By Alexandra L. Woodruff

A MAN DROVE his Volkswagen convertible up to White Oak Orchids in Pacifica just over a month ago, his compact overflowing with 600 orchids.

"He had orchids packed on top of orchids squished in boxes. He had the front seat full; he had the back seat laid down, totally full. He had a box of orchids on his lap when he rolled in," said Gwen Watson, part owner of White Oak Orchids (1204A Linda Mar Blvd., Pacifica, 650-355-8767, www.whiteoakorchids.com).

She helped him unload his car. All told, the man had sandwiched over a hundred square feet of orchids into his Bug.

He had come to the nursery, situated a mile and a half inland from Highway 1, because he needed help tending his collection. Just as parents pay nannies to take care of their children and pet owners shell out bucks to send their animals to day care, customers of White Oak Orchids and California Orchids (515 Aspen Road, Bolinas, 415-868-0203, www.californiaorchids.com) pay to board their orchid collections.

The service is a life-sustaining convenience for busy Bay Area orchid lovers.

"They don't have time to take care of their plants, and they get tired of watching them die," Watson explains.

Though orchids can grow in all corners of the world, when plants go out of bloom, it can take them nine or more months to rebloom. Without the correct lighting, temperature, and moisture, that twig in the overpriced urn may never sprout a bud again.

According to Watson, very few people have the correct conditions in their home to properly raise an orchid. The jungles of the Amazon, the cool mountains of Wyoming, and the tropical islands of Hawaii are just a few places the exotic plants like to take root.

With five greenhouses to accommodate the plants, Mary Nisbet, owner of California Orchids, says her shop can foster just about any of the 35,000 orchid species and 125,000 hybrids that live around the globe. The conservatory's greenhouses even have microclimates of differing temperature and moisture. Meanwhile, White Oak Orchids offers six different growing environments in which to re-create the plants' original climate.

Both businesses offer pickup and delivery services. As soon as the delicate petals drop to the floor, owners can send their pride and joy off to a greenhouse for cultivation. Once buds reappear on the spike, the angiosperm is returned to its fair-weather owner.

It seems scandalous, but Sally Robertson, the Bolinas-based artist who paints posters for the San Francisco Orchid Society's annual Pacific Orchid Exposition, boards her collection at California Orchids, paying $55 a month for the service. Some of her plants only come home to visit once a year.

"They're things I probably couldn't bloom myself," said Robertson, who always has at least one flowering bijou from her collection on display.

She's not the only one who fears raising an orchid on her own. Nisbet boards about 12,000 plants for around 180 customers, some for as long as 20 years. Nisbet recommends her clients get face time with their absent underlings to watch how they grow.

And just as children get rejected from Ivy League schools, some parents have to face the bitter reality that sometimes their orchids just aren't good enough. Collectors who want to board their orchids have to have their plants' condition, size, and ideal habitat evaluated first. It sounds harsh, but Nisbet says she doesn't think grocery store varieties are worth the upkeep.

Once evaluated, the orchids are assigned to different areas of the nursery. The clients pay for the square footage their plants occupy. Nisbet charges boarders $55 a month for the minimum space of 10 square feet. (White Oak Orchids charges $5 per square foot at a minimum of seven square feet.) The price includes delivering the rebloomed plants to San Francisco and southern Marin, the only areas the where the service is offered.

This all may seem like a big bother when ferns and ivy also make nice houseplants. But Nisbet said her clients are hooked on the plants' extraordinary and endless varieties of flowers, which can resemble butterflies and garden pansies, spiky insects and billowing clouds.

Nisbet, who started working with orchids in the early '70s, understands the orchidophilia. "I think of them as company," she says, adding that she enjoys her business's boarding service more than the retail aspect.

"I don't have to let go of the plants. They always come back to us." Alexandra Woodruff attends the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.