Our Autumn flowering Barkerias are coming into flower and promising glorious spikes of large flowers. Barkeria is a dramatic genus from Central America and at school we have four species and all of them have large spectacular flowers as well as interesting growth habits with masses of roots.

Barkeria lindleyana is found in from Mexico to Costa Rica in warm deciduous forest where it experiences a distinct dry season. It responds to the dry habitat by producing a mass of roots and growing tall canes rapidly during the summer growing season. The flowers are beautiful and long lasting.

We find that Barkerias need to be mounted to do well as the roots rot in pots and we hang the bark mounts high in Warm Americas where plants get bright light and dry out rapidly after daily spraying. Barkeria lindleyana flowers when quite young from shorter bulbs but as it matures produces longer and longer bulbs with more and more flowers.