Episode 240: slipper orchids and orchid societies
Malcolm Moodie with some of his orchids. Photograph: Jane Perrone.
Transcript
Episode 240
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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast! In this week's show we're putting on our finest pair of slippers! It's episode 240, I'm your host Jane Perrone and I visit orchid specialist, Malcolm Moodie, in Oxfordshire, to find out all about Paphiopedilums and Phragmipediums; two types of Slipper Orchid that are absolutely gorgeous. I find out why we should all be getting signed up for our local orchid society, plus I answer a question about Fluval Stratum -- no, it's not a character from the latest iteration of Star Trek; it's a substrate!
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Jane: Thank you to Gina, Sarah, Catherine and Maria for becoming Ledge-ends and to Alice, who upgraded from Ledge-end status to Superfan. Thank you all of you five lovely people for supporting On The Ledge on Patreon! If you want to join their clan, check out the show notes at janeperrone.com to find out what it's all about. It's your way of unlocking extra exclusive content, ad-free versions of the show and the upcoming Christmas mail-out, where you get a handwritten card from my good self! So do check that out if you want to support the show on Patreon. You can also leave a review, tell a friend or buy some merch. My hand lens gang T-shirts are available now from my shop, which you'll find by clicking on the link entitled 'Shop' at janeperrone.com from the top right-hand corner navigation. It's ludicrously simple!
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Jane: Now, when I promised you more orchid content a couple of weeks ago, I was not lying! In this week's episode, I travelled to Oxfordshire to visit the wonderful Malcolm Moodie and find out all about how he grows award-winning orchids, in particular from the genera Phragmipedium and Paphiopedilum and if you're a Patreon subscriber at the Ledge-end or Superfan level, you can go and check out the latest episode of An Extra Leaf, where I talk to Malcolm about Masdevallia, another orchid genus that he grows extremely well. So let's step inside the delightfully sheltered environment of an orchid greenhouse to find out more about these beautiful Slipper Orchids.
Malcolm: My name is Malcolm Moodie, I've been growing orchids for about 35 years and I'm currently chairman and vice president of the Solihull & District Orchid Society.
Jane: Malcolm, it's a delight to be in this greenhouse surrounded by lovely orchids and I want to hear about everything, but give me an outline of what your collection specialises in and why you've chosen those particular genera to concentrate on because, obviously, the orchid family is huge!
Malcolm: Well, obviously we're standing here in the intermediate end of the greenhouse. For those that can't see, I have a long greenhouse which is divided into two halves, we're in the intermediate end, as I said, and in this end I grow Phragmipediums and Paphiopedilums. Both Lady's Slipper Orchids come from different parts of the world but look very similar and the temperatures and conditions are set up for them specifically. The cooler end of the greenhouse, which we'll go into shortly, I grow primarily Masdevallias and Oncidiums which both come from the Andes and fairly high up and that area needs to be a lot cooler than the one we're currently standing in.
Jane: This must be a long-standing passion, Malcolm, because you've got a big collection here and I've been told that you are a multi medal-winning grower, so where did this all begin? Were you a childhood orchid grower, or when did this kick in for you?
Malcolm: I was definitely not a childhood orchid grower. My father was a National Standard Chrysanthemum grower and exhibited all over the country and, as a family, we were dragged hither and thither going to shows and my father was extremely successful. He got to the stage where he felt that he couldn't do any more in that particular field and decided that he'd give that up and do something different. A neighbour, in fact, lived opposite us had an orchid collection and he was getting very elderly and he said to my father, "Would you like to buy my orchid collection?" So my father did and he bought his whole greenhouse and all the plants, all in one go! He never really got to grips with growing orchids but it became a big obsession for him. I didn't want to grow orchids! In fact, I didn't want to do anything in the gardening world because I'd been forced to as a child and I told my father I would concrete over my first garden, but I didn't want to do any gardening! Of course, that's not the way it worked out and as soon as I bought my first house I became very interested in gardening, growing anything and I'd learned huge amounts from my father, despite my reluctance. When we moved here, 40 years ago, my father would come up and stay and he'd say, "You know what you need son, is some orchids!" I said, "Well, I don't, Dad!" and he said: "Yes, you do!" Over a period of time he would just turn up with them. I'd put them in the greenhouse and they were mixed in with fuchsias and geraniums and tomatoes and anything else and they didn't grow that well and I knew nothing about them. I decided that either I would throw them all away, or do it seriously, and as you can see, standing here, I took it on seriously and I decided I'd build a proper orchid greenhouse, which I did, and this then became my obsession!
Jane: Did your father live long enough to see his prediction come true?
