It seems that the summer is really here…..it must be because the older members of greenhouse club are stuck in exams all day! Summer is the time that most tropical orchids do most of their growing as summer is the wet season in tropical climates.  So what should you be doing to keep your orchids […]

Having just returned from a two week trip to the Sikkim Himalaya I can’t help but notice the wonderful Himalayan orchids flowering in the Writhlington Orchid Project greenhouses. I feel that one of the best things about growing exotic plants in a greenhouse is the way it transports you to the world’s most exciting habitats.

One of the most popular tasks at Writhlington is pollinating plants to produce seed to use in the orchid laboratory. We produce most of our seed this way which means that we can be absolutely sure that seedlings are the correct species and keep photographs of the parent plants. The job of pollination goes the […]

Spring is the best time of year to repot and split orchids and at Writhlington spring starts early. One plant that needed drastic attention was this old plant of Odontoglossum cristatum. A lovely cool growing species from Colombia. It has been growing on the same piece of cork bark for about seven years and it […]

One of the real pleasures of having a greenhouse is escaping those cold gloomy winter days into your own little tropical paradise. This morning I escaped to Brazil thanks to Sophronitis cernua. I had the pleasure of seeing this species in the wild on our last school expedition to the Brazilian costal forest (Mata Atlantica) […]