Last week’s featured orchid is one of the smaller orchid plants found around the world. This week I’ve chosen what is thought to be the biggest type of orchid in the world: Grammatophyllum speciosum. This one has a number of nicknames, including Giant Orchid, Tiger Orchid, Sugar Cane Orchid, and Queen of the Orchids. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has a Grammatophyllum speciosum in their orchid collection, and it is no joke. Seriously, this plant is MONSTROUS:
Brooklyn Botanic Garden‘s Sakura Matsuri (aka Cherry Blossom Festival) is this weekend and you can bet that I’ll be there! The weather is supposed to be gorgeous all weekend, which gets me even more excited because it’s been wet, cold, and windy all week.
I went to the festival for the first time last year and loved it. Already this year the cherry blossom trees are past their peak bloom, but I’m sure it will still be a beautiful visit.
The festival is Saturday, May 1 from 10:00am to 6:00pm and Sunday, May 2 from 10:00am to 7:00pm. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students. BBG members and children under 12 get in free.
One thing to note is that the 2/3 trains aren’t in service this weekend, but you can still get to the garden by taking the 4/5 train to the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum stop. Gotta love the MTA…especially on weekends.
One of the best parts of Funemployment is having the opportunity to take advantage of deals like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden‘s Free Winter Weekdays (which ends March 2). Once I discovered I could visit without paying a dime I knew I HAD to go see their orchid collection, which is in bloom between November and March. The orchid collection is located in the Aquatic House portion of the Steinhardt Conservatory, which I had somehow completely bypassed during my previous BBG visits.
So a couple weeks ago I made my way to the BBG, armed with my fully charged digital camera. I was the only visitor inside the Aquatic House at the time and it was so peaceful to have the whole place to myself. The house isn’t all that big, but there are a ton of orchid plants inside and it is definitely tropical in there; I had to take my puffy winter coat off immediately. There were plenty of Vandas in bloom:
Yesterday I went to a book sale at the Park Slope United Methodist Church and picked up eight books for $9 (!!!). One of my favorite finds was The Best Orchids for Indoors, part of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-Region Guides series. Retail price for this book is $9.95—though it’s currently on sale for $8.95 here – but I got it for $1.50. That’s right—one dollar and fifty cents worth of orchid-y goodness!
This BBG guide is my third book about orchids. The first one that I purchased is Reader’s Digest Orchids for Every Home by Wilma and Brian Rittershausen. I found it at a craphole bookstore at an outlet mall north of Austin, TX while I was visiting family, and if memory serves me correctly it cost me somewhere between $7-9. Price listed on the inside cover is $27.95, so I got a pretty great deal. 🙂
The second orchid book added to my collection was a holiday gift from my boyfriends’ parents: Bloom-Again Orchids by Judy White. I especially like the way this book presents information on how to care for orchids – very useful for a newbie like me.
I’ve always been a book lover so it makes sense that I’m now starting to pick up some orchid books. I guess it’s all part of the orchid addiction!
