The no-orchid Orchid Pavilion

[bixaorellana]

Thursday morning I visited the local agricultural college, where I enjoyed seeing the experimental kitchen garden. That garden adjoins the Orchid Pavilion. I will have to visit it again, as very few orchids were blooming. Fortunately, the entire area housing the pavilion is delightful and interesting.


Ye'tsil means "flower which sparkles" in Zapotec.






You enter a world of bright sunshine and deep shadow, welcomed by a fountain topped with a pot from San Bartolo Coyotepec, a nearby town renowned for its highly ornamental black pottery.

Once past the fountain, a landscape of tropical plants and stepping stones guides the visitor to the lofty pavilion.


The arrangement here mirrors the similar, but more practical look of the areas surrounding the classroom buildings of the college.





It's very quiet and even though it's well into mid-morning, there are very few people about. The only person I see who appears to work here is a young woman sweeping the walk inside the pavilion.




In the photograph below you can see the height of the pavilion and the various ways the orchids are mounted. It's hard to tell in this picture, but there is a walkway mezzanine on three sides, with orchids all along it. I was surprised to see how many of them required such bright light.

<--Here is a better shot of part of the walkway.

<--I was struck by the size of this blooming begonia, which quite dwarfs the young rickrack cactus behind it.

These are some of the orchids beyond the picture on the left, against the screen wall of the pavilion.

There are some blooming plants -- the bromeliad above and this cheery tuberous begonia, quivering in the breeze.

Here is another bromeliad. I'm surprised not to see more of them in the pavilion. There are many wild ones in the forests as one goes higher into mountains surrounding Oaxaca. Perhaps some of the plants on the walkway are bromeliads in a resting state.

[bixaorellana]

Even though we know these orchids were affixed to the tree by human hands, the effect is quite pleasing.

A big part of the charm inside this enclosure is how the man-made parts -- walkways, raked gravel, etc. -- are integrated with successful attempts to mimic nature.

Here, finally, are some blooming orchids!

Let's take a closer look at that first bloomer, shall we?
 

Coffee, anyone? This bush is not only ornamental, not only representative of a major crop of the
state of Oaxaca, but also serves to screen some of the homelier practical items in the pavilion.


And yes, I did feel rather larcenous gazing upon this group of pots.

[bixaorellana]

Bidding goodbye to the Pavilion, we wander outside onto the grounds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything is landscaped and groomed. Note the cacti beyond the fountain.


Closer inspection reveals that only the clump on the far right is from nature.


There is something particularly Mexican about this grouping that I find both beautiful and friendly.


The greenhouse area is spotless, and there are plants for sale. I was tickled by how the honeycomb pattern of the propagating tubes echoes that of the flooring.

I'm sure all of us home gardeners are familiar with makeshift containers and nurseries for emerging seedlings.



















What made this particular group of recycled potting containers amusing was that it was inside this fancy plant house!


There are several pleasing, natural-looking arrangements of succulents. I am definitely going to
steal this idea. It will be a good use of all the rocks that are everywhere in my yard, plus
gracefully lifts and showcases the various succulents.

I snapped the portrait of this big beauty through the fence as I was leaving:

I nip into the office before I go, as there are supposed to be brochures. While I wait for someone
to search for them, I get a picture of the row of botanical illustrations of orchids.


The man comes back and tells me there are no brochures to be found (next week!), and hands me a consolation prize -- prints of illustrations similar to those I just photographed.

Here is my haul from the visit to the experimental kitchen garden and the orchid pavilion and grounds:


It's a wonderful, relaxing way to spend a couple of hours and I will definitely be visiting there again.

[Deleted]

It does look like a great place. Did you really have it all to yourself as the pictures seem to indicate? That would be both pleasant and worrisome -- if not many people are interested in what they are doing, the financing could dry up, no?

[bixaorellana]

Yeah ~~ I made no attempt to cut people out of the photos. The place really was almost empty. You can see part of an umbrella and some chairs in the first shot of the pavilion interior in the OP. There was a couple sitting at that table fooling around with a laptop. I only saw two workers outside on the Pavilion grounds -- the aforementioned girl sweeping, and another girl who was in charge of sales at the nursery. There was a group of three or four there, and the only others in the place were the two guys you see strolling in the first pic in Reply #1.

There were workers in the office, plus a lady cleaning windows. I kind of got a kick out of your comment about financing. From what I've seen walking around the college grounds, the government throws money at this place. It's a little sickening to be surrounded by so much need, especially among rural people and to see gorgeous fencing, piles of irrigation equipment, and all kinds of other evidence of "tax dollars at work".

[patricklondon]

But what a fascinating look at how different things can be in another climate zone. Thanks.

[imec]

Thanks bixa - very interesting! I love the smell inside greenhouses - always reminds me of a favorite uncle who always kept one.

"The greenhouse area is spotless" - sorry, reminds me of a line from the old Monty Python cheese shop sketch... (paraphrasing) "Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by orchids" ;D

[spindrift]

Thanks Bixa....that greenhouse is beautifully designed and there isn't a weed in sight.

I have tried so hard to like orchids but I cannot. My aversion probably dates back to my childhood. Shame. But I did like seeing them 'en masse' at the Bangkok flower market, all picked and ready to be sold.

[Deleted]

All of the gardening shops are trying to sell orchids at the moment, but I resist them as well. I like to look at a large number of them together, but a single orchid plant is a sad sight as far as I am concerned.

If I ever move to Thailand, the garden will probably be full of orchids.

[spindrift]

A friend of mine has recently bought a fantastic house on Phuket. You get a lot for your money there. Have you visited the island?

[Deleted]

Yes, I've been to Phuket twice and loved it, but I don't know if I would go back now, because it is overdeveloped for luxury tourism. I loved it during the bungalow-on-the-beach days.

However, the friend of a friend who still knew of a few secluded places with bungalows on the beach was there during the tsunami and drowned.

[bixaorellana]

I have to admit that one of the reasons it took me so long to visit the orchid pavilion is because orchids don't really grab me. I've seen them grown beautifully and a perfectly placed, fully blooming orchid plant can take my breath away. But it's something about their very exoticism and the extra care they need that puts me off. I don't quite regard them with the disdain I feel for hybrid tea roses, because at least orchids aren't ugly when not in bloom, but feel the same impatience for their prima donna-ish demands.