Garden Page

While at Ness Gardens last weekend the plant fair was my first stop. I am very unused to paying retail prices for plants and like to talk to knowledgeable growers about their products, so the regional plant fairs are great for me. With talk of a house move forever in the background I tend to be more cautious than I would like when it comes to buying plants but one stand excited me in particular and I spent my £25 pocket money on a pot of the American Lady’s Slipper orchid Cypripedium reginae.

Orchids have become increasingly popular houseplants, encouraged by price reductions resulting from modern breeding and propagation techniques. These days orchids are available for most of the year, even from the supermarket shelves and people who would not think of themselves of competent gardeners are surprised to find how easy orchids are to grow in the home.

The popularity of hardy orchids has not developed at the same pace but they are becoming more available and prices are starting to reflect this. Few could argue they do not deserve to be more widely grown. My Lady’s Slipper is a truly lovely thing and will be grown in a pot until we can find a suitable cool and shady spot for it in the garden.

This summer we went dog walking with friends on to the Downs between Luton and Barton-Le-Clay (Bedfordshire) with me pointing out the many species of native orchids to be found there. On my parents nursery in Cornwall we had a field which was impossible to cross without treading on Marsh Orchids, such was the density of plants growing there. Here, close to the office, there was a meadow with perhaps one hundred Bee Orchids in it, a wonderful sight in the summer until the farmer decide to ‘improve’ it by spraying weedkiller. Hardy orchids are not nearly as rare as you might think, but you have to keep your eyes open to spot them.

If you would prefer to cultivate these most gorgeous of plants and have them in your own garden, many are available through specialist nurseries. The nurseryman I chatted to at Ness Gardens offers over 75 different hardy orchids for sale and I have no doubt an internet search would throw up many other suppliers. Depending on type, hardy orchids are suitable for a wide range of garden conditions from damp shade to dry grassland and with some ideal for those wanting to establish wildflower meadows.

To remind me both of the West Country and of the Saville Gardens in Windsor (where I worked for a year), my next orchid purchase should be some of the showier Dactylorhiza Marsh Orchids, perhaps D. fuchsia, the common spotted orchid or better still, D. foliosa (from northern Madera) or one of its hybrids. These form clumps and may even seed themselves if they are happy, with spikes up to 50cm long, composed of many hundreds of individual magenta purple spotted flowers. Be the first in your neighbourhood to have them in your garden!

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• #2 Comment from pageelizabeth 
  18/01/07 10:42 | Permalink

  On reading your log on orchids, I felt you could give some feed back on the following : I have a large orchid which bloomed in March of 2006 I put it out in the garden as advised for the summer.  T o my surprise when I brought it into the conservatory for the winter there were two blooms opening up. This was October and has been in bloom ever since. Any comments!!  
• #1 Comment from susanebunn 
  10/09/06 08:58 | Permalink

  Thank you so much for including pictures of the Lady's Slippers and other wild orchids.  They're just beautiful.  I'm looking forward to visiting this area sometime.  
  
  Susan