From Book News, Inc.
To the uninitiated and the black-thumbed, orchids are the prima donnas of the garden, but many orchids are actually suitable for backyard gardening. Friend, an orchid enthusiast and professional in the field, describes epiphyte (tree-growing), lithophyte (rock- growing) and terrestrial (ground-growing) varieties and their care, pest control, and how to choose the right variety for your environment. He describes the types of spaces you can use for your orchids, from large gardens to small indoor containers. He includes a table of over 500 recommended orchids, a glossary, and an index of plant names.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Description
Wherever you live in the world, you can grow orchids in your garden. From lady's slippers in boreal forests to dendrobiums hanging from tropical palms, orchids provide color and elegance unmatched by any other garden flower. Although it may sound too good to be true, many orchids are actually low-maintenance plants for various backyard habitats --- and don't need special pots or greenhouses. In this exciting book, Robert Friend shows gardeners how to introduce orchids into the garden by attaching them to trees, fixing them to rocks and walls, or planting them directly into garden beds. He details more than 500 orchid choices for every garden situation and supplies practical cultivation information. The author draws on a lifetime of experience with orchids to explain how to choose the right orchid for a given climate and how to landscape with orchids in different types of gardens from tropical to cool-climate areas, from large acreages to small courtyard gardens. Growing Orchids in Your Garden offers an array of dramatic ideas for every reader.

From the Inside Flap
Wherever you live in the world, you can grow orchids in your garden. From lady's slippers in boreal forests to dendrobiums hanging from tropical palms, orchids provide color and elegance unmatched by any other garden flower. Although it may sound too good to be true, many orchids are actually low-maintenance plants for various backyard habitats—and don't need special pots or greenhouses.In this exciting book, Robert Friend shows gardeners how to introduce orchids into the garden by attaching them to trees, fixing them to rocks and walls, or planting them directly into garden beds. He has traveled throughout the world, from Florida and the cool forests of North America to the steamy tropics of the Pacific Rim and his origins in Australasia, searching for new ideas and new ways to cultivate these striking plants.He details more than 500 orchid choices for every garden situation and supplies practical cultivation information in thorough charts and tables. The author draws on a lifetime of experience with orchids to explain how to choose the right orchid for your climate and how to landscape with orchids in different types of gardens. Ranging from tropical to cool-climate areas, from large acreages to small courtyard gardens, Growing Orchids in Your Garden offers an array of dramatic ideas for every reader.


About the Author
Robert G. M. Friend's career in orchids began more than fifty years ago, when he was just ten years old. During that time, in addition to work as a lawyer, mediator, and tropical fruit orchardist, he has grown, studied, hybridized, photographed, imported, and exported orchids. He has professionally landscaped gardens with orchids, sold their cut flowers, and run a successful orchid nursery. He has traveled throughout the world visiting orchids in their natural habitats and in gardens during the research of this book. He and his wife, Lilinoe, live on the eastern coast of Australia.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One of the charms of growing orchids naturally in the garden is the plant shape many assume. Orchids in containers grow in a regular fashio, stems upright, the spreading types progressing horizontally across the surface of the container. When you attach epiphytic orchids to trees, they start to grow as they would in nature. Sometimes the types with stiff bulbs, like cattleyas, will march right along a branch, while the clumping types, like some maxillerias and oncidiums, will encircle a branch, looking for all the world like large green pincushions. Slender-stemmed types, like many dendrobiums and vandas, will stand with their growing tips curving upwards. Seeking the light. This natural growth habit imparts a graceful line to the plants never acheived in containers. The flowers of orchids grown in the natural way display themselves as nature intended. Many growers of orchids in containers stake flower stems erect, giving the flowering plant a stiff, unnatural look. The canes of spring-flowering softcane dendrobiums, for example, are usually staked upright, resembling soldiers at attention. Grown naturally on a tree at head height, the same plants produce graceful, slightly pendent growths with a curving line like an ancient eastern scimitar. In bloom, the flowers seem to smile and nod at the gardner--a far cry from the regimented ranks of container-grown orchids. Naturally grown orchids in the garden look cheerful and independent, taking full advantage of their surroundings. Their free forms and lovely blooms are alluring. They are more robust, growing subject to all the seasonal changed in light, temperature, and humidity just as they would be in their wild homes.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"In this book, Robert Friend shows gardeners how to introduce orchids into the garden by attaching them to trees, fixing them to rocks and walls, or planting them directly into garden beds. He has traveled throughout the world, from Florida and the cool forests of North America to the steamy tropics of the Pacific Rim and his origins in Australasia, searching for new ideas and new ways to cultivate these striking plants." The author details more than 500 orchid choices for every garden situation and supplies practical cultivation information in thorough charts and tables. He draws on a lifetime of experience with orchids to explain how to choose the right orchid for your climate and how to landscape with orchids in different types of gardens ranging from tropical to cool-climate areas, from large acreages to small courtyard gardens. Growing Orchids in Your Garden offers an array of dramatic ideas for every reader.

SYNOPSIS