Warrnambool and District Orchid Show returns to the south-west

Warrnambool and District Orchid Show marshall and club president Rod Dunn said the 2023 show featured a large range.

"We've got a good variety of growers," Mr Dunn said. "Some have hothouses and some have shade houses so we cover the whole gamut. There's a fair few native orchids poking around as well.

"There's a lot of flowers. There's some floral art and there's some mini boards. It's looking very spectacular."

Mr Dunn said growers from Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Portland, Hamilton, Cobden and Colac had entered the event with judges travelling from Melbourne on Thursday to assess the entries.

"It's a very good-looking show this year," he said.

Retired farmer Paul Horsnell started growing orchids about 20 years ago after downsizing from Balmoral to Warrnambool.

Mr Horsnell said he grew orchids for "the challenge".

"I was farming for 50 years and I showed pigs in Melbourne, Adelaide and around the place and I was always interested in the display of orchids but I never had enough time to devote to it," Mr Horsnell said.

He visited the Warrnambool orchid show meeting avid grower, founding orchid club member and his neighbour Doris Sizeland, who later died in 2011.

"She was in her 90s and finding it difficult to re-pot so I gave her a hand and got interested in it and from there I've been involved," he said.

Mr Horsnell enjoys competing, though having quality plants to exhibit was "always a challenge".

"Plants are plants and they have their own minds," he said.

"They do what they want when they want and that doesn't often equate to what you want.

"There's all sorts of problems like snails and slugs that cause hassle. As everyone always says if there's a snail about it will take the best flower."

Mr Hornell said the 2023 growing conditions had been "lousy".

"It's the worst year I've had for flowering for yonks," he said. "My assumption is because we had no summer the orchids didn't know what they were doing," he said.

"Cymbidiums particularly, need a hot summer and then when it gets to around February they need the temperature to drop significantly at night.

"There's got to be at least a 10-degree temperature drop to stimulate the cymbidiums to flower but that didn't happen this last year. There wasn't the heat so there couldn't be the drop."

He grows mainly cymbidiums and dendrobiums and other varieties.

"The flowers are spectacular," he said. "The more you get into it, you realise how diverse the genera is. There's all sorts of different orchids. You can be involved in some of them, as many as you can or just one or two types."

It's on at Our Lady Help of Christians Primary School Hall, Selby Road, Saturday, September 30 and Sunday, October 1 from 10am. Entry is $5 for adults, children free.

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