Malcolm: Yes, he did. Unfortunately he's not around any more and I recently named a plant after him. It would have been lovely if he'd have still been alive. I also named a plant after my mother this year and she's no longer with us either. But he did see the greenhouse, not quite as good as it is now, but he did see it and he was really proud of it. In fact, he ended up learning quite a bit from me because it became my obsession rather than his and because I'm younger, I was able to learn so much more and apply it. He only came to orchids when he was in his 60s, whereas I came to orchids when I was in my 30s. If you get started early, you obviously learn a hell of a lot over that time and you're able to produce much better plants if you're given time. Orchids grow slowly. If you specialise in growing brussels sprouts, you can sow your brussels sprout seeds and eat the brussels sprouts all in one season and the job's done. With orchids, you need multiple years to get the plants into a situation where they're producing lots of flowers and that they're show-ready and you've got to be patient. If you're not patient, orchids really aren't for you.
Jane: That is a top tip. Here we've got some very large Phragmipediums, this type of slipper orchid, let's start with these. They're very beautiful. We've got a few in flower here. Tell me a little bit about this particular genus and where it comes from and what it offers, as an orchid.
Malcolm: Well Phragmipediums all grow in South America. You won't find them anywhere else on Earth. Nearly always, they're growing on steepish banks with water trickling through them because the Andes are high up, it's very wet, you get an awful lot of precipitation and the fresh clean water is cascading down from the mountain all the time. So this particular genus needs to be grown wet. I grow them in rockwool cubes and hopefully some of the people listening to this will know what I mean when I talk about rockwool cubes. They soak up a large amount of water and, therefore, the roots are always in water. If you grow them in something that's much drier, say, for instance, a bark mix, you need to water them almost every day and I don't really wish to do that because it just takes so much time. Others, stand them in bowls of water, but the problem with that is that the substrate you're growing in will tend to rot and you'll end up with other problems, whereas with rockwool cubes being an inert material, they don't rot. The downside is that they do hold nutrients and so you have to flush them regularly, otherwise you get salt build-up. If you remember to do that, and I do mine once a month and I collect the water and measure the water to see what level of nutrients have been retained, but I flush them with clean water once a month. I don't suffer a problem.
Jane: You've got a top dressing of grit?
Malcolm: It's coarse grit and the reason I do that is, if you grow things in rockwool, you'll end up with an awful lot of mosses and algaes growing on the top, which look very unsightly. So I top-dress them with grit for two reasons: one, to stop that, but also to reduce the evaporation from the rockwool cubes.
Jane: What do the roots of these actually look like?
Malcolm: The root systems on all the Lady Slipper Orchids are hairy. They're not like Phalaenopsis roots, which we're all familiar with, which are very, very smooth and these are hairy. On the Phragmipediums in particular, if they're growing in wet conditions all the time, they will produce huge quantities of roots. The roots will actually make the pots bulge. It's the sort of thing that you see on Cymbidium. Cymbidium are grown in plastic pots also. They show a lot of bulging because they just produce so much root mass and these do. The downside of that is you're constantly in a position where you've got to pot them on or split them up. They do grow very quickly and, as you can see, these plants are large and most of them will get to this sort of size if you let them, if you're growing them well, with lots of flowers. The one that you're standing in front of has got six flower spikes on, with about eight flowers out at the moment.
Jane: Wow, yes, that is really stunning! They do have the most beautiful flowers, these Slipper Orchids! Is there any one of these that's a particular favourite of yours, either in flower or not?
Malcolm: The one that is my favourite is this one here. It's not in flower at the moment. This is called Phragmipedium Bouley Bay but this received an AM, an award of merit from the RHS, and is named after my daughter, Amanda. Effectively, it was the only one in the world! Nobody had ever seen this particular flower before! It just happened to be a chance mutation from a hybrid that was made by the Eric Young Orchid Foundation a few years ago. They've had awards for it, but not for this particular colour because they'd never seen this colour before. I've managed to divide it a number of times and there are about a half-a-dozen of them elsewhere, including in a nursery in Germany that's been propagating it. It's unfortunately not in flower, so you can't see it, but I can show you an image later on of what it looks like, and that's by far my favourite because it's obviously named after my daughter. It's always very difficult to pick out a favourite because they're all favourites when they're in flower, aren't they? I love them all. If I didn't love them I wouldn't grow them, but because one's named after my daughter, it does add a certain added value to me.
Jane: Coming from the Andes, presumably they're not a genus that requires hugely high temperatures? They're probably quite high elevations, therefore lots of humidity but not too hot? What are the conditions you keep this particular area in?
