AboutOrchids

South Africa will host the 21st World Orchid Conference (WOC21) next month. Also known as the Orchid Olympics, WOC21 runs from September 10th – 14th in Johannesburg’s Sandton Conference Centre. The event is held every three years, with the last one in Singapore in 2011. It’s one of the biggest flower shows in the world, and attracts tens of thousands of visitors. The theme for this year is “Orchids: Gold in the Green Age,” tying into the area’s gold-mining history. Apart from WOC21, there will also be displays of South African plants, including cycads, aloes, proteas, and succulents. South Africa is home to a wide range of unusual orchids, like Disas, Stenoglottis, Mystacidiums, Angraecums, and more. Check the WOC21 website for additional info.

As Dave and I explore our new hometown, we’ve been enchanted by this beautiful area. We recently took a short hike on Devil’s Slide Trail. Until recently, this was part of California Route 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. Nicknamed Devil’s Slide, this stretch endured decades of landslides, road closures, and drivers occasionally plunging down steep cliffs. With the recent opening of tunnel bypasses, the county turned this bit of old roadway into a great hiking trail. Now, instead of driving along steep cliffs, we can walk, and enjoy the views at a slower pace.

These gorgeous sights illustrate Pacifica’s coastal climate, with strong winds, salt spray, and rocky soil. There’s little rain, but lots of fog. Plants and animals need to be tough to survive the ceaseless wind and harsh conditions.

For years, I only knew these views as they passed by in a flash from a car window. There was hardly time to enjoy the scenery, or watch a soaring hawk ride thermals without once beating its wings. Even the crumbling cliff side holds fascinations when there’s time to study it. Slowing down makes for a great pace of life in Pacifica.

Singapore is in full bloom for the Singapore Garden Festival, and, of course, orchids are a big part of the show. The event opens today and runs until August 24th. The 33 foot (10 m) tall wall of orchids in this video is only one of the amazing displays.

In the second video, an enormous Tiger Orchid, or Grammatophyllum, is being moved into place for the festival. How do you move a 661 pound (300 kg) orchid? Carefully! It’s a rare sight in bloom, but this one is a baby compared to the biggest ones, which can weigh more than 1 ton (907 kg.)

The Singapore Garden Festival takes place at Gardens by the Bay. The displays include lots of tropical plants besides orchids, with landscape gardens, fantasy gardens, balcony gardens, and floral arrangements, among others. Check out photos of the event at The Straits Times.

Enjoy more photos from San Francisco’s recent Orchids in the Park. With so many incredible flowers packed into a small space, it can be tough to know which way to point the camera. Luckily, every direction brings great shots.

These different orchids have diverse colors, shapes, and sizes. They also have a range of temperature, water, and light needs. The final four photos show a few cool-growing orchid varieties, Masdevallias, Dendrobiums, and Oncidiums. which can live outdoors in San Francisco and other cool, foggy climates.

It’s San Francisco’s smaller orchid show, but Orchids in the Park always manages to impress. This past weekend was no exception. Here are the first of Dave’s photos from this year’s event.

This show and sale always exhibits so much more than the usual supermarket orchids. Phal and Dendrobium hybrids are great, but they are only a tiny fraction of the orchid world. No other flower family has the incredible diversity of orchids — their astonishing color combinations, mind-bending shapes, and wide range of fragrances. These unusual, uncommon flowers were great highlights of this year’s event.

Orchid shows strut their stuff from Hilo to Copenhagen, Toronto to Singapore, and Sao Paulo to Brisbane. All of these events offer extraordinary flowers, and many also have orchid experts and vendors.

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London’s Daily Telegraph recounts how Moth Orchids became Britain’s favorite flowers. There’s no doubt that the British love orchids. Over 200 years ago, tropical orchids began arriving among the spoils of empire. Britain sent out explorers and collectors to bring back more. Soon rainforests were being stripped of these and other botanical treasures, which filled ships back to Europe.

Initially, growers were unsure how to provide conditions for these “air plants” in their hothouses. Eventually, in 1787, Kew botanists coaxed the tropical Prosthechea cochleata, or cockleshell orchid, to bloom in Britain for the first time. When news spread, every botanical enthusiast was desperate to cultivate the mysterious plants, which thrived high up in the forest canopy, without visible nourishment in some of the most remote and beautiful regions on earth.

From Darwin’s orchid fascination to the founding of the first orchid society in 1897, the British love for orchids has only grown over time. Fortunately, most all of today’s orchid market involves mass production greenhouses and scientific efficiency, not jungle expeditions. “We are now able to pop into our local garden centre or supermarket and pick up a piece of tropical paradise whenever we want.”

Attention orchid lovers! Orchids in the Park 2014 arrives a month early this year, coming up on the weekend of August 2nd & 3rd.  This event is smaller and less crowded than the SF Orchid Society’s huge winter show, but even this scaled-down exhibit has plenty of fascinating orchids. These dozen pictures are just a small sample from last year’s show and sale.

Orchids in the Park will again be held at the San Francisco County Fair Building, just inside Golden Gate Park at 9th Avenue and Lincoln Way. The event runs from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm on both Saturday and Sunday. Don’t miss it!

Joining your local orchid society is one of the best ways to learn about orchids. Let’s say you’re a novice, and you’ve already discovered the treasure trove of basic orchid info here at AboutOrchids. Your local orchid society can help you build on that knowledge. The people you meet will share your love of orchids, and will be great resources to advance your orchid education. They’ll be especially helpful for local expertise that’s tough to find, such as which orchid varieties do best in your specific climate.

Besides hosting annual shows, many orchid societies have monthly meetings. These may have orchid displays, awards, vendors, raffles, auctions, and expert speakers. Even if you can’t attend meetings often, their newsletters can help keep you updated. Most societies support local, national, and international conservation efforts.

Here are a few links to help locate an orchid society near you:

• San Francisco Orchid Society
• SF Bay Area orchid societies
• Orchid societies around the world, including North America
• UK orchid societies
• European orchid societies
• Australian orchid societies
• New Zealand orchid societies
• South African orchid societies
• Japanese orchid societies

Still not convinced to check out a local meeting? Here are more convincing reasons from a recent San Francisco Orchid Society gathering —

The Million Orchid Project aims to restore Florida’s endangered native orchids. Scientists and volunteers at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden are tackling this ambitious plan. The famous Ghost Orchid is just one of Florida’s threatened species. Like other native orchids, it has become rare due to habitat destruction and illegal poaching. The Million Orchid Project wants to change that, even hoping to establish plants in urban areas like Miami. So how do scientists grow a million orchids? Fortunately, healthy orchids make lots of minuscule seeds. In the wild, most don’t survive, but in the right lab conditions, they can be grown en masse. After they’re big enough, they are attached to trees to mature naturally. Several hundred young orchids have already been transplanted in the wild. It will take a few years to see if they can reproduce on their own. Fairchild is modeling this ambitious project on the tiny tropical nation of Singapore, which has had great success reintroducing its own native orchids over the past 30 years. Will magical Ghost Orchids someday bloom in downtown Miami? Lots of orchid lovers sure hope so. In the meantime, seeing Ghost Orchids in the wild still requires a trek through a swamp.