AboutOrchids

Take a virtual tour of a large East Coast orchid greenhouse in “An Orchid Grows in Ithaca,” courtesy of Mountain Home magazine. In Ithaca, New York, The Orchid Place is a family operation which supplies blooming orchids to supermarkets from Maine to Maryland. Begun in 2005, it has a 10,000 square foot (929 square meter) greenhouse with 150,000 orchids. The plants begin life in Taiwan, one of the world’s largest orchid exporters. Young plants are shipped to greenhouses like this one in Ithaca belonging to the Liu family. Here they acclimate and mature before landing on supermarket shelves.

Surprisingly for an operation of this size, The Orchid Place is not automated, and does all its plant care by hand. Thousands of Phal, Paph, Cattleya, Oncidium, and Dendrobium hybrids thrive in an area best known for long, cold winters. I know about the climate there because, before I moved to San Francisco in the late 1980’s, I lived in Ithaca while I attended Cornell University. I even owned my first orchid there, bought during a visit to Washington DC’s National Botanic Garden. It was a baby Cattleya which never stood a chance in the low light and dry air of my living room, but I didn’t know any better then. Years after I did my orchid wrong, it’s great to see that orchids are thriving in Ithaca now.

Be sure to click on the pictures in the article to enjoy the excellent large photos.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 16th, 2013 at 3:06 pm and is filed under In the News.

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