Malcolm: They grow in the Andes but they don't grow as high up as the Masdevallias that we'll talk about later. So they do need a reasonable warmth and these are growing alongside their sister genus Paphiopedilums which do need a reasonable amount of warmth because they grow quite a lot lower down, but in Southeast Asia. They're not hot growers. If you were growing Vandas, for instance, it would be far too hot for these, but if you're growing Phalaenopsis and Cattleyas, the Phragmipediums will grow perfectly happy alongside them.
Jane: Let's move on to talk about the other side of the bench, where you've got the Paphs, as we call them, and you've got quite a few of these in flower. It looks like you've got two styles of foliage here; the dark, spotty foliage and then the mostly plain green. Is that telling us anything about slightly different conditions needed for those two types of leaf, or is that irrelevant to their care?
Malcolm: Before answering that question I would just like to draw a comparison between the Phragmipediums we've just been talking about and the Paphiopedilums that we're now facing. The Phragmipediums behind us are so much larger. It's very distinctly obvious that the Phragmipediums are big growers. They grow very quickly, produce a lot of root mass and lots and lots of leaves. They are in water all the time. The plants we're now talking about, Paphiopedilums, are semi-terrestrials. The roots don't go down into the soil, the roots scrabble around underneath the leaf litter, but most of them grow on the ground. There are a few epiphytic ones... that, for instance, is an epiphytic. It's Villosum and you'll only ever find it on a tree. There are only three species of tree it grows on, funnily enough, and they won't grow on any other tree, but most of these are semi-terrestrial. They grow on the ground. You mentioned about the leaves, the ones with tessellated leaves, a lot of people think they're variegated. They're not. It's called tessellation and you've got blotchy patches on the leaves. It makes them, in many respects, more attractive because when they're not in flower they still look like an attractive houseplant. Whereas the ones that are green, well they're a bit boring, aren't they? They all grow in similar sorts of conditions. The ones that have got tessellated leaves tend to grow in more shady conditions than the plain green ones. They all grow in the same way, they all have the same characteristics and the same cultural requirements.
Jane: If the leaves are boring, you cannot say that about the flowers which are these incredible combinations of different colours, textures and shapes. I can't really describe these. I'm sure you'll do a much better job, Malcolm, of describing these incredible flowers.
Malcolm: These were one of the first orchids that were brought into cultivation and, if you go back to the Victorian times when these were in their heyday, people called them Lady Slipper Orchids. They called them that because they've got this pouch at the front of the flower and if you look at them closely, you'll see that you could imagine a lady's foot slipping into the pouch and so they became known as Lady Slipper Orchids. The one that actually displays that characteristic the best is Paphiopedilum concolor. I haven't got it in flower at the moment, but it really does look like a slipper. Then, after that, they all call them Lady Slipper Orchids, regardless of whether they were Paphiopedilums, Phragmipediums or Cypripediums and they're all related. They all have the same characteristic of having this pouch and many people think that makes them carnivorous, but they're not carnivorous at all, but it is a methodology by which the plant has evolved to take advantage of insect pollination. Basically what happens is an insect will go into that pouch and it find it very difficult to get out because there are hairs on the inside of that pouch which stop the insect being able to climb out, but there is a path that runs up the back of the pouch and at the top of the pouch you'll see there's a little round disc, which is called the staminode, and behind that is where the pollen is. The insect climbs up the back of the flower, because it is the only way out, and it pushes through with its head and, as it does so, it picks up the pollen on the back of its head and then comes out and flies off and finds another flower which it then cross-pollinates with. It's a very neat adaptation. How many millions of years it took to get there, who knows, but all of the Lady Slipper Orchids have that same adaptation.
Jane: As you say, how on earth did that evolve? It is incredible. I always think of Slipper Orchids having one flower, but actually, you've got several here that have got several flower spikes on them. Obviously people often buy these from a garden centre, say, in flower and then get to that point when the flower, which lasts a very long time, finally dies back and then one's left wondering, "Is that ever going to happen again?" What's the care regime that allows you to bring your Paph back into flower?
Malcolm: The first thing you need to do once a flower has faded and died is to cut the old flower spike off. You need to cut right back down to the base because it's not going to do anything, it just looks unsightly. Then what you've got to do, is to love that plant and look after it carefully and, hopefully, within 12 months, it will flower again. As long as you water it reasonably regularly: once a week, probably, in the summer; once every ten days in the winter. If you're growing in-house on the windowsill, your conditions might vary a little bit, so you may have to vary that, but if you're growing them like that and fertilising them regularly with a good quality fertiliser, there's a good chance that you'll get that plant to re-flower in a year's time. Generally, I find, in talking to people, growing Paphiopedilums indoors on a windowsill is more tricky than it is if you're growing in a greenhouse. There are some orchids, as we know, Phalaenopsis, which we see everywhere - they're ubiquitous now - they grow very well in house-conditions and they've been bred to do, so they're very tolerant of whatever we throw at them. But Paphs are a little bit more tricky, especially if you're growing a specie; a specie has a specific set of requirements, which a hybrid doesn't. The Phalaenopsis we grow are complex hybrids and that's probably why they've been bred in such a way that they can cope with almost anything we throw at them. I think if anybody's going to choose Paphiopedilums to grow indoors on a windowsill, they need to pick a hybrid rather than a specie because it will be easier to grow. The last thing you want is to spend good money on a Paphiopedilums plant, which are generally more expensive than most others, and then you kill it; that'll put you off growing it! So buy a hybrid and you've got a much better chance of getting success.
