The best display in my opinion…
On Saturday morning I was up at 5:45AM and got my post up and a shower. I got a load in the dishwasher and my friend showed up early so we headed out to the Orchid Show.
We sat in the car and visited for a while until they opened the doors. That’s when that heavenly scent reached us.
The first thing I did was make sure I got the t-shirt for my friend who has had surgery. We looked at a couple displays and were a bit dismayed to see all too many crafts booths instead of plant displays for the show.
I headed to the magnets because I needed one to replace the one I had ruined. I also got one for my friend as she’s been having a rough time and I found a really appropriate one.
A quick tour of the selling area netted me this little African violet. There were a couple educational displays in the main show area and one said that African violets were the “canaries”, if you could keep an African violet alive, you could raise orchids. Well, I am a whiz at killing African violets, but I get them off and on because I like them. So this poor little guy is my next victim. But I just can’t bring myself to kill an orchid…
From there I headed into the show itself. And as you come around the corner to enter, there was an orchid by itself, with a “Smell Me” card, so I did. OH…MY…GOODNESS!! It smelled VERY strongly of Madagascar vanilla. It was transporting! What a way to start viewing the show!
So I slowly made my way around the perimeter, getting my photos before too many people arrived.
In the middle of the back wall, there was another display with a “Smell Me” card. That’s the other one in the Smell Me collage. And it was equally impressive but smelled strongly and pleasantly of citrus. The flowers were not remarkable at all, but the scent was again transporting!
I went into the huge center display and even though this big pink orchid had a smell me card, it didn’t hold a candle to those other two. But the scents of all the orchids were everywhere, and together it was just lovely.
The colors are stunning on some of them, like the reds collage in the upper left corner of this group. The designers also went for textures like the branch with orchids on it. The lower left was a grouping of similar orchids each with a different pattern on it.
The central display had lots of house plants with unusual foliage for contrast.
We had both gone around twice, me the first time for photos and the second to just enjoy it. We sat for a while, but more and more people were pouring in, so we decided to go.
When I got home, I potted up the African violet and set it with my primrose on the island counter.
I debated about moving the fairy (I’d glued 1 more piece onto her before I left) and working on garden bed notes or just sitting down and reading. I opted for reading. It was a beautiful sunny day but still cold outside.
Mid afternoon a friend showed up. He wanted to borrow a couple of my food grade water barrels. His well had frozen, and he’s due for surgery in early March, and has to have water in the house. So we went, VERY carefully, up to the barn and the sheets of ice all around it. I found 2 barrels for him and he got them loaded up and headed out.
Oxalis flowers, taken from my chair
Over the rest of the day, I read 2 of my books and took a nap. So because of the nap, I didn’t head to bed until 9:30PM.
On Sunday I plan to work on the garden bed notes and clean up the kitchen. It’s to be warmer, in the 40’sF, during the day, so the warm spell is here.