A Gold medal orchid

Psychopsis are butterfly orchids, and the name isn’t subtle: each flower looks like a butterfly perched on the end of a long, wiry stem. The best bit is that one spike keeps producing new flowers, one after another, for years if you leave it alone. So the only rule is don’t cut the spike off, however scraggly it gets.

A small but very satisfying celebration of one of my more enduring horticultural obsessions: growing unusual orchids and, occasionally, getting them to behave.