A display of orchids at this year’s Chatsworth Flower Show is a chance to glimpse the sort of ‘orchidmania’ that gripped 19th-century plant collectors
ORCHIDS head the bill at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show in June. An exhibit inspired by Chatsworth’s Great Conservatory will contain an extravaganza of Phalaenopsis, designed by Jonathan Moseley and grown by Double H Nurseries of New Milton in Hampshire. In the Floral Marquee, the highlight will be a display of some 800 orchids from the Duke of Devonshire’s current collection at Chatsworth House—the first time in years that many of these treasures have been shown to the public. There couldn’t be a clearer or more welcome sign that this great house is once more taking an openly active role in orchid cultivation, conservation and connoisseurship.
The association between the two families, Cavendish and Orchidaceae, is one of the most remarkable and influential in our garden history. It began in 1833 when the 6th Duke of Devonshire first saw Psychopsis papilio (aka Oncidium papilio) at a London show. Large, slender-stalked and appearing to float, the flowers of this tropical American orchid are often likened to butterflies, but that’s too gauzily innocent by far. Imagine, rather, some strange forest sprite, carnival costumed in auburn-patterned gold with ruffled sleeves, a voluminous skirt and three long antennae arising behind its staring head.
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