The Electric Orchid Hunter Says Hello

[orchidhunter]

Hello everyone.
In 2001 I made the wonderful mistake of reading Susan Orlean's fascinating book The Orchid Thief. I was stunned by her descriptions of all the crazy and obsessed orchid people. Soon after, I bought a Phalaenopsis at a nursery and became one of them...

Inbetween then and now, I managed to set up a greenhouse in the backyard of my parents' house in Pretoria, South Africa, amass over 300 orchids of various kinds, arm myself with knowledge and become totally obsessed. Since August 2007, I've been studying plant genetics in Colorado, USA and so had to entrust my precious babies to my mother's capable hands. She has caught orchid fever from me (it's contagious, folks!) and sends regular updates on what's flowering in my absence. Lucky me! Being so far from my greenhouse makes me feel a little out of the loop, I guess, which is why I decided to join this here esteemed forum. So there you go.

My main space for all things orchid-ey on the web has been my blog: Eclectic Epiphytes and Electrophoretic Epigrams, which I maintain as The Electric Orchid Hunter. For the sake of continuity, I decided to use that name for this forum too. Hope no-one thinks it's too conceited. Apart from pieces about orchids, botany, evolution, biotechnology and genetics, it also features posts about some of my other passions. But mainly orchids.

That's it for introductions, I guess. Please visit my gallery of orchid pictures I've taken over the years.

Cheerio!
The Electric Orchid Hunter