Can I start today by thanking the wonderful students who worked hard yesterday afternoon and evening for our September open evening. It was lovely to see orchid friends (old and new) as well.

Our Cattleya maxima ‘coerulea’ clearly wanted to be a part of our open evening and opened its grey blue flowers just in time. Cattleya maxima is a large flowered cattleya with elegant petals and a gorgeous veined lip.

Coerulea means blue but in this case the flowers are a pale grey version of blue but undoubtably beautiful.

Here is a reminder of out more normal pink variety.

Cattleya maxima is native to South America from Venezuela down to Peru. It grows in forests from sea level up to 1500m and so is warm growing.