We have some magnificent miniatures for the journey to Glasgow today, especially our Platystele species.

Platystele schmidchenii is native to wet forests from Peru to Colombia from 1000 to 2400m altitude and is rather extraordinary for the enormous amount of flower it produces on upright stems held well clear of the 2cm long leaves.

Our plants seem to be doing well mounted but I am sure they would also be happy in pots or baskets. The species is closely related to Platystele misasiana (below) that is also going to Glasgow, but with longer spikes and slightly larger brown and red flowers.

The species is at home in our Cool Americas section (min12C) with daily spraying.

Gathering plants for our display in Galsgow this weekend we are pleased to have Dendrobium densiflorum in flower.

Dendrobium densiflorum has to be one of the most dramatic orchids we grow, and we have been fortunate to see it flowering its natural habitat too. In Sikkim the species grows at around 1000m where it lives as an epiphyte generally in tall semi-evergreen trees with little moss as shown below. The high end of its range overlaps the lower end of Dendrobium nobile’s range and we have seen both species flowering together during April just as they do in our greenhouse,

We grow out plants mounted with heavy watering in the summer. This is one of the plants that section hops in the greenhouse to replicate its natural habitat. In the summer it grows its new pseudobulbs rapidly and we find it a home in Warm Asia where heat and heavy watering help it to grow long bulbs. Its native Sikkim becomes quite cool at 1000m in winter and so we move it for a fairly dry rest in Coll Asia from November until February. We then move it back to warm where the change in climate usually induces rapid flower development, taking about six weeks after the move.

Plants are very long lived and flower from older pseudobulbs so patience is required to grow a specimen – but it is well worth it as shown by the lovely specimen in the forests of Sikkim

I have just finished preparing plants for our Glasgow Orchid Fair sales table and am delighted to have 103 species on our sales list. Thanks again must go to my wonderful team of students and volunteers for all their hard work propagating plants in the lab and the greenhouse.

Some orchids, such as this species, are very straight forward to grow and always flower reliably.

This large growing Oncidium species is native to Central America where it is found as an epiphyte in dryish forest from about 500 to 1500m altitude. The plant grows new growths rapidly during the summer and then long spikes from the new pseudobulbs in the spring. Each metre long flower spike with side branches carries up to fifty bright and long lasting flowers.

We have seen the closely related species Oncidium spaculatum growing high in trees around Laguna Yaxha in Guatemala where they are exposed to bright sunshine and long dry periods. They cope with these tough conditions by growing a mass of roots which can collect and store a lot of water from rain or dew when it occurs. As a result plants are easy in cultivation and we have had specimen plants with more than twenty flower spikes. Oncidium wentworthianum is smaller growing than Oncidium sphaculatum and has smaller spikes and so is all around easier to accommodate in a collection.

We grow this species in Warm Americas (Min 15C) where it gets well watered in summer but a dryer winter after the bulbs have matured in late November. However we never let the bulbs shrivel.

The Easter holiday is shading time for our greenhouses at home. The larger greenhouse (left) is our cool house which gets external shading and the hot house (right) has internal shading, all in 50% shade net.

You will see that the sides of the cool greenhouse are permanently shaded by withy fence panels and that I have wooded bars above my lean too greenhouse allowing me to put shading well clear of the roof and vents. External shading is perfect for reducing summer temperatures in the greenhouse but I am aware that not every one has a tall ancient wall to build their greenhouse against. (This wall is from the former garden wall of a big house and our small garden was where the old glasshouses for vines were built)

Fixing the shading requires climbing onto the wall and using drawing pins to fix the shading onto the wooden bars – there is a lovely view from up there – and the shading has already lasted for twelve years.

The hot house has some natural shade from a field maple and internal shading is easier to do when keeping temperatures low is not so important.