Suffolk Orchid Society

27/02/2026

NEWS (February 2026 meeting)

We ask members to rally round to support our Annual Show on 7 March, in particular:

Help with catering, to provide cakes etc. – Grazyna has a list.
Volunteers to help run the kitchen, tombola etc. This is a pressing need, as a number of members who would ordinarily help are away.
Orchids for repotting demonstrations – a good opportunity to have that moribund orchid given a new lease of life!
Orchids in flower for the show table – anything respectable! Tidy them up first – remove dead leaves, sheaths, bracts, cut off dead leaf tips. Also foliage houseplants for background. Please bring plants 8-9am on Saturday to give time for the show table build.

Discounted tickets for this year’s International Orchid Show at Gardeners’ World Live, Birmingham are available via our Treasurer, Lynda.

We’re looking for a member to host our Summer Garden Party this year. If you’d like to consider this, please speak to Grazyna who will tell you what it involves.

If any member has access to a minibus or has an idea for a Society outing, please speak to our Secretary, Carol.

Any member interested in becoming an accredited British Orchid Council (BOC) judge should speak to Andy, who is currently undertaking the training. Our April 2026 meeting will no doubt be of help. Also, the BOC is currently looking for someone to act as its Vice-Chairman; it’s a worthy organisation, but it needs people to run it and has come perilously close to folding through lack of support in recent years.

Finally, Paul Atkin won the 2025 BOC photo competition (see https://britishorchidcouncil.org.uk/photographic-competition/). This is the third year in a row that a member of Suffolk Orchid Society has won this competition, David Kohn having won it in 2023 and 2024.

GUEST SPEAKER

Our guest speaker this month was Leif Bersweden, who presented (via Microsoft Tems) an account of his quest to see all of the UK’s orchids bar one during his gap year summer (2013). (The exception was the Ghost Orchid, which has only been seen in the UK twice this century – see https://www.positive.news/environment/britains-rarest-wild-orchid-discovered-again-after-15-years-of-searching/). Obsessed with plants since childhood, the Collins Complete Guide to British Wildflowers brought Leif a narrower focus on Britain’s native orchids. There are 50-60 orchid species native to the UK; the exact number is dependent on taxonomy and chance introductions from the Continent. It’s a very charismatic group with great variety, and their rarity adds to their appeal.

The challenge

Leif had seen 30 species by the time he finished school and decided to take a gap year to see all of them in one summer. This entailed a lot of planning during the preceding winter, and the acquisition of an old car and a tent. The hunt started in April/May 2013.

The journey

The various species’ populations are located all over the UK, and visits of course had to be when they were in flower. The journey went from South Wales, to Salisbury, to East Kent, to Gloucestershire, to North Uist (Shetland Islands)… Leif focused on the Fly Orchid (Ophrys insectifera, found on the Burren, County Clare) and its exploitation of male digger wasps to effect pollination; and on a hiccup on the way to see the Lesser Twayblade (Neottia cordata) near Newcastle, when his car broke down irretrievably and the AA took him home; his father then stepped in heroically to return him to Newcastle to see the orchid! The rest of the search had to be done using a hire car. In total, Leif travelled nearly 10,000 miles on his quest.

The book

Leif subsequently wrote a book about his quest, ‘The Orchid Hunter: A young botanists search for happiness’, that was published in 2017 (see https://leifbersweden.com/books/). To conclude his talk, he read a short extract from the book, describing how he absconded from a family gathering in order to see the Burnt Orchid (Neotinea ustulata).

25/02/2026

NEWS (January 2026 meeting)

This month we had our Plant Clinic, where our experienced growers Bill Gardiner and Andy Gissing (and anyone else able to contribute) gave advice to mermbers about problem plants they brought to the meeting.

Tony Weavers won the Novices table with one of his Paphiopedilums; Andy Gissing won the Winners table with his Lycaste skinneri rosea.

25/02/2026

NEWS (November 2025 meeting)

This was our annual social evening – we took part in a ‘Round the World’ Picture Quiz, won by Sue and John, then shared a buffet meal. Ken Frost won the ‘Novices’ table with his Dendrobium hybrid, and Paul Eaton won the ‘Winners’ table with his Masdevallia cucullata x Hercules.

26/11/2025

NEWS

Andy Gissing brought in cakes in celebration of Angela’s 85th birthday.

David Mittel won the Novices table with his Miltonia Queen Anne. Bill Gardiner won the Winners table with his Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann Buckleberry. Runner-up was Paul Eaton with his Dendrobium tetragonum.

GUEST SPEAKER

Our guest speaker this month was Andrew Bannister of Orchid Alchemy (https://orchidalchemy.com/), who gave a talk on Sub-tropical Epiphytes.

Andrew discussed five regions within the sub-tropics lying approximately between 23.5 degrees and 35/40 degrees either side of the equator, noting their annual temperatures and rainfall and orchids that were found growing there. All the areas had winters where the temperature fell to as low as -5 Celsius, but these periods were also typically dry, with the bulk of the rainfall occurring in the Summer and averaging 1.5 metres which, for comparison, is the annual rainfall for Wales. He keeps his own greenhouse to a minimum of 6 Celsius with a rise in temperature during the day, assisted by extra heat if necessary.

