Perfumes

Not only can you have orchid blooms and colour the year round, but orchids, in particular species orchids, produce some of the most beautiful and diverse, and incredible perfumes from the entire plant kingdom. The exotic orchid perfumes in the garden also attract a variety of harmless, yet very interesting native insects we may not normally see in the garden, in turn attracting more native birds into the garden.

I have also found orchid culture seems to attract frogs(whom of course have become endangered)into the garden. Not only is this a wonderful sight and feeling to see these creatures take refuge. But they also act as a biological control to the garden, as they eat snails and slugs.

Some orchid blooms can last as long as 3 months, or some may flower consecutively off the same flower stem for 2 years or more. Some may produce flowers that only live a day or two but may flower every 6 weeks. Or some may produce stems over 6 feet long with dozens of short lived (1-2 weeks), highly perfumed flowers. A plant of this type may produce as many as 6 flower stems in succession from a single bulb over a period of months. A large plant of many bulbs obviously has the potential to put on a mind boggling display of literally hundreds of flowers. But of course, there are also orchids that only flower briefly once a year.