by Richard Vanderlip

After the article on Darwin’s orchid, I’ve had several people ask about our hobby of growing orchids. A friend here in the Monarch asked how long we had been growing them. We got our first orchids in 1961 on our first anniversary while we were in Ames, Iowa, for my graduate degrees. We saw an ad in “Horticulture” magazine for four orchids, two blooming sizes, and two seedlings for $12. Keep in mind that my Graduate Research Assistantship paid $2,500 per year! We grew them in a homemade “Wardian Case” in front of a north window in student housing.

That Thanksgiving, we came back to Kansas and a fellow graduate student from Hawaii said he would take care of our orchids. When we returned, he had written to his mother and had her send divisions of 17 of his orchids for us! With 21 orchids, we were hooked.

After we moved to Manhattan in 1964, we grew orchids under lights in the basement, on a partially covered patio, and finally, in a greenhouse from 1970 until we moved to Meadowlark in 2023. (We moved 22 orchids to Meadowlark, and purchased an additional four since the move.) Every few years I give a talk at the Kansas Orchid Society on “Orchids we have Known, Grown, or Killed,” and now plan to share stories about some of our orchids each month.

The pictures at top and top right show a couple of places where we have grown them, including at our apartment in the Monarch. So, Steve, this month makes it 64 years. I now have 25 orchids. Yes, that means one has bit the dust.