The Great Sun Orchid is an extraordinary orchid species endemic to southern Australia. Most recently, it’s received national attention and accolades at the 2018 Chelsea Flower Show. Led by world-renowned Professor Kingsley Dixon, this one-of-a-kind orchid turned all heads with its striking beauty. It educated significant environmental concerns to a public audience. The exhibit featured unbelievably beautiful orchids from South-East Asia and the Pacific. It went on to take home a gold medal at that world’s premier event, staged in London.
It was Professor Dixon’s team that came up with the idea of bringing The Great Sun Orchid to life eight months before the exhibition. The challenge of getting the fragile flower safely from Australia was intimidating, especially considering the flower’s strict growing habitat. The orchid itself is not a hybrid and blooms in the wild between September and December. Getting it to full bloom in such a short time period would prove a huge logistical challenge.
Overcoming Challenges
Transporting The Great Sun Orchid also brought a different set of challenges. Professor Dixon conceded that it was going to be virtually impossible to get the orchid to flower in time for Chelsea. In order to address these hurdles, he turned to a friend in Germany. This expert had been growing these rare orchids for thirty years.
“I knew he had material that he’s been growing for about 40 years from seed … I begged him, and he agreed,” Professor Dixon shared. This unique collaboration truly made all the difference, giving the team the resources to help the orchids bloom and be fully displayed despite odds being stacked against them.
Additionally, Professor Dixon’s commitment to authenticity played a crucial role in the exhibit’s success. To make it thrive, he meticulously replicated the orchid’s native rainforest ecology. He mixed sandy soil with granite rocks and blackened sticks from his Western Australian property that had recently been touched by a bushfire.
“So we just were literally going around with tweezers, pulling off sand, pulling off grass and making sure the rocks are perfect.” – Professor Kingsley Dixon
A Royal Inspection
The beauty of the Great Sun Orchid did not escape royal eyes. King Charles III and Queen Camilla—also Chelsea Flower Show fixtures—visited and toured the installation. In common with two other Australian Orchids, Queen Camilla has a particular fascination with The Great Sun Orchid. Her attention has raised its profile among a dazzling variety of floral spectaculars.
Professor Dixon expressed immense pride in the orchid’s recognition, stating, “The gold is beyond the icing of the cake. It is the cake.” This simple expression perfectly embodies both the joy and excitement of winning an Olympic gold medal. It underscores the powerful influence of telling a conservation story featuring an endangered species.
As many as 60 percent of all orchids are threatened with extinction, The Great Sun Orchid, among them. This exhibit is an evocative and powerful reminder of just how closely intertwined our environmental health and biodiversity are.
A Call to Action
The Great Sun Orchid does more than just beautify the landscape. Currently, it acts as an early warning system for environmental concerns. With its intricate interactions with its own ecosystem, it can serve as an indispensable indicator of ecological shifts that could point to bigger issues.
According to professor Mike Fay, when the orchid begins to die off, that’s a sure sign to us that the situation is really dire. As he explained, they are the canary in the coal mine.
Professor Dixon said The Great Sun Orchid’s plight was urgent. He doesn’t view it as a doom and gloom warning, but rather as a tremendous opportunity to inspire action. “It’s not a message of despair but it’s a message of a call to arms,” he stated. His passion for conservation and biodiversity shines through in his commitment to ensuring future generations can appreciate such incredible diversity.
Helen Richards, an advocate for environmental conservation, echoed similar sentiments: “It is important that every effort is made to arrest this decline for future generations to experience our incredible diversity.”
