Orchid Madness: Another Shady Subculture

Susan Orlean’s 1999 bestseller “The Orchid Thief” probed the obsessive passions of orchid fanciers and inspired the Spike Jonze-directed film “Adaptation,” currently in production. Encinitas grower Andy Phillips, a consultant on the film, is notorious for his “orchids on a stick,” alien-looking epiphytes (air plants) wrapped around pieces of wood and hanging from metal hooks. Phillips insists there’s an orchid for everyone--and with about 200,000 plants on hand at his nursery, Andy’s Orchids, he’s prepared to make good on his claim. We explored the fertile topic of orchid delirium.

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How did your orchid obsession begin?

My dad had a flower shop, and I started growing cuttings in my sandbox. Then my grandfather gave me a cymbidium when I was about 5 or 6. When my dad gave me a lady’s slipper, or paphiopedilum, I said, “If that’s an orchid, how can the cymbidium be an orchid too? They’re so different looking!” That’s what got me hooked.

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What inspired the “orchid on a stick”?

In 1977-’78, when I was 13 and 14, I went to southern Mexico and was floored by the way orchids attached themselves to trees and rocks. When I came back, I started tying orchids onto rocks and cutting limbs from my dad’s trees and tying orchids onto them, [and] the orchid on a stick was born.

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Why do orchids inspire fanaticism?

Orchids are mysterious because people think they are hard to grow. And orchids seem prestigious because they have been tied to royalty and very wealthy people in the past. And, of course, most orchids are unique looking. Each type is modified to attract an insect, bird or whatever pollinates it--even a human.

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Are there “orchid people”?

Once I had a customer call me and all I could hear was background noise and then she hung up. The next day she called again, apologized profusely and said, “My husband walked in. If he caught me, he’d kill me!” Sometimes people ask, “Can you deliver to my work address?”

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How cutthroat does it really get in the orchid world?

My greenhouse was broken into four times in the last two years. One night this past December, the alarm went off. I went outside at 4:30 in the morning and caught the guy. He had 267 of my orchids lined up against the fence. We struggled and then I clobbered him with one of my orchids on a stick. He ended up getting away, but I know who he is.

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Have you risked your life for an orchid?

Yes. In a remote area of Chiapas, Mexico, I went out collecting in the bush. I found an oncidium in the ground, so I put it in the bag on [my] horse. All of a sudden the horse started freaking out and threw me. Later I found the oncidium and realized it was full of biting ants! Poor horse . . . but I still have that plant.