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The Writhlington Orchid Project

The Writhlington School Orchid Project combines horticulture, science and conservation. Pupils raise orchids from seed and are working on conservation projects in the Himalayas, South Africa, South East Asia and Central America. Follow their story on this blog.

Recent Comments

  • Writhlington's Orchid of the Year 2010

    The Writhlington Orchid Project on 26 Dec 2010 at 12:20 AM
    What's a new year without a look back at the past one? We've seen quite a few wonderful orchids over the past year, but which one's your favourite? We've narrowed it down to a shortlist of 10, but we need your help to pick a winner! Head on over to our website where you can have a browse of our shortlist and pick your favourite! The winner will be announced early in the new year.

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  • Still amazing after 170 years

    The Writhlington Orchid Project on 24 Dec 2010 at 10:34 PM

     In 1839 the plant collector George Ure Skinner discovered the orchid Schomburgkia superbiens in Guatemala and wrote home to England the words 'Saw you ever anything like this?'. Well, he had a point and we are still marvelling at the 2-3m flower spikes and the gorgeous heads of large pink flowers.

     

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  • Spring starts early for the Writhlington Pleiones

    The Writhlington Orchid Project on 23 Dec 2010 at 04:15 PM

     Well it’s nearly Christmas so it is time to get going on those spring jobs in the greenhouse. The first job every spring for us is to repot the Pleiones and we will aim to have them all done by the middle of January.We took all of our Pleione bulbs out of their old pots in November and now they look like this Pleione formosana bulb with the new growth starting to show signs of growing. Definately time to pot it up as this growth will produce a flower in March or April.

    The compost we use at Writhlington is a mixture of course orchid garde bark, dried sphagnum moss and a little perlite. Their are other composts that work too but we like this open, free draining but moisture retentive mix. For display we place a number of bulbs in a 15cm half pot. For a good display we select bulbs that all have growths at the same state and position the bulbs so that all the growths will face the same way

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