Jane: I can see that the substrate is different from the Phragmipediums. Tell me what these are planted in?
Malcolm: Generally, all of the Paphiopedilum will be growing in a bark substrate. The bark grades will vary depending on the size of the plant. So something like that, that is a specie: Niveum. It never grows very big and it always stays that sort of size. I would use, generally, a finer substrate for that than I would this Villosum, which is a very much bigger plant and this grows as an epiphyte anyway and therefore doesn't need so much water at the roots. So you can get two or three different grades of bark and make up mixes that suit the particular plant that you're growing. The only other thing that you may notice, is that some of them have got limestone chippings in them. Some of the Paphiopedilums grow on cast limestone in nature and therefore they grow at a much higher pH than a typical plant does. We all know that bark is acidic and so the way to solve that problem, or counteract that, is to add lots of limestone chippings to try and increase the pH. If you don't do that, the lime-lovers tend to wither and die. If you're growing hybrids, generally, that becomes less of a problem than it does if you're growing a specie, as a specie does need very, very specific conditions. If you decide you want to grow a specie, you need to research to find out whether they're lime-lovers or not lime-lovers.
Jane: That makes perfect sense. As you say, you don't want to waste money on a plant that then doesn't make it. I've had problems with that. I've got a couple of hybrids which I managed to rot the roots of and I think the reason was they were quite small and my bark substrates grade was too big. They had a lot of root rot. I've cut off all the roots, I've put them in a glass of water because I don't know what else to do. Is there any way of saving them now they've not got a lot in the way of roots? Just asking for me, selfishly, while I'm here!
Malcolm: It does depend on which genus we're talking about. Are yours Phalaenopsis, or are they Paphiopedilum?
Jane: No, they're definitely Paphiopedilum. They're Paphiopedilum hybrids.
Malcolm: Fortunately, Paphiopedilum will flower when they have no root at all.
Jane: Oh, wow! Okay!
Malcolm: So even if you've lost all your roots, for some reason, I don't know why they do it, but they are able to flower without any roots! What you need to do, is you need to put them into a permanent substrate, so a bark of some kind. The fact that you said they were rotting and then you said you used a coarse bark, it's a little bit of a contradiction, really, because normally that happens when you're using a finer bark, where you've got less air spaces but more opportunity for it to get wet.
Jane: I think what I was doing was I was trying to compensate for the fact that I'd used coarse bark and giving them too much water. I think that's where I went wrong.
Malcolm: I think if the plant has got no roots on now, then you probably do need a fairly fine substrate. You still only need to water them, probably, once a week. I can show you an example here, somewhere. Here is a plant that's actually got some sphagnum chopped up as well and it was because this plant was a division that actually fell off when I was repotting it and it had virtually no roots. So I made up a much finer mix, as I say this has got a sphagnum in it as well, and that just means that the substrate stays wetter, but I may not water that for two or three weeks depending on what it feels like. I watered this on Monday and it still, as you can see, is very wet. So the next time I water in here, this will not get watered because it won't need to and it may go a month without watering. The important thing is that you've got water at the roots and that'll allow the root system to start to get away. When I knock that out, hopefully in a year's time, they'll have a decent root system on it.
Jane: I'll take your advice and I'll let you know how I get on!
Malcolm: The same applies if you're doing any seed-sowing and there's some seeds that were sown a few years ago, this is actually seeds of plants that I actually sowed, and this is growing in a much more closed mix, with very fine bark and with sphagnum. As you can see, we've got nice new leaves coming now, they came out of a flask about six months ago and that's quite a trauma for them because they've come out of a very, very controlled environment into an open environment and it takes a little while for them to settle. If you try to grow these in plain bark, they will dry out and just die.
Jane: As you said at the beginning of the interview, patience is all, because if you're growing from seed, you've got to be looking at the long game and waiting for them to mature. But that's part of the joy, isn't it, of getting to know plants and there's no better way of getting to know plants than growing from seed, I always think? Are there any other particular Paphs here that you want to tell me about, that we haven't already covered?
