AboutOrchids

Too cold? Too much snow? You’ll probably enjoy visiting orchid gardens in Singapore, Honolulu, and southern Spain, courtesy of these video tours. First, soak up the tropical glory of Singapore’s National Orchid Garden and Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Next, Honolulu’s Foster Botanical Garden will help you think warm thoughts. It boasts a diverse orchid collection beneath massive tropical trees.

Finally, feel the heat in Málaga, Spain, home to Orquidarium Estepona. Its three glass domes house thousands of orchids and a waterfall.

Happy new year! January brings wonderful orchid events, like these shows, sales, auctions, and talks, to brighten 2025. In Pittsburgh, Phipps Conservatory shows off its collection with the spectacular Orchid and Tropical Bonsai Show, from January 11th to March 9th.

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Celebrate today’s solstice with orchids from our garden. All these photos are from this autumn. The season changes with some blooms already fallen, but others still going strong. As the days start to lengthen after the winter solstice, new cycles of growth will begin.

I’ve highlighted most of these orchids in past posts (although I’ve realized that I’ve never done a post about my old Pleurothallis palliolata, with flowers that resemble strange, striped clams, in the last two photos.) Check out the previous posts below:

• A Sweet Little Caucaea Orchid
• A Legendary Masdevallia Orchid
• A Very Reliable Cochlioda Orchid
• A Big Season for Cymbidium Orchids
• A Beautiful Laelia Orchid Species
• A Very Different Orchid Subspecies

This Vanda is a flower machine. It keeps blooming, and it’s grown well enough to need a bigger vase. I blogged before about the handy Vanda trick I use. These orchids are normally kept mounted, in baskets, or bare root. Those methods can be challenging for home growers outside the tropics. They’re much easier to care for in a vase. This hybrid reliably blooms twice a year, boasting showy, purple blossoms for three months at a time.

Each flower is big and round, but not flat, with a dark lip sticking out of all that purple. When I moved the plant to the larger vase, I worked as many of its thick roots as I could inside the glass. They hold the plant in place, and counterbalance the big flower spikes.

Watering is done by regularly filling the vase, and letting the plant soak for a few minutes. Then pour out most of the water, leaving a shallow layer at the bottom to keep humidity high around the roots and leaves. It’s easy to fertilize weakly, weekly. I try to keep the roots clean of moss and algae. With warm days and morning sun, it’s relatively easy to enjoy lush, tropical orchids. With these growing tips, you may be able to have your own flower machine.

There are only a few orchid events I could find this month, but they span five continents. Check with your local orchid society for holiday parties and auctions, as well.

Orchid poachers are one of the biggest threats to orchid survival. Private collectors who take plants from the wild, or who buy wild plants, can wipe out native populations. Social media has worsened the problem, directly connecting poachers and buyers. Viral fads can cause rare varieties to be completely wiped out, and can even jeopardize common species. Conservation laws are often inadequate and difficult to enforce. It’s a huge issue in all orchid hotspots, including Southeast Asia.

Conservation groups like the Orchid Specialist Group at the IUCN are trying to tackle the problem. They’re publishing guidelines on sustainable practices, and doing outreach, too. While not condoning illegal collecting, they are trying to work with collectors to reduce risks of destroying wild populations. In Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, they’ve been interviewing and educating people, trying to change behaviors with accurate info about laws and imperiled varieties. Learning how to sustainably propagate endangered species may lessen threats to native plants, while also providing income for local communities. Conservationists are hoping that poachers who are harming the environment might be part of saving it.

We can all help by never taking orchids from the wild, or buying plants which have been poached. Only purchase from responsible vendors, and be especially cautious of online vendors. Ask if you’re not sure. Instead of species, buy human-made hybrids. Check out these additional tips to know if a plant is illegally trafficked.

A couple years ago, while repotting a Dancing Lady Orchid, part of the plant broke off. With a few leaves, roots, and pseudobulbs, I could have put it the small piece back the pot with the rest of the plant, but I decided to experiment. We have a few large stones in the backyard, shaded underneath a juniper tree. There was a shallow divot in a rock where the cutting fit well. With a little bit of glue and moss, I set it in place. Since then, it’s attached itself to the rock with new roots, and it’s been blooming for a couple months. Originally, I thought that it might be too shaded by the tree, and wouldn’t receive enough light to bloom, but it’s proven me wrong.

Dancing Lady Orchids, or Oncidiums, are popular houseplants, and some types are cool growers which enjoy our foggy climate. This one appears happy growing as a lithophyte, or “rock plant.” It started as an office orchid that Dave brought home years ago, without a nametag, thus earning its status as “Oncidium NOID.” There are lots of Oncidium hybrids, and it might be an impossible task to pin down a name.

While the mother plant continues to grow well outdoors in a pot, its flowers were devoured by snails this year. Maybe the rough stone keeps the snails away from the rock plant. Its flowers have already weathered strong winds and chilly nights, and they’re still going. It’s an orchid experiment that’s definitely been paying off.

From Calgary to Cape Town, from Ann Arbor to Boca Raton, the schedule slows this month, but there’s plenty on offer. Be sure to take advantage of these shows, festivals, sales, auctions, talks, and culture days around the planet.

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The Western Prairie Fringed Orchid boasts showy white flowers standing on 2-foot (0.6 m) plants, but it’s not easy to find. Growing among tall prairie grasses, it blends in perfectly. Steve Travers, a biologist at North Dakota State University in Fargo, says “I have a hell of a hard time finding it sometimes. And when people see it the first time, there’s like almost this rapid intake of breath. I mean, it’s so big and it’s just spectacular.” Unfortunately, its prairie habitat has been disappearing, and the species is threatened. Native to the Midwest, from Oklahoma north to Manitoba, the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid is also known as Platanthera praeclara. It’s a relative of the Wood Rein Orchid I recently found here on the Northern California coast.

To save the last tallgrass prairies, it’s essential to understand their biodiversity. Scientists are focusing on the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid because it can be an early indicator of environmental problems. Like many native orchid species, it’s endangered by habitat loss, climate change, and declines in pollinator populations. Studying them in the field means dealing with mosquitoes, ticks, and possibly bears. Then there’s the problem of finding them. Fortunately, these orchids and some of their remaining prairie are protected by law, and researchers are working to uncover their secrets.

Some orchids can be sneaky. Greenhoods, or Pterostylis orchids, have a surprise in store for small flies, gnats, and mosquitoes. These strange flowers have tricky lips. As an insect enters the flower, the hinged lip snaps shut. This briefly imprisons the pollinator inside the bloom. The only escape route is a tight squeeze past the pollen. After a few minutes, the bug exits, the lip reopens, and the booby trap is reset for another visitor.

About 300 Greenhood species are native to Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Indonesia. The photos above show the lips of three species. In the center of each blossom, they look like little twisted tongues rather than flower lips. There are additional Greenhood photos in the article at In Defense of Plants.

To learn more, check out an old blog post about a Greenhood orchid I used to grow, Pterostylis curta.