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www.thevillagenews.co.za
12 August 2020
Orchard creates hybrid Hermanus orchid Writer Hedda Mittner
PHOTO: Quinton Smith, YachatsNews.com
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retired chemistry lecturer in Oregon, USA has successfully grown a new Disa hybrid, named Disa Hermanus, which was recently registered with the Royal Horticultural Society in England. Although Disa Hermanus is the ninth new Disa hybrid created by the 75-year-old Walter (Wally) Orchard, this delicate orchid holds a special place in his heart and was a real labour of love.
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Wally and his wife, Christine have been living in the US since 1993, but he still has close ties to Hermanus, where his sister, Anne Kotze lives. “As children, we spent our summer holidays in Voëlklip, in a house that my mother inherited from her mother. When my parents retired there, my father set up a shade house where he cultivated Disas. I thought they were particularly beautiful and started photographing them – and soon decided that I would like to grow them myself.” After moving to the US, the Orchards still visited Hermanus almost every year, and Wally says that “growing Disas created a sort of link to South Africa that was important to me”. Fortunately, the climate in Oregon – wet and moderate – was also conducive to the cultivation of Disas, which grow along mountain streams, on waterfalls and in marshy seepages in the Western Cape. They are notoriously tricky to cultivate and need different conditions to other orchids, but Wally says his background in chemistry comes in useful when creating those specific conditions, including water quality and temperature control. He readily admits that what started out as a hobby has now gotten seriously out of hand! “At any one time I have something like 800 plants, not counting the thousands of tiny plantlets that might be growing in the lab, from which I select those that will be allowed to go into the greenhouse.” So how does one go about creating a Disa hybrid? “A new hybrid is one whose parent grexes (hybrids or species) have not been crossed before,” explains Wally. “I always look for parents with superior qualities and in the case of Disa Hermanus, the parents were two hybrids themselves, Disa Yellow Bird and Disa Glasgow Orchid Conference.” The process starts in spring, as the Disa’s flowering season, in the northern hemisphere, is from May to July. Wally collects pollen from one parent flower and transfers it to the stigma of the other parent. If the pollination is successful, the pollinated flower will close up and a seed pod will develop and ripen over a period of
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12 AUGUST 2020
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ABOVE: Wally Orchard of Yachats in Oregon, USA, examining one of the hundreds of Disa orchids he cultivates in a greenhouse. CIRCLE: Wally’s attractive and vibrantly colourful new hybrid, Disa Hermanus, which has been registered with the Royal Horticultural Society in England. PHOTO: Wally Orchard
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Long weekend boosts economy
As an enthusiastic ambassador for our town, Di Rattle of the Hermanus Brewing Company, which produces the iconic lager, Old Harbour Beer, made sure that there was no mistaking where her loyalties lie when she came out in support of the #HermanusIsOpen initiative at the Old Harbour on Friday afternoon. Read more on P4 PHOTO: Taylum Meyer
Writer De Waal Steyn
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about seven weeks. Wally says he generally harvests the seed pods a week or two before they are fully ripe and split open. After carefully extracting the seeds, which are no bigger than grains of sand, with a scalpel, he then sows them under sterile conditions on a special growing medium in his home lab – a small room at his house with a sink, a counter top, a growing area and, most importantly, a laminar flow cabinet, where the lights are kept on for 16 hours a day and the air is constantly blown into the top of the open-fronted cabinet through a big HEPA filter. This ensures that the air in the cabinet is free of any particles that could carry bacteria or fungal spores. The seedlings are kept here in small Mason jars with transparent lids, under the lights and at the ideal temperature of 70° F, for about six months. “This method, called flasking, gives the plants a faster start in life,” says Wally. “The seeds swell up and germinate within weeks, and after a few months they have tiny leaves. When the plants in the flasks are about 5 cm tall, they are ready to come out into the real world where they will face much tougher conditions, including all sorts of pests and diseases.” While many of the small plants don’t survive the trauma of coming out of the lab, the stronger ones are put into small individual pots and are moved to the greenhouse, where they join the
