We decided to check out the Toronto Orchid Show at the Toronto Botanical Gardens recently! It was pretty spectacular! I don’t know very much about orchids personally. I love my bonsai’s and fussy little plants, but orchids always seemed out of reach because of how cold my apartment can get.

The show featured displays of prize winning orchids of every imaginable variety as well as rooms full of plants and accessories for sale. I took a zillion photos. Sorry in advance for the enormously picture-heavy post! 🙂

 

It’s been so cold here lately I thought I’d share some of my favorites from the day in case you need a reminder of spring and color too! 🙂 They’re all right off my camera, I didn’t do much of anything to these apart from resize them so this is what the flowers looked like. Amazing!!! (As always if you’d like to see any of these photos larger just click them)

Unfortunately I did not manage to write down the names of every species my eyes fell across, there were truly hundreds upon hundreds. They were in every possible color and shape. The room was so full of fragrance it was incredible, and the perfect antidote to the -20 outside.

What I learned at the show was that there are orchids for a variety of climates and temperatures. Some require elaborate tending and others are better left ignored, or watered with a single iced cube per week left to melt at their feet.

Also we have orchids in Canada! Aside from the obvious Lady Slippers we also have all sorts of our own strange and exquisite orchids. You can see a whole list with photos here if you’re curious which grow naturally in our cooler climate.

Some of the orchids were so unique and captivating. I was enthralled by the two below, one resembles an insect almost- all spindly legs and cupping flowers, the other a fringed neck-tie.

 

-Taeden