Malcolm: There are a couple. I mentioned to you, when you asked me about how I got into this and I talked about my parents and how they influenced me. This particular plant, with nice, tessellated leaves, is named after my father. It's a bright yellow plant. I've got pictures of it indoors. It had five flower spikes, with five perfectly formed flowers similar in colouration to that one and that received a Cultural Commendation certificate this year, from the RHS. Behind you, is this plant here . . .
Jane: Yes, I meant to ask you about that.
Malcolm: . . . which is now beginning to lose flowers, but that's Paphiopedilum Saint Swithin and that was named after my mother because that also was given an award by the RHS and another Cultural Commendation certificate. Those two plants, for me, are very important because obviously they're now my mum and dad, in this greenhouse, and they were the ones, particularly my father, who got me into this mad hobby that I now I'm so obsessed with I can't stop growing them!
Jane: That is a real showstopper. Those incredible flowers... the colour is quite subtle. It's sort of a cappuccino and very, very dark brown, or maroon, but it's just that incredible shape and the number of blooms you've got on there is impressive.
Malcolm: Well there's a lot less blooms now than there were. A lot of flowers have fallen, unfortunately. That went to Wisley, to the RHS Orchid Committee, in August, and here we are now, right at the end of September, and four or five flowers have withered and fallen off. So it's not at its peak. I can show you a picture when it was and it was absolutely stunning when I took it to the RHS. Funnily enough, the day before I went to take it to the judging committee, I was told the rules had changed about bringing plants into Wisley and they've got to be in a box or wrapped to be completely secure, so that they don't bring any bugs into the garden. It took me an hour to wrap that so that I could get it into the garden. I was worried I was going to lose or damage flowers but, fortunately, touch wood, I didn't.
Jane: It's an absolutely beautiful specimen and a real credit to you, so I'm really delighted to have been able to see that. Is there anything else we need to know about? I'm just trying to think if we've covered everything about this particular group of orchids that's relevant? We haven't tackled pests. I guess it's the same story as any as any orchid really - you've just got to keep your eyes peeled and keep on top of things? Do you have any special regime for pests in here?
Malcolm: Well, the best regime is your eyes. You've got to look at your plants regularly. I pick up every single plant in this greenhouse once a week. When I water, I pick up every plant and I water it individually. I don't try and do something with a lance, walking around, just watering everything quickly, because you don't get the opportunity to pick up the plant and have a look at it and see if there's anything going wrong. Certainly, if you've got pests, you've got to deal with them quickly. You have to remember that growing in a greenhouse of any kind is perfect conditions for pests to proliferate, so once you get one, you will have millions, and I mean millions, in a very quick time, and so spotting them early and spraying them early is a really good thing to do. I know a lot of people are very nervous about using pesticides and insecticides, and I fully understand that and many of them, of course, have now been banned in the UK, certainly for hobbyists' use, but I still do use pesticides. I find it's the only way to get rid of the problem. I normally take plants out, I don't spray them inside the greenhouse, I'll take them out in the fresh air so that I'm not breathing in the pesticide, spray them, give them a good soak of whatever it is I'm using and then bring them back in. Then I watch that plant very carefully over the following couple of weeks to make certain that I've solved that problem. Sometimes you have to take multiple plants out, anything that was near is likely to be infested, so you may have to spray half a dozen, or a dozen. I've even got to the stage where I've sprayed everything in here and it takes a long time to take them all out one by one to do it, but I don't like doing it when I'm present in the room because you're liable to breathe in some of the pesticides and it can't do you any good.
Jane: Yes. You're absolutely right though - it all starts with just looking and observing your plants really carefully, doesn't it? That is the key.
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Jane: Thanks so much to Malcolm for showing me his wonderful collection of orchids and if you are a Ledge-end or a Superfan, you can listen to my chat with Malcolm about Masdevallias now, over on the Patreon RSS feed app, or website.
Now it's time for Question of the Week and this one comes from Rowena who wanted to know about Fluval Stratum. What in the heck is Fluval Stratum? Well, I have a partial answer for you, Rowena. I know what it is and roughly what it's used for but I haven't tried it myself and that's where the listeners are coming in. If you have experience of using Fluval Stratum in a houseplant sense, then I'd love to know how you've found it. Let's go back to the basics; what is this stuff? Well, it's a black substrate, lightweight, has a lot of the same qualities as things like pumice. It's sold in the aquarium trade as a substrate for aquariums. It's often recommended for, I think, shrimp set-ups and for planting-up living aquariums, planted tanks.
