A place of passion

You know, we have absolutely no idea of the earnest activity that goes on behind closed doors

You know, we have absolutely no idea of the earnest activity that goes on behind closed doors. For instance, I've been whizzing past a certain bungalow several times a week without ever guessing that within its walls some serious plant-growing was going on. But as soon as I walked into Melissa Ellis's kitchen, a place filled with eccentric green things, I knew I was in the presence of a dedicated plant person. For a start, the walls are hung with the decidedly uncanny shapes of elkhorn ferns (Platycerium grande). These natives of Australia and Malaysia have huge, upcurving flattened leaves just like eerie, green, veined horns. More mature specimens send down cascades of seaweedy, strappy fronds.

These ferns are epiphytic: in their natural habitat they attach themselves to trees, but Melissa's are fastened to pieces of wood, not unlike vegetable hunting trophies. In the wild, the elkhorns feed by catching debris in the chalice formed by their upper leaves - and by autodigesting their own, older leaves (isn't nature wonderfully efficient?). But these Co Dublin specimens, the largest of which is some feet across, are fed on dilute fish emulsion and the odd banana peel - "they like the potassium". An occasional trip into the bath for a gentle shower of lukewarm water keeps them in prime condition. More epiphytes, in this case bromeliads, hang from the ceiling, while those most blue-blooded of epiphytic beings, the orchids, are ranged around the window at the sink. "When I have my potatoes boiling, they love the wafts of steam," their owner says. There are just a few here: among them a night-scented Brassavola with luminous, white, spidery blossoms, a big lilac Phalaenopsis and a Cirrhopetalum. The latter, which is pollinated in the wild by carrion flies, is mercifully not in flower - its blooms exude a powerful pong of rotting meat. Which is just one example of how curious, splendid and compelling the orchid family is. The Orchidaceae clan - numbering an impressive 835 genera, 25,000 species and about 100,000 hybrids - derives its name from orchis, the Greek for testicle, owing to the shape of its swollen storage organs, or "pseudobulbs". (Incidentally, the pre-Raphaelite art critic, John Ruskin, couldn't cope with the name "orchid" and suggested "wreathewort" as an alternative.) Not surprisingly, some orchids (Orchis mascula, for one) were traditionally considered potent aphrodisiacs, and a decoction of their bulbs "geveth lust unto the works of generacyon and multiplycacyon of sperma" - according to a herbalist of 1527.

While it's the bulbs of temperate varieties that work Venus's magic (but please don't try this one out for yourself), it is the flowers of the tropical ones that provoke passion - of a different sort, I think - in Melissa Ellis and countless other orchid fanciers. Orchid flowers are precious things: unless the conditions are absolutely right the plants won't even dream of forming them. So, in the orchid-lover's household, plants must be coddled and cajoled - and duped into thinking that they are roaming free, high up in the misty rain forest canopy - instead of being stabled in a bricks-and-mortar enclosure. "The hardest thing is the watering," says Melissa. "People think that because they come from the rain forest they must have acres and oceans of water." The worst crime, she cautions, is to sit them in cold water for any length of time. Doing this breaks down the "velamen", the furry coating on the roots, through which the orchid sucks in moisture and the minute particles of food that have dissolved in the mists. In their natural environment, although many orchids are frequently drenched with rain, they dry off quickly in the warm, tropical breezes. "But in this country," explains Melissa, "they can stay cold and wet, and they rot. You have to bribe them into thinking that they are happy with less water than they are used to getting." Her orchids' regime includes daily misting in summer, infrequent misting in winter and a rare soak in a warm bath enriched with a few drops of fish emulsion.

It is a health programme that works - literally - wonders. For an orchid bloom is an amazing thing: sometimes breathtakingly beautiful in frilly pinks and purples, sometimes slippery and organic as if carved out of liver, and sometimes strangely coloured and formed, like a brindled sea creature. And in Melissa's bedroom (which is where she houses more than 50 orchids, only bringing them into the public arena of the kitchen when they are ready to perform) she has hoodwinked many a finicky orchid into producing their extraordinary blossoms. And right now, a very special specimen is about to bloom. Stanhopea Assidensis. It's turgid, lime-green and maroon, and it is hanging down from its basket, looking definitely glandular. When it flowers, it will have a pungent smell of chocolate, designed to summon the two tiny bee species that pollinate it in the wild. But for some reason, unknown to scientists, when it flowers, this orchid is both upsidedown and inside-out. "And," says Melissa proudly, "I've grown this in my bedroom in my little house without heaters or humidifiers or anything. It's a triumph, it's a wow!" And then, fondly "It's my botanical anomaly. "