Welcome to Vanda weekend – all of a sudden our greenhouses are full of flowering Vanda species (lucky us). We will be taking most of them with us to the Glasgow Orchid Fair (23rd and 24th April) so that others can enjoy them too.

Our first Vanda is Vanda denisoniana that flowers with us every April, just as it does in its native Laos.

All of our plants have been grown in our school laboratory from seed collected from cultivated plants in Luang Prabang, Laos, in 2006. We found plants growing in a back street in this wonderful city (a world heritage site) and were struck by the beauty of these subtle flowers.

The parent plant in Luang Prabang. (April 2007)

The plants had ripe seed and a small quantity collected was sown back at school in 2007. The majority of the seedlings were returned to Laos when we visited and helped Souk and Eddie set up their laboratory in Paksong in 2011 but a few were kept to grow a permanent seed source at Writhlington.

The plants have grown well but slowly and have been flowering every year since 2017. We grow the plants in baskets that allow their extensive roots to hang freely in the air. We spray plants daily throughout the year.

The species is found in primary forest from 450-1200m from Southern China, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. It is probable that the plants in Luang Prabang originate from the still heavily forested North Eastern Laos. The flowers have the added benefit of being beautifully fragrant in the evening.

Gongora tracyana is one of the smaller growing gongoras and a firm favourite amongst the orchid project students. Gongora tracyana is a really lovely plant with masses of small flowers on long spikes. The flowers are fragrant and seem relatively long lasting (just over a week). Sadly it came too late for the Wisley show last weekend and too early for the Glasgow Orchid Fair in just over two weeks time.

We grow all of our Gongora species warm to suit the natural environment that for this species is wet lowland forests in Panama and South America. All our gongoras are in baskets to allow the development of long pendulous flower spikes but this does mean that we need to water heavily to keep plants sufficiently damp.

An orchid collection is always full of surprises – flowers opening on plants you hadn’t even noticed were in bud – and today it is Eria amica.

Eria is a wonderfully diverse genus and Eria amica comes from a group of species with stout pseudobulbs that topped with several leathery leaves and multi-flowered spikes produced from the pseudobulb nodes. The flowers are really attractive with bright red stripes on a cream ground and a yellow mid-lobe to the lip and a lovely fragrance.

Eria amica is found across the Himalayas and South East Asia and we have come across the species in Sikkim and Loas. The species copes with a range of conditions from warm lowland forest at 600m up to cool evergreen forests at 2000m but all these habitats experience a warm wet summer and cooler dryer winters. Plants are small to medium sized and better behaved than many Eria species in cultivation in having a short rhizome and so staying in their pots rather than climbing across benches and into other plant’s pots.

First flowerings of species are always exciting, and today it is the turn of Phalaenopsis bastianii. This attractive species is small growing with glossy flowers reminiscent of Phalaenopsis fasciata (below) but with a different shaped lip.

Phalaenopsis bastianii is native to the Philippine islands of the Sulu Archipelago running between Borneo and the Philippines – the two main centres of Phalaenopsis diversity.

In common with most Phalaenopsis species, Phalaenopsis bastianii is a plant of shaded spots in hot lowland forest so appreciates growing warm and shaded in our Warm Asia section. We will be pollinating flowers after the Glasgow show, so expect seedlings in about three years from now (12 months as a seed pod and two years in flask)

Last week we featured the lrge growing and spectacular Schomburgkia splendida and today we have the even larger and more spectacular Scomburgkia lueddemannii. The species grows a pair of thick leaves above stout pseudobulbs which together reach 60cm. The flower spike lengthen during the spring and produce a mass (more than 20) of large glossy flowers around 1m clear of the leaves.

Schomburgkia lueddemanii is found from Venezuela to Costa Rica and is found in hot lowland forest. As a result it enjoys good light and high temperatures and we grow plants in large baskets hanging high in Warm Americas. It enjoys being kept well watered especially in the summer.

A remarkable characteristic of the species is the dark brown crinkled buds that always look dead before opening – a perfect mimicry to avoid juicy buds being eaten.

We love our giant orchid species like this one and are able to bring a few giant orchids to sell at the Glasgow orchid Fair 23/24th April. Check out yesterday’s post if you are interested.