Part 2: Pour the medium   Measures of oats, agar, and marmite This blog series is a detailed description of how to grow orchid seeds with B1 fungus. If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me. See below.   Now you have all the equipment described in Part 1 it is time to go ahead and make Petri dishes of Basic Oats Medium.   Wear gloves to protect the hands and avoid contamination of the plates: rubber gloves for coarse work, disposable latex gloves for fine handl

Part 1: The things you need   This series of blog posts is a detailed description of how to grow orchid seeds with B1 fungus, expanding...

Orchid spike has shed most of the seed now I cut down the Front and Back meadows last week. This is the same time, late August, I usually...

Male Common blue on lavender (but very near the widflower meadow!) It ’s good to see lots of butterflies this year on the wildflower...

Hybrid Frog & Common Spotted orchid A week ago we visited a nearby chalky downland site in West Sussex that I previously regarded as...

Common spotted orchids It is high season for the meadow orchids right now and they are putting on a fine show in the Front Meadow. I have...

Early flowering meadow orchid The Front Meadow is doing nicely now despite extremely dry weather in the last two months. The sward is not...

Cowslips on Front Meadow Encouraged by the recent sunshine the garden meadows are resplendent with cowslips ( Primula veris ) and...

The Madeiran, or "leafy" orchid is endemic to Madeira and does not occur naturally in the U.K. or mainland Europe. However, being very...

Now is the winter of our thin content made much better by reminiscing over the glorious orchids of last summer. In July we saw the...

We have just returned from a family holiday to Costa Rica having seen lots of amazing wildlife. I am writing about "tropical" orchids...

At this time of year I like to germinate and grow orchid seeds in Petri dishes with the help of symbiotic fungi. The “B1” fungus I mainly...

Last June, Joanne and I went to see Late spider orchids ( Ophrys fuciflora ) near Folkestone. We were privileged to be told the...

The beautiful Green-winged orchid ( Anacamptis morio ) is not common nowadays, but nevertheless widely distributed across the southern...

It has been noted widely in the media that there are far fewer insects around this summer than usual, maybe due to ongoing climate change...

These are alternative names for three July wildflowers that are out in the Front Meadow currently. Bishop’s lace is more commonly known...

While the Southern marsh and Common spotted orchids are continuing to flower amongst the Oxeye daisies, I started looking for the small,...

The Front Meadow is looking great this year, and not suffering from the overgrowth of tall vegetation that the Back Meadow is. Common...

The Back Meadow has grown incredibly high this year after all the Winter and Spring rain with mild temperatures. There is not much colour...

In March 2016 I was contacted by an expert Pleione grower who had made cross-pollinations of his plants and produced seed samples. Could...