So why are people in the houseplant world using it? Well, that porosity that it offers makes it, also, a good product for some houseplant uses. I've heard primarily of people using it for propagation, so placing some damp Fluval Stratum in the bottom of a prop box and using that to prop things like Hoyas. I've also heard of people using it like Pon, or pumice, as a substrate on its own. This product is probably on the expensive side, a bit like pumice here in the UK: probably going to cost you more per pound, or per kilogram, than, say, buying Leca, or houseplant compost. I've just looked it up on a website here in the UK that sells such things and it's selling here on swelluk.com for £9.20 for a 2kg bag. I think that's probably a little bit more than you'd pay for some of the other substrates available. I think that's because it comes from a very specific place. It's mined from Mount Aso, in Japan. I guess that means there's quite a limited range of places you can get it from and I expect that the production costs are quite high to get it out of the ground and transported around the world, which explains the high prices. The other thing to say about this substrate is, I think, that the pH level is on the low-side, so it's a little bit acidic, so that might work in your favour for some plants, but not in your favour for other plants - depends on what you're growing, I guess.
I'm going to get hold of some Fluval Stratum. They sell it at my local aquarium shop, so when I get the chance, I will head down there and grab some and I'll report back on what I find, but I'd really be interested to know how you use it and what your thoughts are. So I hope that helps, Rowena, and hopefully we'll get more of an answer from you when I've heard back from some listeners about how they find Fluval Stratum.
Now, Part Two of my orchid interview and one of the things that I always try to promote on On The Ledge is plant societies, and orchid societies in particular, and orchid societies are in trouble in the UK. It's probably the same in other parts of the world too. Falling membership is meaning that some branches are closing and yet there's so much to be said for joining one of these societies. So in the second part of my interview, Malcolm is joined by Lina aka @salaite on Instagram, who is an orchid grower and is training to be an orchid judge. I chatted to them about why you should be joining an orchid society.
Lina: My name's Lina, I am the youngest person in the Solihull and District Orchid Society and I've spent a good, probably, fifteen years there. I'm training to be an orchid judge as well.
Jane: We're here to talk about orchid societies because this is so important. If anyone has listened to the podcast much in the past they'll know I bang on about joining plant societies. Orchid societies are struggling at the moment, I think it's fair to say. There's quite a fair few that are struggling for members, struggling to keep going. Can you just tell me a little bit about what you get out of being part of an orchid society and what you think it offers to somebody who's getting into this particular family of plants?
Lina: I joined an orchid society after the advice from the Gardeners' World programme that I was watching when I was 20 years younger. I'm really glad that they've done this advice and I've actually done it and I've gone and found my local society and went in with the biggest hybrid that I bought in Tesco. I never turned back because the amount of advice I got, the amount of support and it just proves now that they've all trusted me to train for the judge, because you've got to be recommended to be able to do that, so it is a lot of knowledge you gain just by going every month and just speaking and the talks that are organised, but just the random chat can give you so much information. You go back and you transform everything! Then you see that it doesn't work and then you do it again!
Malcolm: If I could add, I've been talking about my experience of over 30 years growing orchids, but when I started, I was in exactly the same position as Lina. I had a few plants that were foisted on me by my father, I didn't know much about them, I bought a couple of books, but they didn't really tell me too much. I went along to the Solihull and District Orchid Society, 30-odd years ago, and I met lots of very experienced, knowledgeable and interesting and friendly people and they helped me enormously go from being a novice to being a lot more experienced. The beauty of going to an orchid society is you get the chance to meet lots of people who have grown orchids for many years. They can help you solve problems that you would never ever get the answer to if you've just picked up a book.
Jane: Exactly. I think the younger generation also just tends to default to Googling things, looking on social media and lots of the older more experienced growers aren't on social media, they're not sharing tips there, so that's why a society is so great. The other aspect of societies that I love, and I'm guessing this is the same with orchid societies, is that you go to a meeting and there might be a sales table, there might be an annual show where you can go and buy plants. It's a great place to buy plants, right?
Malcolm: Yes.
Lina: It is and auctions as well. You can get plants for 50p, which are in good condition and then you never get it anywhere else, anything like that. You get potting demonstrations, you get Christmas dinners together, which is also a good thing. It's a really good time, to spend time with people that have the same interest.
Malcolm: One of the big things about doing things live, say, for instance, you have a plant that's not doing very well, if you're on a Zoom call, you can hold this plant up, but you can't really see it. I get that a lot when I'm on Zoom calls and it's very difficult to diagnose and provide any information as to how do you remedy that problem. If you bring it along - in fact, I know that there's a member that is bringing two plants to the meeting tomorrow, for me to look at - you can see the plant, you can hold it up, you can look at it, you can figure out what's wrong with that plant and then you can give very, very specific advice to the grower as to how they can remedy that problem and how they can grow that plant better. You can never do that online.
