The Tucson Orchid Society held their annual show way out at the Mesquite Valley Growers Nursery. It was quite a drive but I decided to go to compare it to the Santa Barbara International Orchid Exhibition I attended years ago. The main difference was size: the Santa Barbara show takes up a huge space — room after room in their fairgrounds building. Why so large? Around Santa Barbara are many commercial orchid growers and they want to show what they’ve developed for sale. On the other hand the Tucson exhibition showed off the orchids grown by dedicated local amateurs for their own enjoyment. There were home-grown starter orchid plants for sale, however.
There were several themed display tables like the Frida Kahlo and the Chinese dragon ones — so suitable because this is the Asian year of the Dragon.
Another difference from the Santa Barbara show are the predominate colors. In Tucson burgundy and white seemed to be the most popular while in SB, there were a lot of green and cream orchids.
These orchids, below, are in colors and varieties I would have expected to see at the exhibition of commercial orchid growers, but were on display here in Tucson. The brown one is a rarity.
The orchid show attracted quite a number of visitors to the Mesquite Valley Growers Nursery which hosted the displays in the back of their largest room of potted plants ready for the garden. Lots of geraniums –pelargoniums, to be accurate–on display and although they are my favorites, I have not had any luck growing them outdoors here in Tucson. And as much as I admire orchid growers, I am not at all inspired to take up that challenge. I’ll just watch others grow these fantastic plants from the sidelines.
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