This post is for Tish Farrell who visited English orchids near the windmill at Much Wenlock and shared them with me
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Each year we make a spring pilgrimage to Nerrigundah Ridge when the rock orchids are flowering. Armed with a stick and sturdy boots, we walk up a rocky ridge through spurts of flowering grass, past bright yellow guinea flowers, stepping on conglomerated and broken rocks, many covered with lichen and moss: doubly cautious because the rocks are loose and it’s the beginning of snake season. We find a clump of rocks with healthy-looking orchid leaves but no flowers. But the Ridge doesn’t disappoint us. There they are, three sprays of creamy-white orchids with their maroon striped and freckled throats, “white girls flowering out of stone / and leaning on the green air” as Douglas Stewart describes them.
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I have happy memories of these rock orchids flowering in the amphitheatre behind Bundanon, the home, now gifted to the nation, of the artist Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne on the Shoalhaven River upstream from Nowra on the South Coast of New South Wales. Do you remember, Meg, how, walking ahead, you refrained from voicing your delight until we could share it? And do you remember the picture in Arthur’s former studio of that exact same scene? Worth a blog, I think.
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I didn’t remember my restraint. Thank you for remembering. It was indeed worth a blog – have a look at the end of
https://morselsandscraps.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/rock-lilies-or-sydney-rock-orchids-dendrobium-speciosum-or-is-it-thelychiton-speciosus/
We even saw a snake! And you found the Lycettt paintings for me, I think.
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Orchids are the most heavenly plants, all so different but all lovely. Do these ones get cultivated or are they left to be themselves? If I’d been there and not found them I’d be very happy with the lichens and liverworty things 🙂
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No cultivation on Nerrigundah Ridge – except by nature. Although Pauline grows them in her garden, and there’s a tyre-full beside the highway in Bodalla. I think they cultivate fairly easily. We’ve identified about 25 orchid species around J’s place and mine, all just lurking in the bush, providing dessert for wombats and wallabies, and delight for us. The Nerrigundah orchids are a bit unreachable – can’t imagine a wombat wombling his way up the rocks, although wallabies are more agile.
I think the lichen and “liverworty things” are in fact my best photos for a long time. You’re right: the place itself offers pleasure enough.
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These are lovely! 🙂 Lucky Tish!
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Next special flower for you!! Maybe a snake orchid?
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You choose 🙂
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That splash of soft cream against the grey stone background is beautiful Meg. Mine are captured in my garden, but they bring joy to my soul when I am home to see them > I hope they are still in flower when I get home in 10 days time…
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I’m sorry if I offended your garden orchids! I hope you see them flowering and when you do, please apologise for my thoughtlessness.
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No offence taken Meg, I love seeing them in their natural surroundings, garden setting is only second best…
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Oh thank you, lovely Meg. These are a gift returned a hundred fold. What amazing plants. And growing out of the rocks. Just when you think you can’t be surprised by a plant…:)
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I’m always a bit peeved when I see them in captivity in suburban gardens: and also delighted that I know where they are in the wild. I’m glad they tickled your fancy.
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