Shropshire Magazine

Ken Tudor meets a couple who took on a steep learning curve to become prizewinning orchid growers.

A couple of exotic orchids blooming on the windowsill of their Shropshire home were to change the lives of flower lovers Ivor and Toni Rutherford.

Ivor Rutherford with a colourful miltonia plant

For the two flowering phalaenopsis plants were to lead them to join a top Midland orchid society in a move which was to make them award-winning exhibitors. Now, five years later, some magnificent specimens of the awesome orchid family have helped them to become the top award winners at the winter show of the Central Orchid Society.

They were absolutely astonished when the show organisers announced that they had won the trophy for the most points in the winter show at Perton, near Albrighton, with a lovely selection of plants.

“We just could not believe it – we were truly astonished when we were told we had won the trophy,” says a proud Toni.

“In fact we were a bit embarrassed really to win it, because all the people we had beaten were the people who had taught us so much over the last few years.”

The couple, who live at Sutherland Drive in Muxton in Telford, are full of praise for the friendly members of the Central Orchid Society for their patience and understanding – and lots and lots of advice.

“It all really took off when we read about the society and then went along to one of its meeting with some trepidation,” she continues.

“We just went along to find out a bit more about the orchids. At first our fears were confirmed because at the meeting everything seemed to be so technical and complicated. And the complicated names of the different species and varieties seemed to be very daunting.”

But Ivor explains that they were keen to learn more, and on the way home from meetings at Perton Community Centre they talked orchids non-stop in case they forgot what they had learned.

“We were made to feel very welcome and soon we were getting more and more plants,” he says. “Finding orchids has changed our lives – we now go to shows all over the country, including international orchid congresses.”

One of the Central Orchid Society medals won by Ivor and Toni at the winter show

And to house them Ivor, who is wheelchair-bound, cut an 8ft × 8ft greenhouse in half and grew the expanding plant collection in two lean-to glasshouses against the walls of the bungalow.

These structures played a big part in the couple’s orchid obsession but recently they were replaced by a kitchen extension with windowsills for the orchids which flower their heads off through the winter months.

And Toni now has a lovely plant-packed mini-conservatory at the rear of the house, with an amazing range of orchids, ranging from phalaenopsis and vandas to masdevallias.

The kitchen extension gives Ivor the opportunity to work with the orchids they grow in there. “It is good because it is east-facing and therefore not in direct sunshine,” he says. And he enjoys the large cymbidium collection they have, loving them so much he cannot bring himself to “rip them apart” to propogate.

“I do love them and I know that I should break them up to propagate but I just cannot do it,” he says. “So I have to keep potting them up – and they are now in buckets.”

The cymbidiums used to be suggested as good starter plants for beginners, but they can be difficult to bring back into bloom.

The Rutherfords get the most out of them “by giving them a summer holiday” in the back garden. They take them out and place them under a gazebo when the clumps can get a splash of summer rain and see the sun.

“Then we leave them out until they get the first touch of frost,” says Ivor, suggesting that the outdoor holiday and the frost can trigger more flowers. It certainly worked because at the Central Orchid Society show their prizewinning collection included some very attractive and floriferous cymbidiums.

But there is a warning from Toni about the plants outdoors. “The slugs just love them and if they get the chance they will destroy them,” she says. “So they are off the ground with slugbait underneath them.”

A slug wouldn’t dare to enter Toni’s kingdom where the heaters, misters and fans whirl away to create a nice mixture of “steamy and buoyant atmosphere” to ape the life in the jungles.

A triumphant smile from Toni Rutherford as she took most points in the COS show

For Toni’s attention to detail means that everything is always right for her beloved plants, and that means that her fabulous moth orchids of the phalaenopsis family, the stunning blooms of the vandas and the slipper orchids of the paphiopedilums strains are always in tip-top condition.

“It is a challenge because we are always trying to create the conditions of the places they come from and they are usually steamy areas of the world,” Ivor explains. “Some of them need more water than others, some like masdevallias prefer to have rainwater and others are okay on good old Severn Trent.”

The plants are all stunning and the couple continue to expand their collection by buying at shows and growing some from seedlings. “We get them in flasks and grow them on; it is lovely to grow them on and see what you might get,” says Ivor.

The rapid rise of the Rutherfords from total beginners to trophy-winning enthusiasts has not been a surprise to COS chairman John Spiers, who himself started with a couple of plants in his lounge.

John, now a top grower and secretary of the British Orchid Society, says: “Tony and Ivor are excellent examples of how people can grow a few orchids on a windowsill and then get totally hooked on them.”

“They have done exceptionally well and if there are any other people like them we would love to see them at the society.”

• The Central Orchid Society meets at the Perton Community Centre at Perton on the A41 Albrighton–Wolverhampton road on the last Saturday afternoon in each month. Contact John Spiers on 01902 759640.