A visit to the Orchid Greenhouse at the Royal Botanical Gardens

Do you ever have one of those days when you can't seem to think of something fresh and new to say on your blog? This morning is it for me. I have been busy this week writing the newsletter for my HORT society (Mt. Albert Garden and Horticulture Society).  It is done now and sent out.  But, upon reflection I thought I would go back a couple of months to before Christmas when a group of Garden Writers were invited to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario.  At the time I was mesmerized by the Christmas wreaths that were featured on doors in the lobby and not on the flowers.  I posted the doors as it Christmas themed.  So, now that I have time to show you what I saw at the RBG I decided to show you what else I saw there.

I went on the tour of the Orchid Greenhouse. The two orchids above are Cattleya.  The white I have no name for but the pink one is call Little Susie.  The star of the show that day was the Vanilla Orchid that had just begun to bloom.  The pods of this orchid is used for commercial vanilla flavoring.  This orchid requires lots of humidity.

Outside of the Orchid Greenhouse I went into another greenhouse that houses this poor forlorn looking specimen of the Wollemia Pine.  This species of plant was discovered in 1994 in the Wollemia National Park quite by accident.  It was thought to be extinct.  A Monotypic genus this is the oldest and rarest of trees.  Recently they have begun to propagate them and so they can be found in a few botanical gardens.  This one was behind a fence all by itself. 

I am off today to learn how to take photos in snow.  It is a good day as it is really cold -12Celcius and very sunny.  Maybe I might have something new to show you next time.