{"id":138157,"date":"2023-07-02T20:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-07-02T13:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/my-law-breaking-mission-to-save-britains-endangered-orchids\/"},"modified":"2023-07-02T20:10:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T13:10:08","slug":"my-law-breaking-mission-to-save-britains-endangered-orchids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/my-law-breaking-mission-to-save-britains-endangered-orchids\/","title":{"rendered":"My law-breaking mission to save Britain\u2019s endangered orchids"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBen Jacob looks back on his lifelong passion for Britain\u2019s native orchids, and reveals why he has risked heavy fines and even prison to save themA garden centre. The soft artificial light of neon bulbs. Aisles hung with gloves, plastic bottles, plant food. Houseplants perched on white tables. Maybe not a place conventionally thought to change a life, but it changed mine. Not the bottles or gloves, but one of those houseplants. There it was in a plastic pot in the company of a few others, long, dark-green, strap-like leaves fountaining around columns of big star-shaped blooms that seemed to have been fashioned out of ruby, opal, citrine. The moment I saw it everything else lost focus. Those flowers held me spellbound. The plant was an orchid, a Cymbidium originally native to parts of Asia, propagated to feed a lucrative market in tropical orchids. I didn\u2019t know that at the time. I was nine. I had been interested in nature \u2013 birds, mammals, David Attenborough documentaries \u2013 for a long time, but that exotic bloom was a league apart. It held me entranced. My parents were kind enough to buy it for me (I think they liked it, too) and my first orchid sat on the landing, its flowers slowly dying. The challenge was to make it flower again.I saved up pocket money earned from washing my dad\u2019s car to purchase a book called Essentials of Orchid Care (or something like that). As this was in the days before the internet, getting hold of that book required convincing my parents that we needed a return trip to the garden centre, which (oh, what a coincidence) might also afford me the opportunity to feast my eyes on other orchids. As they are keen gardeners, this was not a challenge. Alas, they did not agree that the first Cymbidium deserved a companion, but I could buy the book. Continue reading…
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\nSource : theguardian.com
\nRead more…My law-breaking mission to save Britain\u2019s endangered orchids<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Jacob looks back on his lifelong passion for Britain\u2019s native orchids, and reveals why...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-property-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75ss1-zWl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38651,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/paperwhites-moth-orchids-and-poinsettias-the-houseplants-of-christmas\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":0},"title":"Paperwhites, moth orchids and poinsettias: the houseplants of Christmas","date":"December 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Jane Perrone profiles the indoor plants that make Christmas, from the monstrous trumpets of the amaryllis to the brash red bracts of poinsettiasRead part one, on the foliage plants of Christmas, hereYou\u2019ll not find it mentioned in carols or pictured on cards, but phalaenopsis orchids fly off the shelves\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":123894,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/not-all-orchids-are-fuss-pots\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":1},"title":"Not all orchids are fuss pots","date":"December 19, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Exotic blooms aren\u2019t all hard to look after. These orchids are a lot tougher than they look and are easy to look afterWith 400,000 plant species on earth, it\u2019s always so surprising to me how few have made it into cultivation. Most of humanity, for example, relies on only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":114131,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/gardening-tips-plant-a-star-jasmine\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":2},"title":"Gardening tips: plant a star jasmine","date":"February 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Then visit Kew\u2019s orchid festival and protect houseplants from spider mitePlant this For an evergreen climber with a scent that knocks your socks off come summer, look no further than star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides). It needs full sun and a sheltered spot.Visit this Kew\u2019s 25th annual orchid festival opens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58924,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/top-tips-for-holiday-proofing-houseplants\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":3},"title":"Top tips for holiday-proofing houseplants","date":"June 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r How to help your beloved, fragile plants face up to two untended weeks while you swan off to the MedI\u2019m off on holiday in a couple of weeks. Believe me, I really can\u2019t wait for the escape. But for obsessive houseplant collectors like me, going away at the height\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92188,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/amazing-exotics-to-grow-from-seed-james-wong\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":4},"title":"Amazing exotics to grow from seed | James Wong","date":"June 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Weird and wonderful houseplants can be both hard to track down and expensive. But there is an easy solution: grow them from seedAfter years of banging on about the joys of houseplants, I am so glad to see that a new generation are cottoning on to their charms. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150412,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/the-leaves-fall-off-but-i-think-thats-normal-the-houseplants-you-just-cant-kill\/","url_meta":{"origin":138157,"position":5},"title":"\u2018The leaves fall off \u2013 but I think that\u2019s normal\u2019: the houseplants you just can\u2019t kill","date":"April 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Some indoor plants wither the moment you turn your back; others shrug off drought, darkness and even \u2018watering\u2019 by cats. Here\u2019s how to choose the most hardy specimens. Plus, readers celebrate the greenery that survived against all the oddsThere is a good reason that we treat certain houseplants as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}