AboutOrchids

It’s a common belief that all orchids are delicate and fragile, unable to adapt to any adverse conditions. A few orchids may fit that description, but many others are tough as nails. This magnificent yellow Masdevallia fits into the “tough as nails” category. Despite any flimsy appearances, these big, brilliant flowers can withstand strong winds.

I bought this beauty last year at the gift shop of the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley. It’s lived outdoors at our home in Pacifica ever since. With sunny, yellow 4 inch (10.1 cm) blooms at the top of 2 foot (61 cm) tall flower stems, it’s a real standout. It looks so delicate, but these flowers defy strong winds coming off the ocean. I keep the plant next to a wall in a sheltered spot, but it still endures occasional 50 mph (80 km/h) wind gusts. It also endures a steady assault of old blossoms and leaves raining down from a nearby camellia tree. After a month, the flowers are starting to look beaten up, but I’m just amazed that they’re standing at all.

While it would be impossible for many orchid growers to keep these outdoors, here on the Northern California coast, it’s a piece of cake. This species, Masdevallia coccinea, is native to the Andes, where it lives in cool, breezy, moist conditions. I keep it shaded from direct sun, and water it daily. Our cool, foggy weather seems to provide a great substitute for its native home. This Masdevallia is a beautiful addition to our garden, and a testament to how tough orchids can be.

Identifying your Mother’s Day orchid is an important part of basic orchid care. Since Moth Orchids are the most popular varieties, they’re the best place to start. It’s likely that your gift is a Moth Orchid, or Phal, like those in the first row of photos below. This is only a small sampling of countless Moth Orchid colors, patterns, and sizes. They come in many hues, including whites, pinks, yellows, reds, and purples.

Lady Slippers, shown in the next row of photos, are also favorite gift orchids. Their distinctive, pouch-shaped flower lips make them easy to identify. Their colors include whites, pinks, greens, reds, and yellows.

Cattleyas, such as the next photo below, are popular corsage flowers, and often have sweet scents.

Cymbidiums, shown in the middle picture, come in reds, whites, pinks, yellows, greens, and browns.

Dendrobiums, like the last photo of this row, are a diverse group of orchids. Den Phals are the most common types.

Epidendrums, like the first picture in the next row, come in reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, greens, purples, and whites.

Miltoniopsis earn their nickname Pansy Orchid from their resemblance to pansy flowers.

Oncidiums, shown in the final photo, are also known as Dancing Lady Orchids. Their sprays of small flowers seem to sway together in a breeze.

In New York’s Adirondack Mountains, millions of native orchids are flourishing near an old iron mine. The wetland area is now home to local orchids like Grass Pinks, Rose Pogonias, and Ladies’ Tresses. Since the mine closed in 1978, the site has recovered to become the perfect home for six native New York orchid species and other rare plants, too.

The universal appeal of orchids is obvious with so many shows around the world. Many are perfectly timed for Mother’s Day presents and celebrations. Take advantage of any shows nearby to immerse yourself in incredible flowers.

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Dave’s work travels gave him another opportunity to find orchids in Switzerland. He really hit the jackpot a couple weeks ago at the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich. The garden houses 9000 plant species over 13 acres (5.3 hectares,) with orchids featured in three tropical greenhouses. In addition, there are Mediterranean, alpine, native meadow, and carnivorous plant sections, and much more.

It was a real treat for Dave to discover vanilla orchids in bloom. We’ve seen countless vanilla vines in glasshouses and travels to the tropics, but the flowers are much harder to find. They’re open for less than a day, and often tough to photograph, since they’re high up on the vines. He was lucky to catch the beautiful vanilla flowers in the next row of photos. With orchid blooms and much more, the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich brings the tropics to Switzerland.