The 5 subtropical regions were:

Paraguay/Northern Argentina/Southern Brazil,
Sikkim to Japan
N/W Mexico to Florida
Eastern S Africa
Eastern Australia

Good examples of subtropical species:

Laelia anceps (many colour forms)
Cattleya intermedia (many colour forms)
Cattleya purpurata (many colour forms)
Coelogyne cristata, C. flaccida, C. nitida and C. mooreana
Cymbidium goeringii and many others
Dendrobium kingianum and hybrids
Dendrobium moniliforme (many cultivars)
Sarcochilus sp
Vanda (Neofinetia) falcata (many cultivars)

He currently grows Coelogynes and Australian Dendrobiums under frost free conditions and is experimenting with the others. The rest he grows with a minimum of 6-8C but is still experimenting. The main idea is that the night time minimum is less important than the daytime temperature, which should rise to around 12-14C for a few hours in the middle of the day. Even with the daily lift in temperature, far less energy is used overall.

23/10/2025

SEPTEMBER 2025 MEETING REPORT

NEWS

Entries for the BOC photo competition this year will be accepted from individuals, not Societies as in the past. The closing date for entries is 31-Dec-25 (although they would like to receive them earlier if possible) – Carol wil send out details.

The November meeting will be our Christmas social; there won’t be a raffle, so don’t bring raffle prizes – but do bring a small plate of food to share.

Subscriptions are now due – these remain unchanged at £10.

Angela, our BOC representative, announced that the Eric Young Orchid Foundation has a job vacancy and made details available.

Trophies were awarded as follows:

- David Barton Cup (best orchid, our stand Suffolk Show) Andy Gissing – Dendrobium aphyllum
- B.O.C Tankard (best orchid at our Spring Show) Paul Atkin – Coelogyne laurenceana
- OSGB Salver Winners’ Competition table (for past year) Bill Gardiner
- B.O.C. Salver Novice Competition table (for past year) Phil Broom

David Kohn won this month’s Winners Table with his Rossioglossum grande. Tony Weavers won the Novices Table with his Phalaenopsis hybrid.

GUEST SPEAKER (report by Carol Tweed)

Zsuzsa of Spicesotics was our speaker this month (September). Her talk was about many of her orchids that are flowering at the moment, some of which she had brought along. Some had tiny, tiny flowers, so cute but not to everyone’s liking. She always gives such a ‘down to earth’ talk and also has such a sense of humour – making us promise we would not break one of the orchids with a beautiful flower if she passed it round, and not to put one of the mounted miniatures in our pocket if she passed it round. She always tells us that if it works for us, don’t change it, even if it is contrary to what the experts say. One of her mounted orchids had a fern growing in the moss and she said that although it looked very pretty, the fern would choke the orchid’s roots. Another point she always makes is that orchids are very fussy as to where they sit – so if they are not happy in a position, move them; but if they are happy, whether or not it is where they ‘should be’, leave them there. She also said all her greenhouses go down to 12º in the winter.

Zsuzsa also mentioned that she is now on the RHS Orchid committee. They have meetings at different locations during the year. At these meetings if orchid growers have grown something really special or new they take it along in the hope of receiving an Award from the ‘experts’ of the committee. Members of the public like ourselves can also take an orchid to be ‘judged’ for a Certificate of Cultural Commendation if we think it is really special and Zsuzsa has offered to take any of our members’ orchids to a meeting if one of us thinks it is worth it.

03/10/2025

This is a fascinating article:

The world's most mysterious and elusive orchid lives underground in Australia. Scientists are trying to rescue this botanic marvel from going completely extinct.

24/09/2025

JUNE 2025 MEETING REPORT

NEWS

We started with the Society’s Annual General Meeting, in which the Society’s officers gave their reports on a successful year and were re-elected en bloc for another year. ‘Presentation of Trophies’ had to be deferred due to missing trophies and recipients.

There were no entries for the Novices table. Bill Gardiner won the Winners table with his Thunia Gattonensis.

GUEST SPEAKER

Our guest speaker was Guy William Eves, who is a botanical artist. He studied Graphic Design at the Ipswich School of Art in the 1970’s; this included an initial year of fine art training that proved very useful later. After graduating, he became a freelance illustrator and finally realised his ambition to become a botanical artist after 16 years, performing lengthy and painstaking basic exercises to self-train. He was elected to the Society of Botanical Artists in 2011.

Guy works in monochrome; monochrome work isn’t dependent on the quality of the light. He uses pencils of various degrees of hardness that he keeps needle-sharp. A work usually starts with hard pencils, building up the picture in 2-4 layers of increasing pencil softness, then reverting to a hard pencil to blend the tones. He uses a paper mask to keep the paper clean in the unworked areas, and various contrivances to ‘pose’ the subject. For trees, he has to work from a photo; otherwise, he works from life, and prefers not to use technology to assist. Each picture takes him 40-300 hours to produce.

He has held various exhibitions including at the Wolsey Gallery and the Ipswich School of Art, and has received various commissions including from the Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal College of Physicians.

Guy finished by presenting examples of his work and also brought a selection for sale. Further information is available at his website https://www.guywilliameves.co.uk/.