People who associate orchids with tropical rain forests will be surprised to know that they can grow in an urban setting. There are several people in the city of Pune alone who grow orchids

One of them is my father who counts orchid cultivation as one of his several hobbies. This was a natural offshoot of his passion for gardening which has yielded many a tender green salad and tonnes of avocado which my parents have had to  distribute after consuming them in diverse forms including  avocado icecream.

Unfortunately his garden is pretty shaded so he doesn’t have much luck with regular flowers like zinnia and balsam. But he has just the right amount of sunshine for his orchids . 

Most of the orchids he has collected from his various trips and you can see them hanging all over the place like this one in the back verandah. 

He even has some of them growing on trees like this one and though I’ve never seen them all in full bloom at the same time, they keep him busy and out of my mom’s hair.

Of course this is quite a messy business and my mother gets annoyed with the bits of husk and coal that he uses to grow them but she is pleased when he allows her to use a flowering stem as part of a floral arrangement. 

Orchids are hardy flowers and have an exotic beauty that I personally find a bit creepy but they are great ornamental plants to have in an urban home.