Orchid Meadow

grow hardy orchids &

wildflower meadows

Blog

Welcome to Orchid Meadow

Welcome to orchidmeadow.uk. I am Tony Heys, an enthusiast of growing hardy orchids, and this website is my version of how to do it. I hope you find it informative and enjoyable. I am also very keen on wildflower meadows; they bring tremendous benefits for biodiversity and conservation, and are inherently wonderful spaces. I have made several mini-meadows in gardens and will blog about both orchids and meadows. I used to sell my orchid plants from the website www.orchidmeadow.co.uk, which you may have visited. I no longer sell, but concentrate on growing them to naturalise in our own garden meadows. Accordingly the old website is replaced by this revised and updated version: www.orchidmeadow.uk. Apart from the photos of hardy orchids on the South Downs and tropical epiphytic orchids in a garden centre all the others are of orchids and wildflowers grown by me.

What are hardy orchids?
orchids are not only in tropical rainforests we have them in the U.K too.

Hardy orchids from seed
the seeds don't just grow - they need help from a fungus.

Dactylorhiza Blackthorn, Epipactis gigantea and Cypripedium reginae grown in trough.jpg

Hardy orchids outdoors
tips for outdoor growing.

Hardy orchids in the greenhouse
how to grow them in pots under glass.

Further information
some suggestions if you want to find out more.

Sourcing hardy orchids
obtain orchids only from responsible sources.

Storing orchid seeds
how to clean and dry seeds for storage.

Wildflower meadows
no garden is too small for a mini-meadow, so do have a go!

Contact
about me and how to get in touch for advice etc.

5.7.26 Meadow Highlights

Common spotted orchids and Oxeye daisies After the usual wet, mild winter the garden meadows experienced very dry and unusually hot weather in spring and early summer. The Front Meadow – manufactured from a roadside lawn beyond and north of our high front hedge – gets some shade during the day. The vegetation height is only medium. The orchids are faring very well there, largely beneath a protective “canopy” or “sea” of Oxeye daisies. Southern marsh orchid Seven years since

2.6.26 Mallorca orchid trip

Ophrys balearica (Balearic bee orchid) At the start of April we were in Mallorca on a holiday to Soller with the side hustle of hopefully seeing wild hardy orchids. There are plenty of good sites known to the orchid world, but by my wrong timing and bad planning I initially failed to find any! This was mitigated somewhat by visits to two nice little hardy orchid “gardens”. At the Soller Botanical Gardens they have a few pots sunk in the ground. Bumblebee orchids (Ophrys bom

20.5.26 Full text: Ilyonectria radicicola fungus germinates four UK hardy orchid species

My previous Blog post was a summary of this article, and it has provoked some interest so I am posting the full text here to make it open-access online. It was published in the: Journal of the Hardy Orchid Society, Vol 23 No.2 (121), Spring 2026, pp 54-61. Ilyonectria radicicola fungus isolated from soil germinates four UK hardy orchid species Tony Heys Anthony.heys@sky.com www.orchidmeadow.uk © Copyright Anthony D. Heys, 2026 Introduction Like many in the Hardy O

Orchid Meadow

Blog

What are hardy orchids? orchids are not only in tropical rainforests we have them in the U.K too.

Hardy orchids from seed the seeds don't just grow - they need help from a fungus.

Hardy orchids outdoors tips for outdoor growing.

Hardy orchids in the greenhouse how to grow them in pots under glass.

Further information some suggestions if you want to find out more.

Sourcing hardy orchids obtain orchids only from responsible sources.

Storing orchid seeds how to clean and dry seeds for storage.

Wildflower meadows no garden is too small for a mini-meadow, so do have a go!

Contact about me and how to get in touch for advice etc.