Rare wild orchids flowering in home gardens
It’s times like these that reinforce why we make space for wildlife in our gardens. Rare wild orchids are flowering in my client’s home garden. Incredible!
It also shows the importance of spending time in our gardens. Enjoying being in them, yes, but also observing. Without careful observation, these wild orchids may have gone unnoticed, which would be fine, but what if they were inadvertently mown?
Even worse, what if these amazing, rare orchids were scarified out in an attempt to sow fresh wildflower seed?
Watch the video: and read on for more details
How did rare wild orchids end up in a home garden?
Here’s the thing: orchids thrive on neglect. The demise of our rare wild orchids comes from us humans doing too much.
When farmers grow crops, they apply fertiliser to the soil. This helps them grow more food, which is important, but some of it runs off the fields and into wild landscapes.
Wild landscapes where orchids could be growing!
This extra nutrition causes the wild grasses to grow vigorously and outcompete the rare wild orchids. By chance, some areas escape the agricultural runoff, and these places are perfect breeding grounds for rare wild orchids.
If these areas also happen to be on low-nutrient soil (think the chalky soils we have in some parts of Kent), the chances of finding orchids are greatly increased.
Is this garden special?
All gardens are special! But kind of…
The small section of this garden where the rare wild orchids are growing has very thin soil. Pieces of chalk can be found on the soil surface; that’s because there’s chalk bedrock a matter of centimetres beneath the soil surface.
Combine this with the fact that my clients left this area relatively untouched for a few years and you have a perfect breeding ground for rare wild orchids.
Finding wild orchids growing in gardens is more common than you might think
Over the last few years, I’ve spent considerable time working in approximately twenty different gardens. Surprisingly, I’ve found rare wild orchids growing in four of them! It’s a more common occurrence than we might think. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be doing our best to conserve them.
We should! But it’s promising.
The key is to be aware of what to look out for. The more familiar we become with these amazing and important plants, the better. If you’d like to learn more about them, please be on the lookout for workshops and walks that I give on this subject.
Have you spotted wild orchids recently?
I’d love to hear from you if you’ve seen orchids growing in the wild or in gardens. Or if you haven’t, but desperately want to see some, leave a comment to let me know.
Happy growing.
Joe
Joe Vary Dip. Hort (Wisley), MCIHort, CMTGG
Gardener, educator, consultant, and planting designer. Learn with me 1-2-1, or in the My Gardening Mentor community.