Index

3. Anyway, back to my adventure with orchids …. After the success with Mum’s orchids, a lady across the road who had a floristry business, walked into our shop one day and presented me with a very sick phalaenopsis. She said I knew all about orchids and left it with me. Some quick internet research suggested that it had been close to drowning and probably kept in the dark.

A quick trim of the rotten roots, re-potted and a new home on the window ledge of a bright north-facing, frosted glass bathroom in the Mallee and it recovered! Low and behold again and the next spring, it too flowered! That’s the phallie that started it all on our webpage.

1. My Mum loved orchids! Well, she loved all flowers really but sadly her love for orchids, try as she did, was never rewarded. When she passed away in July 1993, I inherited a Cymbidium and a Dendrobium speciosum. At that point, I probably had little more idea of how to grow and flower orchids than Mum did, but the Dendrobium went into a shade-house that I had acquired sometime earlier from a nurseryman cousin in Swan Hill and the Cymbidium just found a spot under the pergola at the back of our home!

Whether it was the right amount of neglect, but the Cymbidium flowered! I was hooked! Internet research revealed that the Dendrobium required a great deal more light than what was available in the shade-house. Sure it was healthy and had multiplied profusely but not a sign of a flower! I moved it outside the shade-house into the blazing Mallee sunshine where it enjoyed full sun for the greater part of the day. Low and behold, the following spring, flower spikes appeared and at it’s zenith, over 30 flower spikes!

4. We all know what success with an orchid does! I thought, “I can grow these!” so began acquiring them at orchid shows and of course, ebay. I heard about flasks and the benefits of deflasking, growing what you want and selling off the rest. I got to know one particular phallie flask vendor on ebay … or so I thought. Personal emails circumvented the ebay system and Mr. D…. from Brisbane and I became acquainted. A couple more flasks off-ebay. Nice plants, good clean flasks, good price! A little further down the track … “What have you got coming in the next shipment?” His reply, “Oh, I’m going out of orchids and into importing gold from PNG!” Yeah, right! I suspected I was being told porkies. “Would you take what flasks I have left?” At an agreed price of course. “How many do you have?” was my reply. “Oh, about 300!” was his response. Crikey, what was I going to do with 300 flasks? I agreed to take half … 150 flasks … thinking I would keep what I wanted and put the rest on ebay. He said, if I took the lot, he would tell me where he got them …. And this was after telling me about these labs that he had all over the place! By this stage, I had discovered that I was conversing with a 16-year-old schoolboy whose Dad was a property developer in Brisbane!

Well, there was no way I was going to commit to 300 flasks as a trip overseas for my wife and I was pending so we settled on the 150, payment was made and the flasks sent down from Brisbane.

BUT HE POSTED THEM IN THE BOXES THAT THEY CAME IN FROM TAIWAN WITH THE NAME OF THE NURSERY EMBLAZONED ON THE BOXES!

5. A quick email to the nursery explaining the situation and expressing my interest in purchasing from them in lieu of Mr. D…. and I was in the importing business! The nursery was Yi-Ching Fang Biotech and I still buy from them occasionally to this day.

My first shipment from Yi-Ching Fang Biotech was in January 2009 – 320 flasks. It had taken some time to develop a mailing list, acquire an import licence, establish the ground rules and logistics …. and, of course, set up a website. It was all a learning curve … and still is!

At the time, my wife and I were managing the family newsagency at Sea Lake in Victoria’s Mallee region, hence our trading name – Mallee Phallies! I love a play on words! If you care to “dig” in our website, you’ll find details of the newsagency and its 102-year history in the family commencing in 1914.

Running an import business from Sea Lake was not the easiest enterprise. Apart from not having a vehicle suitable for transporting multiple boxes of orchid flasks, necessitating the hiring of vans and trailers, it was a huge day to leave Sea Lake in the small hours, drive to the airport (4-5 hours) and line up to collect the consignment, then drive to the inspection point … which was for a time in Footscray …. then unload the boxes, unpack the flasks, assist with the inspection, repack the flasks, load the boxes and then drive back to Sea Lake, often not arriving home until after dark, unpack the vehicle or trailer, refuel and return it to its owner! The next day would begin the monumental task of unpacking, sorting and invoicing. In those days, shipments could total in excess of 1200 flasks!

6. Compared with this, life in the import business in Bendigo is a breeze! I love what I do and whilst I continue to gain immense satisfaction from my “job”, I will continue to “work”! I now have agents in Melbourne who attend the airport, collect the consignment, deliver it to the inspection point and forklift the boxes to my covered trailer. I can leave home after breakfast and be back home and unpacked, usually by mid-afternoon. We are on first-name basis with everyone who we deal with and have developed warm relationships. All very easy-peasy!

In addition, I have built up solid relationships with many of our suppliers around the world and a credit rating second to none which allows us to take orders without payment until the consignment arrives.

I can work from home. Our fourth bedroom is my orchid room where I can conveniently house up to 800 flasks with a desk and room to pack parcels to go out. My son-in-law works at one of Bendigo’s leading gaming hotels and maintains my supply of boxes in which to pack flasks for dispatch. I DO NOT have a drinking problem!

The Post Office is just down the road, and the proprietors are a delightful Indian couple – another warm relationship! Bendigo is very central to Victoria orchid growers and a pleasant drive from most regions of the state, Gippsland and the far Western District possibly excluded. We are always happy to welcome customers who may want to avoid the extra charges associated with mail ordering and pickups can be arranged by appointment.

7. I often say when an orchid growing question is posed, “I’m a much better importer than a grower!” That said, I WILL give advice to the best of my ability, but it is usually to impart what I have done WRONG rather than what I have done right! However, I believe I have a pretty good handle on deflasking and my particular method is available on the main page of Mallee Phallies on our website for downloading.

I have to confess at this stage that I have lost so many beautiful orchids over the years. Some of those losses I believe, was due to an infestation that I have may have inadvertently introduced to my shade-house via a purchase, either off ebay or from another grower. I have lost almost all the Cymbidiums I have acquired over the years. All have suffered from bulb rot. The introduction and usage of Yates Anti Rot may be helping but the jury is still out!

Many of the beautiful phallies that I purchased prior to deflasking have been lost because I got too cute with them, thinking that they could survive and thrive outside in the shade-house during the Mallee summers! WRONG! For quite sometime after the demise of pretty much all my phallie collection, my mojo was lost! Importing became my Number 1 focus. I did have one survivor however and it found a new home after our move to Epsom, Bendigo. It began to flower that first spring after our move and has delighted us with blooms every year since. My mojo was back!

8. Today, all our phallies stay inside, either in the main bathroom with a bright south-facing window …. and an evening steaming from my wife’s bath! … or in the orchid room where they get afternoon sun but through shade-cloth. In recent years, we have enjoyed first-time flowering from a number of plants that we have raised from a flask and this next season promises more.