I'll bet you that they are such angels and didn't do anything to provoke him either.
Actually, there are a couple of things that could have made Terry unpleasant in the past, and I understand him fully, having been through the same as well. He had some personnal and professionnal problems, including a business divorce together with the fake sanderianum story, and people selling other plants under the Orchid Zone name, along with some more. I remember that in one year he got the complete collection of messes around ( including stolen plants the very same year).
He had to manage, successfully, some business problems, heavy ones at that, and everyone must understand that for many people, orchids are a hobby, but for the real professionnal growers, it is something very dangerous to manage. They have to have huge income every month, anticipate what could be sold in 2 years, and in Terry's case, I heard once that his costs were in the couple hundreds thousands$ per month during winter.
One more thing, the fake sanderianum story (again). What I think ( but that's personnal opinion), some of his customers knew ( from me actually, and one Taiwanese bloomed some fake ones) well before that those sands were mislabeled. They bought then many many plants. It seemed strange to me. If you know the apples are sour, you do not go to buy again and again like crazy. Except that this sanderianum story, highly emphasized, alone destroyed for some years Terry's reputation amongst many hobbyists, allowing some other growers ( who spread the rumor) to "catch" the market.
On the other subject, I noticed that he likes to talk with people who have experience, and can be quite quickly "fed up" with the others.
Similar to Paphioland, there are many people who would rather buy something in bloom and know exactly what they're getting than to invest time, money, g/h space, etc. with no guarantee of a winner. With complex Paphs, the probability is even smaller. And some people just detest gambling. Like Paphioland said, it's work (a hassle) just to dispose of the culls after you bloomed them.
Terry once told me amongst some other reasons that he wanted to maximize his "investment" as well, which is very normal.
The cost of a plant is:
- motherplants
- lab work ( with non-germinating crosses, or few seedlings produced)
- deflasking ( with some losses) in trays or plugs
- potting in small pots.
After that, it requires to pot from the small pot to the big pot. Sounds stupid, but quite a few people now ( including Terry I think...), went upset to sell in 7 cm pots for US$20 a plant, whilst repotting it and waiting another year would lead to some selected plants at 500-1000+$, and the culls can still be sold 20$.
Plus, as for the roth Rex x Mt Millais and some others, he did the original cross, but there were far, far more "blooming size" plants sold by the resellers than he produced. I think he does not want other people to profit by cheating, buy cheap NBS Charles E x Borneo and pass them at the "Orchid Zone breeding". Terry has had some financial problems with that as well when the first Rex x Mt Millais started to bloom, he got the AQ, was happy, thinking many people would buy from him many plants, and he could reinvest for his breeding program. No way. Many people started to sell the Charles E x Borneo renamed as RxMM.
To the best of my knowledge as well, when it comes to divisions or selected plants, bought directly from him, there is absolutely no "surprises" that the alba is not, or the roth is a sister plant of the plant you though you bought. Sometimes the plants are way overpriced I have heard, but in my case, when I went there myself, it was way underpriced to my mind.
Never forget as well, it is possible to find "cheaper selected plants" for some of the species he sells, but for most of it, he is the best source, and "stable". No "luck" involved. If you want to buy highly selected henryanum, go to the Orchid Zone, you are sure to find what you want, maybe "expensive" according to some, but he has them.
I got some plants that are apparently much better, for much, much cheaper, but then it is luck and gamble. If I did not want to eat roasted duck in october, and pass through a small shop with collected henryanum in bloom as pot plant, there was no way I could have had highly selected henryanum at extremely cheap price. If I wanted to be sure to get a very selected henryanum in october, I would have paid the price from the Orchid Zone.
Some people will say that they got from this or that nursery a better looking plant than the selected one from the Orchid Zone. Maybe it's true, but it is gambling. Orchid Zone, you pay what you want, and you get what you paid for.
The only thing I am looking now again to buy from him selected divs is someone who is willing to make CITES export permit, as Terry does not like to make them.
Onto the culls subject, it is my experience that with selected parents, a cull one year may surpass the FCC next year, especially in some of the complex, brachys or besseae. Terry sorted out many culls in the besseae and roths, just based on the flower size. So with good growth ( maybe the plant was not happy there!), you can still expect something better than the average plants.
For Paphanatics, actually the Orchid Zone had a partnership with them at a time. Paphanatics had a greenhouse of selected mother plants, made many crosses, and flasked them ( that was a very kind man who died of a brain cancer some years ago). Then Terry would buy many, if not most, of the flasks, grow them and bloom them. Paphanatics would buy back young plants, and some of the very selected plants, and do the next step of breeding. After a while Terry started all his own breeding lines for everything.
The wholesale/retail. Well, I have been through that as well.The problem is that to manage many hobbyists customers (sorry), it requires a lot of time and a lot of emails, and a lot of talks, phone calls... All of that time, either you pay a worker ( you have remember that most people want to talk to the owner anyway, and a worker is paid, so 20 min of phone call to end up with a no-sale is money lost), you do yourself, and the business collapses, because of no time, breeding, accounting, caring of the professionnal customers, the hobbyists, the problems, checking the quality of the plants, paperwork, etc... Terry simply prefers to have open doors from time to time, receive some people from time to time as well, and do wholesale. Most of the time, he will care about his "crop", and he has fewer customers to think of, fewer headaches, fewer unpaid bills.
I remember that many people went to work with the Orchid Zone, thinking that it is very simple. Buy from the Orchid Zone, sell, and make money! Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Prepay to invest in a stock, talk with the customers, reply to many emails, from pleasant to very strange questions ones, pack 3 plants here 7 plants there, make XXXXXX's of invoices, watch many people pay slow, slowly, the cashier's checks rejected... Then the follow up, why my plant has a yellow leaf, why this, why that. It is very time consuming. I do not criticize such customer, just emphasize that no one in the world can do everything. And retail is a very, very hard work.
One last thing, quite a lot of US paph "breeders" in fact come to reload in the Netherlands and Taiwan with cheap species seedlings, that they then sell at a premium with AOS awarded parents. I saw them many times going to Holland, pay as an example tigrinum seedlings (unknown parentage, but genuine) a couple$, and sell them right away as "selected parents". No way.
The Orchid Zone only sells plant that they know and have bred, and bloom them to be sure they are genuine.
:rollhappy:
