|
Newsletters |
|
October Meeting Jeff Hutchins of Laneside Hardy Orchids was our speaker for this month, He owns and grows the biggest selection of hardy orchids in Europe and has been doing them for 8 years. He started out in 1989 with alpines it was by pure chance that he got into hardy orchids. He grew them in the garden, cold frames and cold greenhouse. They are expensive to buy, myth has it that they are difficult to grow but that not being the case.Many thousands are being grown in laboratories in Europe. Outside of Europe need cites and phyto sanitary certificates. What age to buy the plants? When they have had two full years in the soil with Ophrys, Orchis, Anacamptis, and Cypripediums. Buy ones that have all ready flowered. Growing and understanding species -.Different annual life cycles require different cultivation. You have Vegetative types, Bunia rhizome, annual finger tubers, Oval annual tubers/rosettes, and pseudo bulbs. One thing you must not do is, kill with kindness. Terrestrial orchids are adapted to withstand low nutri regimes or periodic drought. They have a dormancy period when not above the ground. Mycorchigal fungus is not important as some authors point out. They will grow mostly anywhere. Species info Dactylorhiza (marsh orchid) Tuber is a food reserve, not root. In winter it lays dormant. Chop off any seed heads, only need the tubers, they like humus, do not like to be dried out, be in full sun or part shade. Ideal for borders, pond margins or grassland. Can be fed blood and bone meal. Elderflower Orchid. (yellow). Dacty Sambucina likes alkaline, damp soil, sunny / semi shade. Bletilla they like a damp organic rich soil or sandy loam in sun or dappled shade. Grow in ground or pots divide them in full growth regularly. Cypripediums –rhizome. Plant in large plastic pots or terracotta pots or plunge into the ground in cool semi shade. When they get seed pods take them off, don’t leave them on. The compost for pots should be pumice, grit bark perlite and leaf mould . Never let them dry out , and keep the buds and neck from getting water logged, not too wet or hot. Need feeding with a weak fertiliser and have a cold period during the winter. Asiatic cymbidium wintergreen species -.Lies dormant in summer with just its tubers, then starts growth in winter the non British species need winter protection. Anacamptis Pyramidalis– they flower in spring, lie dormant in August like alkaline free draining soil if in pots don’t allow to freeze causes neck rot. Ophrys Species– grow in alkaline, waste soil wet or dry some stay dormant for a year. Best grown in pots as need protection from winter frosts. It was a lovely evening with Jeff and his wife Sue who helped with the presentation. Lots of plants was for sale and quite a few members brought some.
No Matter Where You Go There’s a Mess
Plastic bottles, plastic sheets, paper, cardboard and other detritus are a blot on the landscape no matter where it is found. The glossy holiday brochure, full of wonderful perfectly clean near antiseptic photographs, cleaned up by the experts on a computer to remove anything that may tell the truth, and we all fall for it. It looks beautiful so it must be as we see it front of us, but nothing could be further from the truth. Rhodes is a different place, (like any other) if you move away from the popular tourist spots and walk off into the countryside. What once was a beautiful rolling valley is now a rubbish tip, any flora or fauna are long gone beneath mounds of plastic bags, tiles, fridges in fact all manner of household rubbish. Olive groves so pristine ten years ago now carry in the trees flags of polythene waste, bin bags caught and snagged on branches, plastic bottles rolling any which way at the discretion of the wind. Once a favourite toy, a headless doll lies in the blowing dust next to a door opening on to nothing eventually to be moved by a bulldozer over the precipice to slide down to oblivion and into a dry river bed. When it does rain, (and it will) this pile of now rotting conglomeration of humanity will start to decompose further, then, heated by the sun a rank fetid odour will drift at the whim of the wind across lands and into villages that lie close by. Rained on, heated up, decomposing further still, movement and collapse from weight will send more tumbling down the mountain side and in doing so releasing more smelly gases into the atmosphere, and not all good or safe gases. Some will be doing harm to the atmosphere and be a part of the so called global warming syndrome. So next time you browse a glossy holiday brochure say to yourself, “I wonder what the real Greece, France, Bulgaria or even a sea cruise, are really like?” especially on the other side of the fence. Dave Morgan.
|
|
November abridged newsletter |
|
Min.cymbid Little big horn |
