now and hopefully have many more years of growing. Have about 1000 orchids and no family members who would be interested The foster program sounds good and there should maybe be a category in here just for that purpose Don’t want to think that all my many years of growing orchids will be left to die. if there is a foster listing available at some point in the future then other members could be given lots of remaining plants. for little or no cost. Am in the process of redoing will so this is something I will need to consider
 
Besides the well advised route of auctions and local orchid societies, if you live in the west coast, Huntington Botanical gardens could be a good option to donate plants.

Troy Meyers might also be an option for anyone looking to help preserve orchid species.
 
Someone here used to have a signature that read something like "don't let my wife sell my plants for what I told her I paid for them." That seems good advice.

Back in South Africa there was a Paph grower with an extensive and very valuable collection. Life circumstances necessitated that they make a cross-country move. He sold of a lot of the common stuff and seedlings but put his more valuable plants in the care of an elderly, expert grower. While away that elderly grower developed Alzheimer's Disease, mixed-up or lost all the labels and in the end the family simply sold off their entire collection piece-meal as house plants because no one could make out what was what. By a stroke of good fortune the 1st Paph grower arrived back in town just in time to rescue his Winston Churchill Indominable back from a flea marker plant sale but many other valuable plants vanished.

So, moral of the story. Make sure your collection is senility-proof and there is a back-up plan in place for the more valuable plants in your care.
 
What is the orchid society? Do all orchid societies meet all year long? What was your form of communication? It would at least seem that someone from the society would reply to an e-mail if it was listed on the socities home page.
 
Sell them before you get too old and have a fantastic time in the Casinos like a high roller! That is how I did with mine.
A few years ago, We decided to downsize our home and travel the world, so I started selling off my collection, of about 1000 plants. The whole process wasn't too bad since I sold most of them at a fair price to forum members or locally to other hobbyists...within two months' time, I sold almost all of them but a couple of dozens of Paphs and just a handful of other species.
Oh, Angela, I am keeping my lime tree for my drinks...God knows we do need a few of those daily.
 
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Thank you Tyrone! The orchid meetings I attended some years ago were in Lexington, KY. I dropped an email to
the website and haven't gotten a response. There were never very many members and I suspect COVID may
have done it in.

Tom-DE My lime tree is a Bearss or Persian lime. It grows in the gh and is not hardy in zone 6B. I gave it a hard pruning
today and discovered a bud or two. I adore the smell of that tree. New growth smells heavenly. I can get a high on
just the smell! No alcohol for me sadly.
 
Sadly, this issue has arisen several times in the past year in our local society- and outcomes varied.

As a general rule, and I say this as someone who has had an interesting side career helping estates sell wine and other collections that were unwanted by heirs, the best thing you can do for yourself and any collections you have that heirs do not want is to try and sell them in your lifetime. Obviously keep what you would like to enjoy for the rest of your life, but as the time comes to downsize- plan ahead so you can maximize your return. Not just in orchids and wine, but in a number of other hobby areas, I have seen people take a carefully planned downsizing approach and get themselves anywhere from a few thousands to several hundred thousand dollars of unexpected/unplanned for money at a time in life when it really made a difference.

For orchids, the best thing is to first look at what is going on in your local society. How big is the group? Are there already regular monthly raffles and member sales tables activities? If so, what are the prices like generally? Does the society buy its raffle plants? (most do.) If every month people are putting $1-$5 Home Depot rescues on the member plan sales table, then expectations are such that you might have a hard time selling plants for $20 or more- even high quality ones. But the good news is that if this is a viable option for you, by selling a few plants at a time and not flooding the local market, you can get a lot more money per plant over time. This is how I realigned my show inventory after COVID. For about a year I sold a few plants at a time at the local monthly meeting sales table and then a combo of donating/selling seedlings to the society for their raffles.

Generally speaking- if you are looking to get 20 to 30 cents on the dollar as compared to what a retailer would charge for the same plant- you should do well. That may sound low, but remember the goal is to sell a lot of plants quickly. That always affects the price.

Once you consider regular local options, here are some ideas for special sales events,

1. Look to forums like slippertalk. Remember Denver from about 8 years ago? He was the amazingly talented Paph grower from North Dallas. He planned ahead and listed his collection here, and with me taking point on gathering and allocating the plants among a group of about 10 people who wanted to buy them- the collection was sold for a very good price for him as compared to a fire sale situation, and all of us who bought got some nice deals on great plants.

2. Sell at an orchid show. Here in Texas, in a post-pandemic world with more people growing orchids the show scene has been spectacular the last two years. At Dallas last year we had a society sales table that I ran, and members could bring up to a certain number of plants to be sold as long as at least 20% was donated to the society. We suspended the limit for one expert local grower who was downsizing in retirement, and both the society and the grower did very well selling a large number of plants in that fashion. Blooming plants are king, but if you have nice healthy out of bloom plants you are willing to sell for about half the going rate of the same plant in bloom, you have good odds.

If the society does not have a sales table, buy a table or two and register as a vendor.

3. Organize a one-time private sale at your home or planned venue that is advertised by an orchid society or AOS judging center. In exchange for the advertising, give a % of sales to that entity. This is usually the best option for local judges and long-time growers who are known to have very good plants and can advertise them to a large audience.

4. The donation route is tricky. The sad fact is that when someone is moving or downsizing, parasitic people come out of the woodwork. Just giving away the plants is an option, but you get nothing in return and the plants are not assured of going to a good home. Point being- please be careful even just letting a few friends come over and take free plants. Word travels fast and I have seen many a situation where scavengers took many a liberty (even trespassing) to take things they had convinced themselves they were entitled to take.

