My Garden

Hi, Zoe P here. If your pleiones are looking like this at the moment, then don't panic because this is perfectly normal, every winter pleiones loose their leaves. Just take the leaves out and stop watering. Keep them cool but frost free. In January you will need to repot your pleiones in fresh compost and they will flower in March and April. We start to water once the new shoot is about 2cm high. 

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 Hi Zoe B here.  Why not listen to me on the radio.  Yestereday I was on BBC radio somerset talking about our trip to south africa.  You can lisen to me on wsbeorchids.org.uk

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 This lunchtime theWrithlington Orchid Greenhouse was looking great and we spent time photographing some of the plants in flower. There are some particularly interesting miniature orchids out at the moment. This is Barbosella handroi, a tiny species that grows in the coastal cloud forest of Brazil. In our greenhouse it flowers every November with masses of relatively large yellowish flowers. This plant has been grown from seed and is about ten years old. Simon Pugh-Jones says that school trips to Brazil have found this species covering the upper branches of trees in primary forest on steep mountain slopes exposed to the mists that come in off the Atlantic ocean. We grow it on a peice of cork bark and spray it with water once a day, so you dont need a Brazilian mountain to grow it well. If you want more information on how we grow our orchids check out the Seedling Portfolio page of our website. So far we have pages for nearly 200 of the orchid species we grow. 

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 The latest exciting news from West Park School in Durban is that there is now a team of staff and students responsible for their orchid project and the plants that we left there at the beginning of November are doing well. We are working with both the Durban Botanic Garden and the local Orchid Society to support work in the school. As you can see the school has a shade house ideal for growing orchids and students have experience growing a range of plants. At Writhlington we have set a target of to raise sufficient funding for an orchid laboratory at the school in just twelve months. We will let you know how we do, or if you like check the South Africa page of the Writhlington's website. As you can see we are looking very happy to be amongst the gardeners at West Park School.

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We think that there are at least fifty orchid species in flower in the school greenhouse on any day in the year so we have decided to pick out one every week to share with you. This week is easy as the greenhouse is dominated by the flower spikes of Cymbidium tracyanum with its large fragrant flowers. This species is found in the East Himalayas from India to Laos and grows in the mountains at altitudes above 2000m. At school we grow it cool with a minimun of 10C and find the secret to flowering it well is to feed and water it heavily during the summer. 
 

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As you can see the new Writhlington School Orchid house is coming on really well. The thermal screening is in and the electrics are all installed including the fans which arrived this week. The growing area is a total of 200 square metres. Our grand opening will be in July 2010 and everyone is invited. More news to follow.

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If you like Eulophia speciosa you will love Eulophia cucullata. We spotted this as we left the Harold Johnson Reserve north of Durban. The flower spike was 60cm tall with these lovely flowers. We have compared it to photographs in books and our plant had much deeper brown colour on the reflexed petals and sepals.

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In South Africa we were really impressed by the terrestrial orchids we found growing in tropical grassland. One in particular, Eulophia speciosa, was actually quite easy to spot growing on roadside verges a bit like all the Pyramidal orchids you can see along the verges of the M5 motorway north of Bristol. After passing quite we stopped to have a close look. The plant is really robust with large yellow flowers. There are other yellow flowered plants in the road verges and so the Eulophia may be mimicking these to attract a pollinator.

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Well the tropical weather of Durban is a distant memory and the great new friends we made are 6000 miles away. We will never forget the amazing time we had but it's back to work in the Writhlington Labs. Here we are at Tuesday's Lab Club, sowing seed of Epidendrum radicans (the pod split in the school greenhouse on the day we returned) and replating seedlings of Sophronitis coccinea (see an earlier blog about that species). As you can see we are having the usual fun. It's good to be home. The good news is we are going to keep blogging so watch this space for everything orchid shaped and follow us and the Writhlington Orchid Project through the coming years. We also have some good bits of the Durban trip still to share with you.

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We have had an amazing day again in Durban. It started with a trip to the West Park School in Malvern on the outskirts of the city. We started with a school assembley where Simon and Lauren talked to the school. We then had a tour of the impressive permaculture work that the school is doing. The pupils at the school train rural schools in permaculture techniques as well as doing their own work. After the tour the two of us gave a workshop to a group of staff and pupils from every class. We talked about growing orchids and showed them how to deflask seedlings. We have left over fifty seedling likts at the school so that each class can have their own seedlings to grow. West Park school is a special needs school and has a fantastic atmosphere. The school is using horticulture and enterprise to provide experiences for the pupils as well as fund projects and it is really exciting to know that we can help them to help themselves by supporting them setting up an orchid project. Right got to pack. Back in the bush looking for orchids tomorrow and then flying back to the UK after an incredible African adventure.

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In the workshop Zoe B was teaching people how to replate seedlings. These are the plants that we brought all the way from England. By the end of the day the workshops had made more than a hundred jars of sown seed or replated seedlings, wow. All the jars will stay at the Botanic Garden to grow on in their collection.

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Wednesday was workshop day at the Durban Congress. We gave two long workshops on orchid growing from seed. It went amazingly well with groups of 16 and 17 people and they all loved it. Here Zoe P is working with two of the people and showing how to surface sterilise the seed. The people at the workshops came from botanic gardens all over the world and now they all want to set up orchid projects with schools in their cities. The whole day was just brilliant fun.

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This is 6am at the Durban Botanic Gardens with Chris Dalzell, the Curator. Chris gave us a fabulous tour of the whole Gardens including the Cycad collection which is where we are in the photo. The Garden also has amazing birds like Pelican and Vervet Monkey. Today we are giving our workshops on orchid propagation from seed in the laboratory here. We have more people signed up for our workshop than any of the others....it's going to be fun. The talk we gave last night went really well. Actually one of the orchids we found in the wild on Sunday was one that no one in the orchid societies knew was growing at Vernon Crooks. More about that later. We better go and get ourselves sorted for a busy day.
 

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Eulophia speciosa is one of the orchids that Margaret grows from seed in her lab and here it is flowering in the growing house. We like it. The trip around the growing area was realy inspiring and tomorrow we are getting up at 5.30am to have a special tour from Chris, the Curator of the Botanic Garden, before it opens in the morning. A botanic gardens all to ourselves, how good is that?
 

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In this photo you can see how we found out all about how micropropagated plants from the Durban lab are weaned and grown on. Under the fleece there are thousands of small plants in trays. Most of them are threatened medicinal plants. You can see that production from the lab is very high.
 

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