It started 11 years ago, when a friend and neighbor cajoled Susan Anderson into buying a couple of orchids at Passanisi Nursery in Penngrove.
“I was there buying outdoor plants. But my neighbor said, ‘You can grow these.' I always thought they were beautiful but temperamental and hard to grow,” she recalls. “Never in a million years did I think I could get one to re-bloom.”
But she did. And now her Petaluma home is a virtual greenhouse of orchids, with nearly every window sill filled with these tropical bloomers, with their delicate forms, luscious colors and near intoxicating sensuality.
Orchids provide a bright horticultural note during the otherwise dreary winter growing season. Many orchid societies hold their shows in winter or spring because, for many orchid varieties, a drop in temperature is their cue to bloom.
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