Thanks to all who made this evening’s Orchid Christmas such a success. It was lovely to have so many visitors on such a cold and frosty evening and our volunteer team tell me that they really enjoyed meeting new people and talking about their plants.

It was lovely to see Pamela Young from Radstock in Bloom, (Photo shows Pamela awarding this years certificate of excellence to Writhlington pupils). We are really pleased to be part of Radstock’s Britain in Bloom effort every year.

Students Finlay Lisk and Lily Jones were featured on BBC Somerset this morning.

The two were interviewed along with Simon Pugh-Jones by Claire Carter on BBC Radio Somerset’s Breakfast programme and talked about their work with orchids as well as this afternoon’s Orchid Christmas event in the Greenhouse from 4-6.30pm (Thursday 15th December). The link to the Radio interview is here BBC Sounds and scroll to 2.54 into the programme to hear our bit.

Keep an ear out for us on BBC Somerset Radio on Thursday morning at 8.45 talking about this year’s Orchid Christmas event.  The event is 4pm-6.30 and we have lots of orchids available that will be flowering for Christmas.

Our next public event is our annual Orchid Christmas – with tours of the greenhouses and lab, orchids for sale (lots to flower for Christmas), a repotting service, and Christmas refreshments.

The event runs from 4pm until 6.30pm on Thursday 15th December. No need to book, just come to Writhlington School BA3 3NQ and follow the signs to the Orchid Project Greenhouse.

November is time for Post 16 Open Evenings and tonight the orchid team are part of the Somerset Studio School open evening for young people wanting to join us in the sixth form. Tonights display was designed by Erin, Jonah, Matt and Jude. Erin described it as “A diverse sparkling explosion of colours and scents” – he is not wrong.

Highlights include two Dracula species

Dracula bella and Dracula amaliae with their fascinating fungus mimic polination stratedgies.

We have two Cymbidium species and the flowers will be used for visitors to learn about orchid pollination.

Two Himalayan Autumn flowering Cymbidiums, Cymbidium tracyanum and Cymbidium erythraeum.

Other plants include Coelogyne barbata and an enormous Xylobium subintegrum.

This November has been very mild and wet and so we are only needing to water the greenhouse every few days. There is lots of autumn growth on many of our cool orchids from the Americas (Masdevallias, Pleurothallis, restrepias etc) and we find the autumn to be a good time to propagate species that enjoy this time of year rather than the stress of summer warmth and bright light.