Orchid spotting

I HAVE had many horticultural enthusiasms, but I have never really caught the orchid bug. Better gardeners than me— rather more passionate plantsmen —have orchid houses with graded temperature zones for the different species: cool-ish is fine for cymbidiums, slightly warmer for phalaenopsis and steamy tropical heat for vanilla orchids.

- Crates Quest-Ritson

I’ve seen them, too, in Mediterranean gardens—Carolyn Hanbury has vast clumps of dendrobiums in pots at La Mortola, Italy—and in tropical gardens (oh, the dark-blue vandas in Singapore!), but, somehow, they never really engender any great fondness, let alone love or passion, in my temperate soul. That’s fine—one cannot fall for everything and, after all, some people don’t share my enthusiasm for roses. More fool them.

This is the month to go orchid hunting in Mediterranean countries. The richness and profusion of wild orchids in April is often unbelievable—some are so widespread that the locals gather the roots to make a drink called salep. I would love to taste it, but, nowadays, all orchids are protected by CITES and local laws, although the harvest continues, for example, in parts of Turkey and Greece. Yes, we have orchids in England and, in midsummer, you can see large patches of spotted orchids, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, and pyramidal orchids, Anacamptis pyramidalis, in woodlands and roadside verges, but never so boldly or ubiquitously as in less  intensively cultivated landscapes abroad. In fields and meadows, olive groves and on uncultivated hillsides, the richness and variety of hardy orchids is truly awesome.