On view
“Orchid Daze: Surreal Beauty”
Through April 14 at Atlanta Botanical Garden. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays. Guided exhibition tours, 1 p.m. Saturdays. $18.95; $12.95 ages 3-12; free under 3. 1345 Piedmont Ave., Atlanta. 404-876-5859, atlantabotanicalgarden.org.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden boasts 2,000 species in its orchid collection, but its Orchid Center manager, Becky Brinkman, is known for digging to find sources of the rare and unusual, especially for its annual “Orchid Daze” show.
This year’s edition, “Surreal Beauty,” which pairs orchids with a collection of consciousness-tweaking everyday objects (from umbrellas that actually drizzle to high-heel shoes turned into planters), continues through April 14.
We asked her to share three orchids currently on view about which she’s particularly excited:
- "We could hardly wait for these to open," Brinkman said about Phragmipedium Peruflora Spirit. "This hybrid has in its parentage the most infamous slipper orchid discovery of the last 50 years — the huge raspberry colored Phragmipedium kovachii." (That 2002 find, which grows in a Peruvian cloud forest, features a large and robustly colored bloom.) You can view the hybrid in the Orchid Display House, hanging, with a wink to Salvador Dali, from a "shoe tree."
- "Huge frilly heirloom Cattleyas are making a comeback," Brinkman said of the Blc. Goldenzelle 'Lemon Chiffon' AM/AOS found in the Fuqua Conservatory lobby, where there are also red and orange Cattleyas on view, all of them set off by a variety of funhouse-style mirrors.
- Brinkman likes Dendrobium Spring Dream 'Kumiko' so much, she and her crew planted more than 100 of them in a "rainfall" of upside-down planters dangling from the Orchid Center atrium ceiling.
Find out more about these and other plants in the Orchid Center’s blog: www.theorchidcolumn.com.
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