Over the past few weeks, I have traveled to The New York Botanical Garden and Longwood Gardens to see their orchid shows. The combination of scintillating colors, intoxicating fragrances and fanciful forms are always a welcome sight for my winter weary eyes. I love disappearing into these tropical havens and emerging refreshed and ready for spring.
This year in celebration of spring, I will be teaching an orchid class suited for beginners and hobbyists alike. As part of the class’s offerings, each participant will go home with an orchid of their choice and the option to buy more at cost. So far, the majority of the individuals who have signed up for the class have opted for a slipper orchid.
I always play favorites in the plant world, and the slipper orchid oscillate between first and third place depending on my mood (and the beauty of the orchid before me). My other top choices are dancing ladies, Oncidium and Zygopetalum.
I am taken in by any orchid with a nice perfume. Dancing ladies don’t always have a fragrance, but when they do it’s something along the line of chocolate, vanilla or even Hawaiian punch. Zygopetalum smell like hyacinths or lilacs – delicious but sometimes difficult to grow. There is no fragrance for the slipper orchid, but the flower will win you over.
Slipper orchids are undoubtedly on of the best choices for homeowners with low light levels in their home. The slipper orchid (Paphiopedilum) is indigenous to the forest floors in Asia, where it thrives in dappled light. Its delicate root system weaves through leaf litter and in your home it will flourish in a fine textured, free draining orchid mix that stays evenly moist.
Plants always have a good story to tell. The slipper orchid is no exception. It was named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love. As legend would have it, Venus was out hunting one day with her paramour Adonis. The two were caught in a thunderstorm and took shelter under a tree. During the lover’s tryst, Venus mislaid her slipper. It was magically transformed into the slipper orchid.
The European slipper orchid is commonly known as Venus’s slipper. The Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus dedicated the orchid to Venus by naming it Cypripedium – the genus name is derived from Cyprus (Venus’s sacred island) and pedilon meaning slipper. The Southeast Asian slipper orchid was named Paphiopedilum – derived from Paphos (an island with a temple devoted to Aphrodite) and pedilon.
If you would like to join my amorous participants for ‘Growing and Caring for Orchids’, we still have space available. The class will be taught at Greenwood Gardens on March 22. Click here to register online, or phone 973-258-4026.
If you are more of an outdoors person, our Wednesday morning volunteer program has started early this year due to the lovely weather. Please feel free to come join us at 9 a.m. on every Wednesday as we start cleaning up the garden in preparation for spring.
Sonia Uyterhoeven joined Greenwood Gardens as the Head of Horticulture in May, 2015. For over 10 years, she ran the Home Gardening Program at The New York Botanic Garden. Sonia has studied and worked in the UK and at the New England Wild Flower Society and Arnold Arboretum.
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