Jane: Absolutely, I agree with you. There's no substitute for being able to actually hold that plant, get a close look at it and see exactly what's going on. Even from just the weight of the pot and looking at the texture of the leaves, there's so much you can learn, isn't there? As you say, plant people are, on the whole, massively in love with sharing their knowledge; they want to share it. What about somebody who, maybe, is younger and is thinking, "Oh, I feel I'm a bit anxious and a bit socially awkward about turning up to a meeting where I don't know anybody"? Have you got any tips, Lina, as somebody who's done this?
Lina: As I say, probably it's my character, but when I turned up with a big hybrid Oncidium, and one of the members saw it and said, "You're probably not even as old as my plant that is in the greenhouse," and I was, like, "Yup!", I went there to learn and it's always people that could be my grandparents, the same age, but I always find conversation because we've got the same topic to talk about. That's what we're all there for. To be honest, I'm really interested in finding out how different people are and I'm not always the one who likes to hang out with my age group.
Malcolm: I think it is a very daunting thing for somebody to turn up, especially if they're on their own, and maybe sometimes they come as a couple, but just turning up at a meeting with all these strange people, you don't know any of them, are they going to engage me, are they going to talk to me, are they going to welcome me? Obviously, if you turn up and nobody does welcome you then, of course, it reinforces the feeling, "Well, I don't really want to be here" and I think the advice to anybody that's involved in an orchid society, or indeed any other type of society, is to welcome people who are new, bring them in and share with them and make them feel at home and welcome. There's a good chance that if they feel that you've been kind and welcoming to them, that they'll feel comfortable coming back. Once they've been two or three times and they've met other people, it becomes much more familiar and is no longer daunting and then you've got them then! They remain and they make lots of new friends that they would otherwise never have been able to make.
Lina: It became my orchid family, honestly! It's orchid family that I have and I'm a member of a Great British Orchid Society, I'm a member of Solihull's society and you get different benefits from different societies, being in them. As I say, many societies are about... there was a Birmingham society that closed recently, literally they have to close down because there's no new members, and old members, they either can't continue growing because they're too old, or there's no more people that want to be involved. It just needs the new people joining in and reviving because this has been happening for many, many years in the UK.
Jane: There are lots of other things that orchid societies and other plant societies do, in terms of supporting research, sometimes field trips, there's lots going on behind the scenes in the orchid world that societies are a part of as well, isn't there?
Lina: Yes. There is a Writhlington School that's doing that and then we have a school in Worcestershire that's doing this as well. They are teaching young children to... the wild orchids, that they participate in the projects to plant them out in the local woods. We organise a coach trip every year, that we go as a society, and we sometimes join two societies, three societies and we go to a place. It's a lot of information you get, it's a lot of activity you get to do.
Jane: Well, I really hope that lots of listeners are going to think about joining an orchid society as a result of listening. I know, in the past, when I've talked about other plant societies, I've heard from lots of listeners who said, "Yes, I joined! I went to my local meeting," so I really hope that it's the same for orchids and I'm sure it will be. It's just getting over that initial fear of actually meeting people in person, particularly, maybe, since the pandemic, when we've all been used to being on Zoom, the idea of going to an in-person meeting . . . As you say, you hopefully have a lovely, planty chat, there's usually a cup of tea and a biscuit available as well!
Lina: Always!
Jane: It sounds pretty... but that's part of the companionship and the joy of going to one of these groups, is that you can just stand around and chat, there's always something to learn, so I really hope that lots of listeners will be taking up the opportunity of keeping these wonderful orchid societies alive. We need them, don't we?
Lina: Yes, and they've been going for a good for 60 / 50 years, so there's no need for Covid to kill them off!
Malcolm: What it also does, is help you to build a network of friends. People that not only grow orchids, like you're interested in, but they also have other skills and other bits of knowledge and there have been many, many times I've been to the orchid society and I've been talking to somebody about a specific problem somewhere else in the garden, or maybe even in the house, they say,"I know about that. I know somebody who can fix that for you" and suddenly you've got this network of people that you can call on and you can solve problems that have got nothing to do with orchids! You're just building a network of people that are friendly and kind and supportive. That's one of the beauties of being a member of any society because it broadens your horizons, doesn't it?
Jane: Well, that's a great note to end on! Thank you, Lina and Malcolm, for talking to me about societies and long live the orchid societies!
Both: Thank you!
[music]
Jane: Thanks so much to Malcolm and to Lina. That is all for this week's show. Thank you so much for joining me. Just a heads up, there will be an episode next Friday, that's the 21st October 2022 and then I'm taking a break on the 28th of October 2022 for half-term, back on 4th November. So have a fabulously planty week everyone. Bye!
