Posted on by susurrus

Gallery Of Orchids From RHS Wisley’s Glasshouse

Pink boat orchids with a slipper orchid
Cymbidium (boat orchid) and Paphiopedilum (slipper orchid)
Pale Cymbidium orchid with darker splotches, spots and stripes
Cymbidium orchid with dark markings
Cymbidium Ming gx 'Pagoda' flowering at Wisley
Cymbidium Ming gx ‘Pagoda’

Pink flowered orchid: Cymbidium Gorey gx 'Faldouet'
Cymbidium Gorey gx ‘Faldouet’
Striped orchid flowering in the glasshouse at RHS Wisley
Striped orchid
Red Phragmipedium La Hougette gx at Wisley
Phragmipedium La Hougette gx
Orchid from the Cymbidium collection at RHS Wisley
Cymbidium orchid

I’ve only ever grown one orchid, in the days before I understood that not every plant we can buy will thrive in our conditions. It was a small but elegant white one, in flower when I bought it (and for weeks afterwards), that gradually became more and more unhappy. The summit of a wooden plant stand in a coolish Lancashire home compared poorly to life in a tropical forest. Since then, I have admired orchids where I’ve found them, leaving their care to people who understand them better.

RHS Wisley’s collection of Cymbidiums and other orchids was around the corner from The Giant Houseplant Takeover. The orchids were just as bizarre in their way.

I was most intrigued by the bottom three orchids: the frogs dressed up for a posh awards ceremony and left dangling for the results; the red one, its form a scarlet version of the tiny hummingbird nest my sweetheart found in his garden made of felted leaves; the last so decorative and sturdily constructed with its pouting, land-here lip.

Shared as part of Cee’s Flower of the Day. By coincidence, her choice today is an orchid too.

32 Replies to “Gallery Of Orchids From RHS Wisley’s Glasshouse”

  5. “Bizarre” is the very best word for orchids, not least because of their official names, both unspellable and unpronounceable. However, as you so poetically note, they do work the imagination wonderfully. Beautiful images!

    1. They have a glorious excess. If I had any talent as a cartoonist, I’d love to do a series on the slipper orchid ones. They cry out to be charicatured.

  6. All beauties! Love your descriptions. I’ll add one of my own. The orchid in the last photo looks as though it has been kissed by an actress from the 1940s, with her red, red lipstick.

  7. I always stare at orchids. It’s hard to believe they are real. I too have only made on attempt to grow one. It was a gift. I will be staring at this a few more times. Amazing!

  9. Winter is orchid time. Our local society has their show this weekend – always fun to see what is on display (and like you, I only tour the ‘for sale’ tables, knowing I’ll probably eventually kill any purchases 😉 ).

  10. They are beautiful and you have got some lovely photos of them, I always struggled in the tropical glasshouse with my lens steaming up.

    1. My iPhone doesn’t seem to steam up, perhaps because it comes out warm from my pocket. The orchids were like water birds – effortlessly beautiful above a certain level and a mad tangle below, so my main problem was trying to work out which label belonged to which plant and reading what was written on it. I’ll give myself 5/10 for that, but to get 10/10 I’d have had to wade in to them.

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