The best way to donate, IMHO, is to formally document and donate the collection to an educational institution or 501c(3) charitable entity that can then either retain and grow, or sell the plants and keep the funds for their own future use. The best part is that you get a donation receipt and can take a tax deduction on the value of the donation. This is best done prior to retirement while you are still earning a full-time income since you will be in a higher tax bracket and thus potentially get a much bigger dollar impact from your write off. Note that this process requires careful attention to tax laws and that donation claims over a certain amount (I believe it is $5,000?) require formal third party appraisals and other careful documentation. I am a CPA, but I am NOT a tax CPA- and so please undertake this route only with the guidance of a CPA who is an expert in the jurisdictions in which you are subject to personal income tax.

Hope this is helpful.
 
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the best thing you can do for yourself and any collections you have that heirs do not want is to try and sell them in your lifetime. Obviously keep what you would like to enjoy for the rest of your life,
bingo! we speak the same language here.
 
Tom-DE My lime tree is a Bearss or Persian lime. It grows in the gh and is not hardy in zone 6B. I gave it a hard pruning
today and discovered a bud or two. I adore the smell of that tree. New growth smells heavenly. I can get a high on
just the smell! No alcohol for me sadly.
I am not familiar with Persian lime... I have a Mexican lime and it is not hardy here(7a). In the fall, I cut it back a little and put it by the garage window for winter...
I also love the aroma of leaves when you crush them. Mexican lime(probably a type of key lime) produce smaller fruits but they are very fragrant.
 
Sadly, this issue has arisen several times in the past year in our local society- and outcomes varied.

As a general rule, and I say this as someone who has had an interesting side career helping estates sell wine and other collections that were unwanted by heirs, the best thing you can do for yourself and any collections you have that heirs do not want is to try and sell them in your lifetime. Obviously keep what you would like to enjoy for the rest of your life, but as the time comes to downsize- plan ahead so you can maximize your return. Not just in orchids and wine, but in a number of other hobby areas, I have seen people take a carefully planned downsizing approach and get themselves anywhere from a few thousands to several hundred thousand dollars of unexpected/unplanned for money at a time in life when it really made a difference.

For orchids, the best thing is to first look at what is going on in your local society. How big is the group? Are there already regular monthly raffles and member sales tables activities? If so, what are the prices like generally? Does the society buy its raffle plants? (most do.) If every month people are putting $1-$5 Home Depot rescues on the member plan sales table, then expectations are such that you might have a hard time selling plants for $20 or more- even high quality ones. But the good news is that if this is a viable option for you, by selling a few plants at a time and not flooding the local market, you can get a lot more money per plant over time. This is how I realigned my show inventory after COVID. For about a year I sold a few plants at a time at the local monthly meeting sales table and then a combo of donating/selling seedlings to the society for their raffles.

Generally speaking- if you are looking to get 20 to 30 cents on the dollar as compared to what a retailer would charge for the same plant- you should do well. That may sound low, but remember the goal is to sell a lot of plants quickly. That always affects the price.

Once you consider regular local options, here are some ideas for special sales events,

1. Look to forums like slippertalk. Remember Denver from about 8 years ago? He was the amazingly talented Paph grower from North Dallas. He planned ahead and listed his collection here, and with me taking point on gathering and allocating the plants among a group of about 10 people who wanted to buy them- the collection was sold for a very good price for him as compared to a fire sale situation, and all of us who bought got some nice deals on great plants.

2. Sell at an orchid show. Here in Texas, in a post-pandemic world with more people growing orchids the show scene has been spectacular the last two years. At Dallas last year we had a society sales table that I ran, and members could bring up to a certain number of plants to be sold as long as at least 20% was donated to the society. We suspended the limit for one expert local grower who was downsizing in retirement, and both the society and the grower did very well selling a large number of plants in that fashion. Blooming plants are king, but if you have nice healthy out of bloom plants you are willing to sell for about half the going rate of the same plant in bloom, you have good odds.

If the society does not have a sales table, buy a table or two and register as a vendor.

3. Organize a one-time private sale at your home or planned venue that is advertised by an orchid society or AOS judging center. In exchange for the advertising, give a % of sales to that entity. This is usually the best option for local judges and long-time growers who are known to have very good plants and can advertise them to a large audience.

4. The donation route is tricky. The sad fact is that when someone is moving or downsizing, parasitic people come out of the woodwork. Just giving away the plants is an option, but you get nothing in return and the plants are not assured of going to a good home. Point being- please be careful even just letting a few friends come over and take free plants. Word travels fast and I have seen many a situation where scavengers took many a liberty (even trespassing) to take things they had convinced themselves they were entitled to take.

The best way to donate, IMHO, is to formally document and donate the collection to an educational institution or 501c(3) charitable entity that can then either retain and grow, or sell the plants and keep the funds for their own future use. The best part is that you get a donation receipt and can take a tax deduction on the value of the donation. This is best done prior to retirement while you are still earning a full-time income since you will be in a higher tax bracket and thus potentially get a much bigger dollar impact from your write off. Note that this process requires careful attention to tax laws and that donation claims over a certain amount (I believe it is $5,000?) require formal third party appraisals and other careful documentation. I am a CPA, but I am NOT a tax CPA- and so please undertake this route only with the guidance of a CPA who is an expert in the jurisdictions in which you are subject to personal income tax.

Hope this is helpful.
It sure helps me. I have a lot of plants I care about, some for decades. Not planning on dying but who does? I’ll get a plan together.
 
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