How I became an Orchidlover

When I left 10 months of research in tropical Ghana and found myself at the archives of the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, the dreariness of London overwhelmed me. It was May; I thought by then it would be safe to come back up North. But the icy rain was relentless and I was forced to buy a sack of wool sweaters, trousers, and boots at a consignment shop.

One of the benefits of affiliation with the Botanical Archives as a research scholar is access to the entire grounds of the Royal Gardens. Given the excuse for spring that met me, I found myself wandering in the Palm House, looking at the orchids nestled among the greenhoused trees. One day on a whim, I picked up three books at the gift shop on my way out: two on cooking with flowers and an introduction to orchid growing.

Perhaps it was something about the British Isles--the rain, the fog, the general greyness, the hours on the subway. Perhaps it was the hours spent looking through herbarium correspondence-- the exchanges of seeds, plants, and identifications. The Victorian desire to contain the exotic tropics in pots and greenhouses, archives and museums.

Perhaps it was my own romanticization of the warm, breezy climate I had so recently left [afterall, hadn't it been the harmattan, the red dust sweeping down from the Sahara?]

Somehow, sometime around the middle of May 2003, I became an OrchidLover.