Two vies of the Orchid Project display before judging this morning. On one side we have the lab with have a go seedlings and the microscope, the other show cases our diversity of species. We have several really large specimen plants and we will post a look at those later in the day.

Our display features some very spectacular masdevallia species. These include the pink and white forms of Masdevallia coccinea.

This popular masdevallia species produces masses of large brightly coloured flowers in a range of colours including white, yellow, red and pink. It comes from Colombia and Peru where it grows in cool wet forest up to 3000m altitude. The long flower spikes hold the flowers well clear of the leaves for its humming bird pollinator.

We grow all of our Masdevallia coccineas in baskets and find that they enjoy the moist conditions and excellent drainage allowing the thick roots to flourish. Baskets also keep plants inaccessible from slugs and snails that are very partial to the root tips and new growths.

I am sorry to be posting the day’s news so late. We finished the display and sales table just in time for Preview evening at 6pm and were then rushed off our feet right through to the 9pm close.

Here is a photo of Joe, Otto and Zoe at the end of their 17hour working day (we left the greenhouse at 4am) with what could be our best ever London Show Display behind them. More details of the display will follow tomorrow when the light is better for photographs.

Preview started with the visit by of a delegation from Kuching (Sarawak), including the Mayor, Director and Deputy Director of the Development and Landscape Department who are keen to publicise APOC (Asian Pacific Orchid Congress) coming to Kuching in July, as well as learn more about the work of the Writhlington School Orchid Project before our visit to work with the MRSM School in Kuching.

 Kuching Delegation and Orchid Project

Our visitors were particularly interested in our propagation laboratory, and enjoyed re-plating their own seedlings in the laminar flow cabinet with expert instruction from Otto and Joe.

We have never had so many Dendrobium species on a London display and one that is bound to attract a lot of interest is this species.

This wonderful dendrobium is native to Southern China and South East Asia where it grows as an epiphyte at around 1100-1700m in seasonally dry forest. It is semi deciduous and flowers from new and old pseudobulbs together in a fantastic display of its intricate flowers with long filamented edges to the lip and petals. The flowers are produced in sprays similar to the closely related Dendrobium fimbriatum.

Books recommend a cool winter rest for the species and we keep the plant into Warm Asia (min 18C) when in growth and move it to Cool Asia for a rest when the growths are fully mature in late autumn. The cool rest then initiates an abundant flowering in late spring, although this year it is a month earlier than usual.

When we have kept the plant in Warm Asia throughout the year the flowering has been rather sparse in comparison.

We find the plant enjoys growing in a basket and with its extensive rooting we drop the basket into a bigger one when needed rather than causing lots of disturbance to the roots.

The flowers are sweetly fragrant and last about a week.

After an enjoyable first day of setup we have the bones of a lovely display thanks to the efforts of our brilliant set up team.

A new team arrived with the rest of the plants tomorrow. Do come and see how it turns out.