[music]
Jane: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll, by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids, by Komiku and Overthrown, by Josh Woodward. The ad music was Whistling Rufus, by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.
Subscribe to On The Ledge via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Player FM, Stitcher, Overcast, RadioPublic and YouTube.
I visit orchid grower Malcolm Moodie to find out about the slipper orchids of the genera Paphiopedilum and Phragmipedium, and why orchid societies need our support. Plus I answer a question about Fluval Stratum.
Patreon subscribers at the Ledge End and Superfan level can listen to An Extra Leaf 99 now, where Malcom and I talk about another orchid genus, Masdevallia.
Dates for your diary and more
EVENT POSTPONED - new date to be confirmed On November 7, I'm taking part in a panel discussion on houseplants at the British Library, along with James Wong, Carlos Magdalena and Mike Maunder. Indoor Jungles: The Story of the Houseplant starts at 7pm, and livestream and in person tickets can be booked here.
My Hand Lens Gang merch is available now! Check it out here.
Phragmipedium Bouley Bay 'Amanda'. Photograph: Paul Upwardt Paul Upward (@paul_upward_photography).
Check out the notes below as you listen…
Paphiopedilum Fumi's Delight ‘Bob Moodie’. Photograph: Paul Upward.
My guests in this episode are Malcolm Moodie, chairman and vice president of the Solihull and District Orchid Society, and Lina Salyte Smalinske aka @salaite on Instagram.
Phragmipediums
Phragmipediums are a genus or orchids that grow in the Andes of South America and usually grow on steep banks with water trickling through them, so they need to be grown wet.
Malcolm grows his Phragmipediums in rockwool cubes, which hold a lot of water, cutting down on the amount of watering required. Rockwool cubes hold onto nutrients, so Malcolm flushes his plants with clean water once a month.
Malcolm top dresses Phragmipediums with coarse grit to stop mosses and other things growing, and to reduce evaporation.
Phragmipediums have brown hairy roots and can produce huge amounts of root mass so that sometimes the pots will start to bulge.
One of Malcolm’s favourites is Phragmipedium Bouley Bay 'Amanda' (pictured above left) which is named after his daughter and has an award of merit from the RHS.
Paphiopedilums
Paophiopedilums are semi-terrestrial or terrestrial rather than epiphytic (growing in trees).
Their leaves can be ‘tesselated’ (patterned) or plain
green. The tesselated leaf species tend to grow in slightly shadier conditions.
Paphs have a pouch structure to their front of their flowers which inspired their common name, lady’s slipper orchid. An insect enters the pouch and is stopped from climbing out by its hairy walls. The pollinator has to take a particular path up the back of the flower, up the back of the pouch: as it leaves it picks up pollen after pushing past the disc-shaped staminode.
Malcolm plants Paphs in a bark substrate, the size of bark will depend on the Paph in question, its size and water requirements.
Species that grow in cast limestone grow at a higher pH, so Malcolm corrects the acidity of bark chipping by adding limestone chippings to the substrate of these plants.
Another favourite of Malcolm’s is P. Fumi's Delight ‘Bob Moodie’ pictured above right, and P. St. Swithin ‘Olive Moodie’ (pictured below).
Orchid societies
Malcolm and Lina are members of Solihull and District Orchid Society and the Orchid Society of Great Britain - you can search a list of other UK orchid societies on the British Orchid Council website.
Orchid Societies exist in many other countries, including the American Orchid Society, Australian Orchid Council, the Canadian Orchid Congress and the European Orchid Council. Let me know if your orchid society isn’t listed here and I’ll add it in!
Paphiopedilum St. Swithin ‘Olive Moodie’. Photograph: Helen Milner.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Rowena wanted to know how to use Fluval Stratum for houseplants. This substrate is marketed as an aquarium substrate and is a volcanic soil extracted from Mt Aso in Japan.
It’s dark in colour and highly porous, which has meant that houseplant growers have started using it as a substrate in prop boxes and as a mineral substate in the same vein as leca and pon. I haven’t used Fluval Stratum yet, but I am going to get some and will let you know how I get on. And I would love to hear from you - do you use this product, and if so, how do you use it for your houseplants? Comment or drop an email to ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com.
Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue.
THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR
Thanks to True Leaf Market for sponsoring this week’s show. Download their free cover crop guide here. Get 15% off cover crop seeds at trueleafmarket.com with promo code OTL15. This discount is only available for cover crop seed products. Offer expires end of December 2022. Limit one use per customer.
HOW TO SUPPORT ON THE LEDGE
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CREDITS
This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and Overthrown by Josh Woodward. The ad music is Whistling Rufus by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra.