Our Cool Asia section has several of our Vanda falcata plants in flower this week and we have plants for sale at the shop too.

This is a cool growing orchid from Japan with very fragrant flowers and we grow our plants in Cool Asia in baskets where we keep them wet in the summer and damp in the winter. For us the species flowers from June right through to September.

This species has been grown in Japan for a very long time. Vanda falcata is locally called Fūki-ran or ‘orchid of the rich and noble people’ because in Japan 400 years ago, only the rich and noble could afford to own the orchid. They were so prized that they would be covered with a gold or silver net to protect them and to admire the plant, people had to cover their mouths so they would not breathe on it – sounds familiar!!!

The long spur holds the nectar and the flowers are pollinated by moths. With the flowers so fragrant we not only encourage students not only to breath on the plants, but to have a good old sniff. This has been included in our Greenhouse Covid 19 Risk asserssment.

As you can see from the photos we have the utterly beautiful and more usual pure white form as well as a rare clone with pink spurs.