Student 1

Orchid Project

            The orchid family is a group of flowers, which includes over 200 species!  Orchids can live a very long time, up to 20 years!  My name is student 1 and my partner student 2 and we visited a flower shop in Solvang named Fancy Flowers.  The visit to the shop was to interview the flower owners and sellers to ask a few questions and receive information about selling orchids.  We also used www.orchidlady.com to help us find out more information.

          Orchids used to cost thousands of dollars because they had to be collected in the wild.  Fortunately, scientist spent many years learning how to grow them in greenhouses and now their price is as low as $5.00 for a seedling.  In a flower shop like Fancy Flowers you can find mature orchid plants for $50.00 each.  In some other places mature plants are only $10.00.  Buying an orchid can be a very good gift for any family member, friend or occasion.  

          There are some types of orchids that are still expensive but there are many beautiful varieties that are reasonably priced.  Amitostgmas are one of the orchids that come from Japan.  Adas come from Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela and Peru.  Ascocentrum are small-growing plants that have a large spur which hangs down from the lip.  Arundina are found in China, Sri Lanka, India, S.E. Asia, Malaysia and Tahiti.  When you buy an orchid usually you will receive a care sheet on that specie of orchid.

          When we visited Fancy Flowers, we asked many questions about the cost of orchids and the salesperson showed us the different varieties that they had for sale.  They buy their plants from local nurseries and then turn around and sell them in their shop.  Our final project was a video of our interview at Fancy Flowers.

This activity was a very good learning source.  I learned many facts about orchids and how to sell them.  Our project could have been better if we had practiced more before we shot our video.  We learned a lot about orchids and enjoyed finding information to complete the project.  We felt that working as a pair made it easier to make decisions.