I get an enormous amount of pleasure when my orchid comes into flower. I’ve had it for years, but flowering is a fairly rare event. In fact I was just thinking it might be time to get rid of the plant. My mother would have said it must have heard me, for now it is bearing two beautiful flowers.
The leaves, it has to be said, are looking rather sad. It seems my orchid has beautifully glossy leaves or flowers, but never both at the same time. Ah well.
Apparently vanilla is a type of orchid, and the orchid is the City Flower of Shaoxing, in China.
