Your Lady Slipper is beautiful. I am blessed with three pink Lady's up at my lake place. I was wanting to get a pic on Sunday when one of them opened up, but the camera wasn't with us. I hope that one or both of the other two will be in bloom this coming weekend. I'm glad everyone can look at your pics and enjoy yours. The grwoing conditions that my slippers like and do best in is moist, well drained soil. With the past few weeks being quite damp, they seemed to pop up and grow overnight. I was surprised to see one in bloom.

Various species of orchids are among the most common native plants in some of our local ecosystems. Calypsos by the billions (not millions) and various cypripediums as far as the eye can see. I applaud a posting above that dismisses the hyseria about 'orchids' as endangered, etc. there are 'specific' plants protected in some regions but not 'orchids' everywhere. Some lady slippers are among the easiest of native plants to grow. Some are more difficult. This however is often dependent on the ecology of where one lives...no different than trying to grow any plant. I can transplant a yellow slipper from one area of the garden to another and it doesn't even hiccup. If I try the same with a non native (to our area) slipper such as Cypripedium regina it will take a year to recover....if ever.

Congrats! You probably have a number of other lovely, but perhaps slightly less showy wildflowers growing on your land, so keep your eyes peeled as you walk around. Here's a link to the MA list of protected species. Scroll down to pla nts and from there to Orchidaceae. There are several lady slippers listed, but not the one that's all pink, which is most common around here. If due to wanting to build a ho use or other disturbance you want to move some, I've been successful relocating plants on my own land (to remove them from high traffic areas or construction) to other areas that already have lady slippers growing. I dig an area around the pla nt I want to move about the size of a garbage can lid and 6 inches or more deep, and then carefully move it onto a support. I transport it to where it will be growing and remove a plug the same garbage lid size. Insert your pla nt plug, water well and then just leave it to settle in. They appear to need some sort of soil fungus or microbe to grow well, so I never move them to locations that don't already have them growing. Here is a link that might be useful: MA List of Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species

This old post has stayed alive! I thought I'd comment to clear up a common myth: lady slippers do not need a mycorhizal fungus to survive. In nature, they require a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with a fungus to germinate and develop their first growth bud. After they spring out of the earth 3 years or so after their seed was dropped, they become photosynthetic, and no longer needing those fungi they expell them in some cases; however, often they stay *Partially* parasitic on these fungi which reside inside thier root systems mostly (so no need for transplantation of their soil). There are genera that stay entirely mycotrophic for their lifetime such as Corallorhiza, and Cephalanthera austiniae since they have no clorophyll. We are sure of this information because we grow these plants from seed in sterile jars on a sugar medium, and then transplant them into media, sometimes thousands of miles from their native habitats and native soil fungi. They grow fine this way; and Wendy Lee, you are correct that they don't like to have their roots disturbed during the growing season. As for endangerment, only a handful of the genus's 45 or so members is considered threatened, and only a few are considered endangered, certainly not Cypripedium parviflorum varieties nor Cyp acaule. That absolutely doesn't mean that it's a good idea to go dig them up! Species coexisting, absolutely! Many species of Cypripedium can co-habitate regions of suitable climate since they have similar growth requirements, at least within a few hundred yards! As for retail, here's a list of seed prop sources: http://www.uslink.net/~scl/ http://www.hillsidenursery.biz/ http://asiaticanursery.com/index.php/cPath/17osCsid=b32c4ea8dc7d74a5fc8974f9469d1c8c http://www.thimblefarms.com/98orchidtf.html http://www.c-we.com/cyp.haven/ http://www.orchidmix.com/cyps.htm http://www.vtladyslipper.com/ http://www.infonet.ca/cypr/engl.htm? Best Regards, Ross