Yesterday I visited Shepton Mallet antiques fair. On one of the stalls I found these beautiful, hand coloured  pages taken from a Victorian botanical book.  Before the internet, television or coloured photography, how wonderful it would have been to look at these coloured illuminations of new botanical discoveries from far away places. The colours are […]

Looking after the orchids in the Writhlington greenhouse is very rewarding.  I get to see beautiful orchids every day.  The  hot, humid weather this week seems to have encourage many orchids to flower. Below is Bulbophyllum guttulatum which lives in our Warm Asia section.  It grows from the Himalayas to Vietnam in monsoon forests at […]

I decided to water the greenhouse very early this morning .  It was lovely and cool at 6.30am compared with yesterday afternoon’s 40 degrees, in Cool Asia. I don’t think the Coelogynes and Dendrobiums mind too much as long as they had plenty of water. Whilst watering I always look for pests so that anything […]

Whilst watering at lunchtime today I noticed the Dendrobium jonesii orchids that were created when Simon split a larger specimen in the spring.  When in bloom the flowers are similar to Dendrobium speciosum but the orchid is smaller. Above is a photo of Dendrobium Jonesii and below Dendrobium speciosum. There are now a number of […]

Yes I know it is Saturday but it was gorgeous in the greenhouse.  The sun was shining and it was warm. inside.  I had gone there to water but got sidetracked by the enormous number of Restrepias that needed repotting.  Then I discovered all these Dracula deltoidea I didn’t know we had.  They do look […]