3# – How are the orchids cared for behind the scenes?

Voice: Babs Wagner I’m Babs Wagner, the horticulturist in charge of the Garden’s orchid collection. Behind the scenes in the greenhouse, we tend thousands of plants. For the orchid show, I display as many different kinds as I can, so you can see the amazing diversity of our collection. The stars of this show are the winter bloomers. To get them ready on time, I juggle the greenhouse temperatures, starting in October. By doing this, I can force the flowers to bloom early or delay their bloom times a little. The variety of orchids you see here will change over six weeks. We start with about 800 orchids. I switch out approximately 50 to 100 as they start to fade each week and replace them with blooming plants from our greenhouses. First thing every morning, I slice off any faded flowers with a sharp razor blade, so everything always looks fresh and perfect. Do you know that vanilla comes from an orchid vine? Our vanilla orchid collection is one of North America’s largest. Look for the Vanilla planifolia. This plant is 102 years old, from 1904! Vanilla is extracted from the fleshy seed pod, called a vanilla bean. It’s actually a fruit that ripens gradually and eventually turns black, filled with thousands of tiny seeds.

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3# – How are the orchids cared for behind the scenes? is an episode from Missouri Botanical Garden Orchid Show 2007 by Missouri Botanical Garden.

This episode is 1:14 long.

This episode was published on Jan 1, 2006.

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