Orchids grow all year round so it is not difficult to find something flowering during every month of the year. At Southern Suburbs Orchid Society (SSOS), members grow a wide variety of orchids and seldom have difficulties finding something to bench each month. Here are some examples of what we exhibited in our monthly competition for judging in 2021.
Our monthly benching highlights include:
October:
Well into Spring and days vary greatly between warm, cool, windy and wet. Regardless of this, orchids will always bloom. A small scattering is shown here. See the October 2021 page on this website.
September:
There was no monthly contest in September because this is the month that SSOS holds its Annual Spring Show. Similar to last year, it was held as a virtual show due to government restrictions relating to Covid-19 lockdowns.
August:
Once again it appears that each month there is a wide variety of orchids growing in Melbourne’s winter and cooler temperatures. Here are a few examples. For further details view our August page.
July:
Many cymbidiums have appeared in July, including the Sarah Jean ‘Jennifer’ which produces wonderful flowers for many weeks in a row. We also saw a dendrobium tetragonal and Epidendrum marmoratum. The Lycaste’s in bloom, and many from the Laelia Cattleya alliance, including: Laelia anceps.
June:
Many of the cymbidiums in flower are tracyanum, or those which have it in its heritage. It is also the time to see some colourful masdevallias, a Gomesa radicans and a Zelglossoda.
May:
Some unusual flowers appeared in May, including Odontioda, haemapia discolor, Leopoldii and; it is also the time to see the Stenoglottis longifolia flowering.
April:
April is the time for miltonias to flower. Four members showcased theirs at the April Members virtual voting competition. There was also a collection of dendrobiums, some cymbidiums, cattleyas. See the full list of entries in our April page.
March:
Still warmish days with sun so there were more stanhopeas, gongoras and epidendrums on show in both the virtual and hall benching competitions. Added to these were some exquisite plants including vuylstekeara and cattleya pumila. View the full listing on the March page.
February:
Without sounding like the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ song our February competition had 55 entries and within this there were 14 Stanhopeas, 9 Epidendrums, 5 Phalaenopsis, 4 Gongoras and an unusual Promenaea.
January:
January – our first virtual competition for 2021. We have never had a January competition before so it was fascinating to see what is in flower, in what is normally a very hot month. Four examples include the encyclia cochleata, maxillaria cucullata, a dendrochilum filiforme and an unusual dendrobium Gerald McGraith
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