Orchids

          “If you’re tired of orchids, you’re tired of life”.  Last week we visited the Thai island of Phuket with our Steinbach friends John and Chris Neufeld. The Neufelds are orchid aficionados. Since Thailand is home to some 1,200 species of orchids, John and Chris were excited to say the least when we decided to visit an orchid farm in Phuket. We drove to the farm in a Thai “tuk tuk”, a little pickup truck with seats in the back. We paid our orchid farm entrance fee to a woman standing under a sign that said, “Don’t ask us how many kinds of orchids we grow. It changes everyday.”

         I must admit I probably wouldn’t have visited an orchid farm if John and Chris hadn’t been in Thailand with us. But walking through winding rows of greenery awash with brilliantly colored flowers with two orchid experts was certainly an educational experience. The Neufelds told me orchids like to ‘show off’. There can be as many as thirty blooms on one stem. I learned that orchid roots need to be in water, but not necessarily in soil. Orchids come in more varieties worldwide, than any other flower, but orchids never dominate a certain territory or geographical area. Antarctica is the only continent where they don’t grow. John and Chris have even made a number of trips to Churchill, Manitoba to see the unique orchids that thrive in that habitat.

          Chris grows exotic orchids in her home and she knows exactly how to take care of them, gently misting them every morning and only watering them every couple weeks. John has a special interest in Manitoba orchids and recently one of his orchid photos was featured on a Canadian stamp. Chris is an orchid photographer in her own right and an orchid photo she took has been published in an American magazine. John and Chris were busy photographing the orchids we saw in Thailand all the while sighing and muttering, “Ah so beautiful” and “Isn’t this the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen”.   They both say they love orchids because of their beauty- “It’s an exotic kind of beauty”, says John, “sort of like the beauty of Asian women.”  There were Asian women busy at work on the orchid farm cutting flowers and arranging them artfully into multi-colored sprays that were presented to each visitor.

            Both John and Chris are members of a Manitoba organization called Native Orchid Conservation Inc. John serves as vice-president on the group’s board of directors. They organize field trips to see orchids, try to educate the public about orchids, publish orchid books and calendars and have won various awards for their volunteer efforts to help preserve the wetlands habitat where Manitoba orchids flourish. Their latest project is raising funds to build a boardwalk in the Brokenhead Wetlands so that people will be able to look at the lovely orchids there without trampling them. They’ve also produced a DVD with children’s entertainer Al Simmons to introduce kids to orchids and get them interested in conservation. You can find out more about the Native Orchid Conservation group at www.nativeorchid.org

      My husband Dave came along on our Phuket orchid farm visit- but tended not to take things as seriously as the Neufelds. He posed for one picture holding orchid flower stems between his teeth and another trying to take a bite out of an orchid. He snapped quick photos of orchids and showed them to John bragging they were every bit as beautiful as the professional shots John was spending considerable time getting ‘just right’. After we had been at the farm for about half an hour Dave asked, “Do you ever get tired of orchids?” John responded with a smile, “ If you’re tired of orchids, you’re tired of life.”