OrchidThe Review Cypripedium for every garden

Phillip Cribb and Clare Hermans explain how Dutch nursery Anthura has increased the availability of hardy slipper orchids, and the latter outlines how he grows them in his garden David Ridgeway

Clumps of Cypripedium thrive in a shady border at Anthura

isitors to orchid recently, these orchids, many of be easy-to-grow and, in suitable shows, and even the RHS which are threatened in the wild, conditions in the garden, clumps VChelsea Flower Show this were considered to be difficult will double in size each year. Much year and last, will have noticed a sharp subjects to grow, temperamental of the credit for this must go to the increase in the number of Cypripedium at best and a good way of wasting Dutch nursery Anthura. It is the orchids on display. Large, well-grown your money. However, this has source of the majority of the plants plants in full flower have graced many all changed. Cypripedium plants, seen recently at orchid shows, alpine Gold medal-winning stands. Until especially the hybrids, turn out to plant shows and at Chelsea. ➤

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Anthura is a large nursery that shows Cypripedium tibeticum Cypripedium kentuckiense hybrid off the best of Dutch horticultural The rate of growth Phillip Cribb in the garden at Anthura technique and production. We have from flask to visited several times, including Phillip in May with Christopher (Kit) Grey- flowering is truly Wilson, Chair of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee, phenomenal and Clare in June on the RHS Orchid Committee’s study tour at Bleiswijk is amazing. Flowering (see p211–214). Anthura is based in Cypripedium plants occupy about Bleiswijk, a village between Delft and 2.2 hectares (almost 5½ acres) of Rotterdam. Established in the 1970s, glasshouse. The species and hybrids the nursery initially developed new are laid out in sections on the floor or lines of Anthurium, a passion of the on benches, 10 plants wide and 100 Johan Hermans founder and owner Nic van der or so long. In full flower, as they were David Ridgeway Knaap. He converted his father’s old when we visited in late May this year tomato and salad glasshouses to grow and shortly afterwards as part of a these interesting pot plants, which delegation from theRHS Orchid are members of the Arum family. Committee, they form blocks of ferns and blue-flowered Corydalis. interesting orchids were secreted Following the purchase of a colour from one end of the glasshouse Large, flowering clumps ofCypripedium away, including some nice Calanthe German nursery that specialised to the other – an impressive sight. kentuckiense hybrids, pink-and-white and even a few Pleione plants. in Phalaenopsis in 1995, Anthura We had always thought that the species C. reginae, deep-red C. tibeticum, diversified into tropical orchids. In Eurasian Cypripedium calceolus, our and spotted-leaved C. lichiangense In Phillip’s garden 2005 the arrival of Camiel de Jong, native lady’s slipper orchid, was tricky were in full bloom, having all survived For several years I have successfully an enthusiastic and gifted breeder to grow. Here we saw hundreds of the three previous winters. In this grown Cypripedium plants in my who had just finished university, plants in full flower, each plant with attractive trial garden a few other borders at home. They are from the

sparked a new and exciting phase for six to twelve flowering shoots. Rarities David Ridgeway the nursery with the development of such as the spotted-leaved Chinese lines of hardy orchids for the garden. species, Cypripedium lichiangense and C. fargesii, were flowering from seed Large scale breeding success in four or five years. Above Camiel de Jong with rows of Cypripedium Below Benches packed with pots of Cypripedium As a student Camiel had developed The rate of growth from flask of kentuckiense hybrids coming into flower – a sight Kentucky Pink. The vigorous plants are in their methods for in vitro propagation some species, such as C. parviflorum that could only have been imagined a few years ago second year and are already in full flower of Cypripedium. He also concocted and some of the hybrids, is truly reliable composts to ensure a high phenomenal. We were shown success rate for the transfer of benches of seedlings, one year out Phillip Cribb protocorms from flasks to pot- of flask, with some plants already culture. Using these methods, bearing flowers. The books nearly all a wide range of species and a growing give several years to first flowering of number of hybrids have been grown plants in the wild. Anthura has turned to flowering with consistently high such perceptions on their head. success rates. Over the past three or four years vigorous plants have Anthura’s garden been made available commercially. The ultimate test for garden Growers accustomed to buying a worthiness is outdoors in a garden Cypripedium with one or two growths setting. Not far from the glasshouses can now buy plants with several a number of cultivars were planted in growths, and at a price that would an attractive, domestic-style garden. have been considered unbelievably Plants were tucked away under the low only a couple of years ago. foliage of acers, azaleas and conifers, Cypripedium Ulla Silkens in the Anthura garden The sheer scale of the operation and growing together with heucheras, ➤

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The spotted-leaved Cypripedium anthura’s potted history lichiangense in Anthura’s garden • In 1972 Nic van der Knaap took David Ridgeway David over the family business and began the transition from salad veg to Anthurium. • Nic van der Knapp founded Anthuriumselecties in 1974. The name changed to Anthura when a company in Germany was bought, bringing a good selection of Anthurium and Phalaenopsis pot plants to the business. • The company is now a major player in the production of Phalaenopsis for the pot plant and cut-flower trade, listing 200 hybrids for sale. range Anthura is marketing through a C. montanum hybrid, bore 27 flowers • The main glasshouse has a 5km selected UK nurseries. It includes on a dozen shoots. perimeter, with a second glasshouse built inside. The outer glasshouse is several species, notably C. macranthos Anthura has revolutionized our curved and styled on Kew’s Palm and C. parviflorum and their varieties, appreciation of Cypripedium as garden House and Paxton’s Crystal Palace, C. kentuckiense, and hybrids involving plants. A peek behind the scenes complete with corner glass finials. these species and C. calceolus, suggests that they are also developing • The staff use bicycles to get around C. fasciolatum, C. montanum and vigorous, garden-worthy lines in such a large area of glasshouse. C. tibeticum. I followed the instruc- other orchid genera, such as Bletilla, • Anthura’s hardy Cypripedium are tions to plant them in garden soil Calanthe, Dactylorhiza, Epipactis and marketed under the Garden Orchid mixed with horticultural grit, and Pleione. Cypripedium plants may be the brand and sold wholesale to the garden centre trade throughout Europe. either Seramis, or a top-quality cat orchids of the moment but watch this • The company markets 100 n litter based on porous clay particles, space for further developments. Anthurium cultivars, most destined for such as Sophisticat. All of them export. It has additional production have thrived in the garden where Phillip Cribb is an honorary facilities in Germany and China. they are shaded by ferns and small Research Fellow at the Royal Botanic • Today Anthura accounts for trees, notably a loquat Eriobotrya Gardens, Kew 80 percent of the world production japonica, a dogwood Cornus, and a Clare Hermans is an orchid of Anthurium – developing, propagating and selling these pot mountain ash Sorbus aucuparia. This grower, author and Vice Chairman plants to the mass market. year the most prolific slipper orchid, of the RHS Orchid Committee

acknowledgements

Phillip Cribb The authors would like to thank Nic van der Knaap, Camiel de Jong and the staff of Anthura for their hospitality. Also Werner Frosch and Peter Corkhill who stimulated our interest in growing hardy slipper orchids; Kit Grey-Wilson and members of the RHS Orchid Committee, our companions on our visits to Anthura.

for more information Learn more about growing hardy slipper orchids with Frosch & Cribb’s book Hardy Cypripedium, Species, Hybrids and Cultivation (2012, Kew Publishing); and the websites of Cypripedium formosanum Anthura www.anthura.nl and Werner in Phillip’s Surrey garden Frosch www.w-frosch.de/sprache.html

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