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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..

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... Read more..