With 4 months to go until we head off on our expedition to Rwanda, we are preparing the seed to take with us.
On this trip we will be setting up Rwanda’s first orchid propagation lab and training Kitabi students and staff before introducing orchids to Rwandan school children.
For effective training we need good healthy seed of species native to Rwanda and so this week we are going to be test sowing samples of all the suitable seed in our seed bank. We will let you know the results.
Thanks to me, Jacob and Josh all the seed samples have names just so we get to know them – go Frank the Ansellia Africana seed!

Another early Saturday morning takes us to the Cheltenham and Gloucester Orchid Show. Re packing the van with more sale plants and changing some of our show plants, we were off to set up another display and sales table with the help of a bacon roll! All our efforts paid off as we one The Best Species for ‘Arpophyllum spicatum’ or the pink bog brush orchid as we call it! And we also won The Best Hybrid for the primary hybrid ‘Dendrobium delicatum’ which filled the whole hall with its beautiful scent. It was fantastic to see our Cheltenham friends again and we all enjoyed the day very much!

What a stunning picture this is of the greenhouse and especially the rainbow in the background. What makes it even better is the dark sky behind and how well it curves over the top of the greenhouse.

Up bright and early this morning, we had to restock our sale plants and get the plants into the van. With help from Rosie’s dad, we were able to carry our two magnificent specimens of Coelogyne cristata and Coelogyne stricta. Once we arrived and unpacked, Rosie and Emily were in charge of our display as it is their first setup, brilliant practise for future shows! Although it was their first setup, what a beautiful display they have produced, well done Rosie and Emily!

After the students had done Orchid in a Box, learning about the structure of an orchid and had a go at micro-propping in the lab, we took them to the greenhouses to see if they could now spot and identify an orchid. We then got them to take a picture of them and print the picture on our new really snazzy portable printer. The students would then find out where their orchid comes from and put it onto a world map. It was really good fun, and everyone loved the portable printer!