This year’s Gonubie Orchid Society Show, held on October 21, saw society President Elize Cloete earn a preliminary award from the SA Orchid Council for her best on show plant, to be ratified into the council’s journal next year.
Out of 250 different classes, Cloete’s winning plant, a Miva Etoile Noire has not been awarded before locally and is considered an unusual and difficult hybrid to grow.
The plant earned a score of 81% and the judges complimented it on its unblemished condition with four robust spikes of many flowers and vibrantly matte colour and texture.
It not only won the grand champion prize but also earned the reserve grand champion spot with Andrew Momford’s Eulophia speciosa third.
Cloete said that growing the plant solidified her belief in the orchid’s ability to lead the way in terms of determining the conditions it needs to thrive. Cloete said that growers make the mistake of caring for the plant in ways that do not mimic the plant’s habitat and this discrepancy can kill the plant and crush the grower’s spirit.
Her winning plant lives in a shade house, enjoys a great deal of sunlight, water every day and fertiliser once a week to recreate the environment of its parent plants.
Cloete said her award means a great deal to her and to the society because it is a testament to the excellent standard of breeding and growing locally.
Cloete will receive her award at the national orchid show next year in Kwa-Zulu-Natal, where the SA Orchid Council judges’ forum will meet to ratify her plant.
Cloete said: “I got into orchids when my mother passed away and left all her orchids with me and I became attached to these pieces of beautiful nature that took up my home in her absence and since then my house has never been without an orchid.
“My award is a reminder to the East London public of the beautiful orchids we have locally and the wealth of knowledge among our society members,” she said.
Cloete and fellow society member, Lynette Kleynhans will finish off their judges’ exams in March 2024 and will be the only active certified local judges in East London. This will enable the society to award members for their work throughout the year and to develop the standard of local growing and breeding.
In the last six years, there have been no East London judges with only one in Gqeberha, limiting the excellence of growers in the Eastern Cape from being recognised on the national stage.
This year’s theme was jungle fever, and the society members were tasked with building stalls to display their orchids to enable trainee judges to practice awarding orchid stands.
Cloete commended the society members on their ingenuity in building the stalls and credits the members for producing a great show that she hoped will attract people to the society.
Judge Keith Taylor applauded East London on the excellent standard local growers maintained at this years show as well as the widely impressive variety of orchids on show.
Momford’s plant, a hybrid of the indigenous East London and Makhanda orchids is an innovative experiment that had taken 15 years to realise and had garnered a great deal of international interest as more local colonies in East London become decimated by poaching and urbanisation every year.
Momford said: “In the last four years there has been a rapid decline in eulophia speciosa with whole colonies in Gonubie and Nahoon lost. There used to be 87 plants growing on Fishermen’s Road to Bats Cave and now there is only one.
“The orchids in Padkamp in Cambridge West have been flattened to make room for housing and the sensitive ground orchid of Gonubie which used to flower in abundance has been lost forever to make room for Gonubie High School.
“The orchids are also poached for tribal medicine. As a community, we need to work with WOSA and other conservation and protection bodies to call for areas where the orchids are endangered especially to be protected and turned into reserves.”