Gaia Amazonas is a remarkable Colombian conservation organization. Created to protect the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon, Gaia Amazonas has helped return over 100,000 square miles (26 million square kilometers) of Colombian rainforest back to the control of its native peoples. That’s an area larger than the UK!  Alongside the traditional knowledge and sustainable practices of indigenous peoples, the group helps conserve huge tracts of the Amazon Rainforest, including countless orchids. Founded in 1990 by Martín von Hildebrand, Gaia Amazonas is trying to expand its amazing success into Brazil and Venezuela. You can help support the group by donating and sharing its message of empowering native peoples to care for the rainforest.

If you have a warm, sunny windowsill, and sometimes forget to water, Tolumnias may be perfect for you. These mini orchids have eye-catching colors and patterns. I bought this Tolumnia hybrid at last year’s Pacific Orchid Expo, and this year, it put on a great show with lots of brilliant blooms.

Tolumnias are native to the Caribbean, and are sometimes called Equitant Oncidiums or Dancing Lady Orchids. Their small leaves require morning sun and warm temps. With thin roots, which need to dry out between waterings, they’re often grown on mounts. This allows them to dry quicker than potted plants. Provide a winter dormancy with reduced watering, but always maintain high humidity and good air movement.

Tolumnias come in vivid colors, like reds, pinks, yellows, and oranges. Although the plants remain small, their flower spikes can reach up to 18 inches (46 cm,) so they do require some extra space when in bloom. Old spikes may blossom again, so don’t cut them off when they’re done. And find a little room for these floral gems on your windowsill.

Would you like to have an orchid adventure in southern France? How about southwestern China? Check out these expertly guided trips from the Orchid Conservation Alliance. I’ve blogged before about their great work to preserve orchids.

The trip to France is coming up first, from April 22 – May 1. Orchid lovers will enjoy wine, food, castles, and gardens, along with the native orchids of springtime in Provence and the Périgord.

The trip to China will be June 17 – 30. It will take lucky travelers to the spectacular scenery and rich plant life of the Himalayas, home to many orchids. Both trips are expensive, but promise the adventure of an orchid lover’s lifetime.

Bonsai is the art of growing small trees in containers. Each potted tree is carefully shaped and pruned to evoke an idyllic natural scene. There’s no better place to marvel at them than the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the US National Arboretum in Washington DC. I was able to enjoy this spectacular little forest of bonsai trees during a recent family visit to the East Coast.

Many people already know about bonsai, but penjing is a less common term. Penjing is the ancient Chinese art of creating miniature nature scenes. This was later adapted in Japan to create bonsai. There are many different styles of both bonsai and penjing, but generally, bonsai focuses on a tree or group of trees, while penjing creates landscapes, often with trees, rocks, and other plants. Beautiful trays or shallow pots hold the displays.

These tiny trees need regular water, sunlight, and temperatures appropriate for each species. They fare best when grown outdoors for most or all of the year. They are only brought inside for cold winters or harsh weather, and returned to the sun and fresh air as soon as possible. Growers temporarily wire branches to create specific shapes and designs. By keeping them in small pots, and pruning their branches and roots, the trees stay dwarfed. Even though they’re small, well-grown bonsai appear large and ancient. Expert daily care can keep them alive until they’re very old. Amazingly, the very first photo in this post depicts a Japanese White Pine which started cultivation in Hiroshima in 1625! It even survived the atomic bomb dropped on that Japanese city at the end of World War II. The Japanese family which nurtured this tree for six generations gave it as a gift to the USA for 1976’s bicentennial celebrations.

Of course, I’m always looking for orchids, and I found a few among the trees in the museum’s Tropical Conservatory. The only one in bloom during my visit was the brilliant Cattleya hybrid in the final photo. There was also an enormous Bamboo Orchid, but it didn’t have any new flowers. Visit the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum — it houses a forest full of bonsai and much more! Learn about bonsai basics at BonsaiEmpire.com.

National Geographic offers 12 wonderful orchid photos for spring. These aren’t your everyday orchids. Instead, they’re unusual Mediterranean terrestrial species, like Helleborines, Tongue Orchids, and Elder-Flowered Orchids. Aren’t they just as stunning as their better-known, tropical relatives?