AboutOrchids

With brilliant colors and fascinating shapes, orchids have become favorite gifts for Mother’s Day. Don’t worry if you don’t have a green thumb; most orchids don’t deserve their finicky reputations. A few care basics can help you enjoy your tropical flowers for a long time.

To get the most out of your gift, check these helpful care tips:

• Identify your orchid to better understand its light, temperature, and water needs. You don’t need to find its exact name, just its orchid family. Phals, or Moth Orchids, are the most popular (shown in the three photos above.) Cattleyas, Dendrobiums, Oncidiums, and Paphs are also favorites.
• If you cannot identify your orchid, use these general care tips.
• To water, soak roots and potting material thoroughly. Let the excess drain out of the holes in the bottom of the pot. Don’t allow the pot to sit in water for more than a few hours, or the roots may rot.
• When you water, remove ribbons, wrapping paper, or decorative containers if they block drainage holes.
• All orchids need high humidity and good air movement. Dry, stagnant air can cause blooms to wilt.
• As cut flowers, orchids don’t need any special care. Keep out of direct sun, and change their water every couple days to keep blossoms fresh.
• Browse AboutOrchids for more growing tips, FAQ, and beautiful photos. Enjoying orchids has never been easier.

Shopping for the perfect Mother’s Day gift? An orchid hybrid is your best bet. Hybrids are crosses between closely related plants. Breeders cross-pollinate different orchid varieties, and then choose the best offspring. Hybrid vigor emerges when the best traits from both parents create tougher descendants. They are often easy to grow and flower, and hardy enough to survive some neglect. Hybrids usually have larger and longer-lasting blooms. With basic orchid care info, they’re as easy as other common houseplants.

Fortunately, most orchids sold today are hybrids. If you buy from a supermarket or home improvement store, you’re almost certainly buying a hybrid. If you buy from a florist or garden center, it’s likely to be a hybrid, but you should always ask if you’re not sure. Orchid species can have finicky care needs, and you wouldn’t want your gift to cause your mother any stress. Tell her not to worry, and that’s it’s easy to care for an orchid with hybrid vigor.

Orchid shows are one of the best places to learn about orchids. Most shows feature local experts, knowledgable vendors, and orchid society members who are eager to share their love of this amazing plant family. Many events are timed for Mother’s Day celebrations on May 10th.

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After blogging about the spectacular orchids at the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley, it only seems fair to give the rest of the flowers a chance. There’s plenty more to the garden’s collections, with plants from around the world. Here are some of our best photos. The first six pictures highlight a few of the drought-tolerant plants growing outdoors.

The next photo presents one of the garden’s best vistas: an incredible view of San Francisco Bay, with Alcatraz in the foreground, and the distant Farallon Islands appearing faintly in the background over the Golden Gate Bridge. The final row of pictures shows a few of the prickly gems of the Arid House. They all point to a beautiful visit!

Enjoy an amazing orchid photo tour of RHS Garden Wisley, south of London. Expert photography captures sights from the garden’s tropical glasshouse. It’s easy to spot the brilliant colors of the orchids popping out of the lush, steamy jungle display. RHS Garden Wisley is one of the most popular gardens in Britain, and covers 240 acres (97 hectares) in Surrey.

I’ve blogged several times about the world’s most delicious orchid, vanilla. But did you know that there are other edible orchids? One of the most popular orchid foods is salep, or sahlep. In Turkey and the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, the roots of Mediterranean orchids are milled into flour, and added to ice cream in warm weather, and hot drinks in wintertime.

Salep is traditionally made from the tubers, or thickened roots, of the orchis family. The Early Purple Orchid, or Orchis mascula, is one of the most common sources. Harvested from wild orchid populations, the tubers are made into starchy flour. This is added to water or milk to make ice cream, and flavored with pistachio, apricot, vanilla, or peach. When added to hot water or milk, it’s often flavored with cinnamon.

I’ve never had the opportunity to try salep, but others describe it as tasting sweet, nutty, and earthy. Orchid ice cream has an elastic texture that stays frozen longer than regular ice cream. In the videos below, salep vendors in Turkey entertain their customers.

To learn more, check out this authentic salep recipe. You can also read a tale of buying salep in Turkey, including a photo of dried orchid tubers. Salon explores orchid ice cream and salep’s Turkish birthplace.

Looking to relax? How about a calming visit to floating orchid forest? Tokyo’s Miraikan Museum has just what you need. As guests walk though the exhibit in the video below, computers gently raise and lower thousands of living orchids hanging from the ceiling. It’s reminiscent of the lush beauty of Avatar, and I’m sure it’s full of wonderful fragrances, too.

If you can emerge from the trance of this dreamy video, you may notice that these orchids are bare-root, not potted at all. Hanging in the air is very familiar for these air plants, although they are typically attached to trees, not the ceiling. As long as they have water, good humidity, and a little fertilizer, this exhibit could continue to live, grow, and bloom indefinitely. However, this floating dance of flowers, leaves, and roots only runs until May 10th. Read more about the exhibit here.

It’s easy to spend a whole day enjoying the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley. Established in 1890, it has one of the largest and most diverse plant collections in the country, spread over 34 acres (13.8 hectares) of gardens and greenhouses. Among the botanical treasures, there are many unusual orchid species, which are rotated through the displays as they come into bloom. These beauties were a few of the highlights of our visit last month.

Most of the orchids are displayed in the Orchid, Fern & Carnivorous Plant House. There are some in the Tropical House, too. The final photo shows a Chinese Ground Orchid outdoors in the Chinese Medicinal Herb Garden. This Asian species has long been used as an herbal remedy.

The garden also features an extensive collection of California native species, many unusual varieties of cacti and succulents, and plants from areas of the world with Mediterranean climates. It’s all incredibly gorgeous, and well worth a visit.

As always, my listings are an incomplete summary of monthly orchid shows. If you don’t find a nearby event, check with your local orchid society or gardening center about more shows or auctions in your area.

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It’s no wonder why we love Masdevallia orchids. These two stunning examples are now in bloom on our patio, with their big, neon flowers atop tall stems, bobbing in the breeze. Thanks to Dave’s great photography, it’s easy to enjoy their charms.

Believe it or not, both of these plants are the same species, Masdevallia coccinea. Native to high elevations in Colombia and Peru, they occur in many brilliant color varieties. No matter the hue, they need cool, moist breezes and frequent waterings. These orchids love living outside our foggy home on the Northern California coast. And we certainly love having them here.