Plain Dealer Night Picture Editor Jon Fobes has another wonderful Orchid Mania slideshow, featuring several stunning images from this year’s orchid show.

Everyone gets it around here. Each year I think I’ve developed a little immunity, or at least enough tolerance to act cool when the orchids start showing up for the annual Orchid Mania exhibit. But I’m caught up in the delirium every time, oohing and aahing over the dizzying variety of shapes, patterns, and fragrances. Even the bland, rounded petals of common moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) charm me again with subtle little variations between pale pink and rose-stained, dappled, striped, water-marked with primrose yellow, and jutting curlicued fuchsia lips.

Once I’ve gotten over the sheer impact of so many  flowers, the next phase sets in: Covetousness. Although it’s quite possible to maintain a collection of orchids in windowsills and under lights (many people do it!), you have to have the chronic form of orchid fever to devote yourself to doing it well. I have a handful of durable little orchids at home, but there’s really not a lot of room for more.

The solution for me is to collect with a camera. Digital photography makes it wildly easy to capture flowers in full color and stunning detail. I don’t need to be that good a photographer to collect a greenhouse full of images.  They bloom with the click of a mouse, I don’t have to water them, and I can keep them on my desktop, where pretty much everything else has withered and died. Only the fragrance is left to memory (more about fragrance, flowers, and memory some other time.)

Posted by Ann McCulloh

For Orchid Mania, we have many varieties of fragrant orchids on display this year. For the first time, we have an orchid called Rhynchostylis (pictured left), aka the foxtail orchid. Its inflorescence is packed tightly with pink, red or white flowers almost resembling a hyacinth. It has a very sweet, citrusy scent that at first I couldn’t place. I wasn’t even convinced that I liked the fragrance. But then my husband said it reminded him of the scent of Osage-Orange fruit, also known as Mock Orange (but the slang is much more fun: monkey brains). Since then, every time I walk by Rhynchostylis, I have to smell it, because it has one of the most unique orchid scents. Another orchid that has a delicious scent is the so called chocolate orchid - Oncidium Sharry Baby. We’ll have a number of these orchids on display for your smelling pleasure!

Posted by Cynthia Druckenbrod                                                      

I recently read that the Phalaenopsis (Moth) Orchid is the second most popular house plant in the U.S. preceded only by the Poinsettia. And that makes perfect sense since I see Moth Orchids everywhere: the grocery store, the big box stores, garden centers, etc. What I find unfortunate is that many of these orchids are now treated as throw-away plants. Once the orchid is finished blooming, why keep it? I disagree. Moth Orchids are incredibly beautiful and easy to grow and can be kept in a typical windowsill, providing years of blooms. All you need to do is provide light from an east or west window, water once per week, sometimes twice, fertilize every other week and re-pot it every two years. If you’re not familiar with growing these orchids, that’s just another reason to come to the Garden this Feb. to learn how you can grow colorful Moth Orchids.

Posted by Cynthia Druckenbrod

All this week, we are busy preparing for our fifth annual orchid show - Orchid Mania: The Seductive Orchid. We have a different theme every year, and this year I took my inspiration from a book titled Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale and Love, Lust, and Lunacy by Eric Hansen. It’s a fabulous book that details how the world of orchid fanciers is a strange, wonderful and sometimes sinister place. We will have some of the orchids that Hansen mentions here at the Garden from Saturday, Feb. 9 - Sunday, March 9. This is not your typical orchid show. You’ll see orchids that you’ve never seen before, like the 12-inch long petals of Paphiopedilums (slipper orchids) and the glittering leaves of Jewel orchids. We will be showcasing orchids that have different fragrances. Some of my personal favorites are the Zygopetalums (see picture). They have a very unique, spicy scent that is just intoxicating!

Posted by Cynthia Druckenbrod