older plants. “They usually take about three years to flower but Disa Hermanus was very vigorous and actually took only two years from seed to flowering,” says Wally. “Disa Hermanus has excellent shape, meaning that the three main parts of the flower, the sepals, are big, well-rounded and lie flat. The flowers are big, over 100 mm across, and the colour is excellent. The strong orange shade with the pinkish blush at the ends of the sepals is very attractive. The striking veins in the top (dorsal) sepal it gets from Disa uniflora, the wellknown ‘Pride of Table Mountain’. Both parents of Disa Hermanus have a lot of Disa uniflora in their pedigree.” Although Wally does not regard his ‘hobby’ as a business, he does sell plants on a small scale. “I have a website (afrodisa.weebly.com) that is primarily intended to provide information about the important Disa species, and how to cultivate them. When people do contact me via the website looking to buy seeds or plants, I try to help but I discourage prospective buyers if I sense they are inexperienced and won’t be able to keep the plants alive. Disas are challenging and not for the faint-hearted!” Additional source: yachatsnews.com/orchards-orchids-a-yachats-mans-love-affair-witha-rare-flower-from-south-africa/
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he much-anticipated long weekend delivered the boost that our local economy so desperately needed. With thousands of domestic tourists, mainly from across the mountain, streaming into our towns, business proprietors were smiling from ear to ear. “The weather played its part and delivered both bright sunny and cold rainy days, making it perfect for visitors to enjoy the multitude of outdoor activities, including whale-watching tours, as well as visiting our cosy restaurants and shops while it rained,” said Cape Whale Coast Tourism Manager, Frieda Lloyd. According to her, many accommodation establishments, restrictions permitting, were fully booked for the weekend. “Rural areas such as Stanford had an exceptional weekend as it seems that many tourists prefer the great outdoors where social distancing is easy. All the various markets in our towns reported a busy trading weekend and on Monday the Fernkloof Nature Reserve was awash with people heading into the mountains under clear, sunny skies.” Restaurateur Rudolf van der Berg of Burgundy said his turnover was about 70% compared to the long weekend in 2019. “Under the circumstances I am elated,” he said. Emilia Knight, owner of The Gallery Café & Deli Food Store said she also experienced a frenzied weekend. “There were streams of customers and I had my best weekend ever. We were even busier than we’d been in December,” she said. Clinton Lerm of Forest Adventures echoed this sentiment. “The sunny weather lured people outside to enjoy all of the activities on offer.” The welcome economic injection comes at a time when Covid-19 cases are declining, and all indications are that the Western Cape has passed its peak of in-
fections, to the extent that the provincial government will soon be considering whether all field hospitals need to remain open. On Monday there were 8 371 active cases of Covid-19, with a total of 98 656 confirmed cases and 86 861 recoveries in the province. The Overstrand was at 1 416 cases with 1 291 recoveries. On Thursday, the Western Cape Government Cabinet met to discuss the devastating economic impact the pandemic has had on the province. “While we are seeing an easing on our health resources, unemployment is gaining momentum in our province. Businesses, which employ tens of thousands of people, are buckling under continued restrictions on economic activity, low confidence, and reduced demand,” said Western Cape Premier Alan Winde. It is estimated that the province will lose 10.2% in Gross Value Add, R720 million in revenue, and a staggering 167 000 jobs. “For many people in our province and country, a job is the difference between putting food on the table and starving. This is not an exaggeration, but a reality in our country,” he said. Given the Western Cape’s capacity to respond to Covid-19, the fact that the province has passed its peak, and that measures are in place to support businesses so that they can re-open safely, the Cabinet resolved that there remains no rational reason to keep businesses closed. In addition, the Cabinet was of the opinion that, given the dire consequences that the blanket ban on the sale of alcohol is having on the livelihoods of people, it can no longer support the continued suspension on the domestic sale of alcohol in the province. “For as long as the Western Cape can assure access to health facilities for all Covid-19 patients, the temporary ban should be lifted immediately, in conjunction with the implementation of smart interventions to curb the negative impacts of alcohol over the medium to long term,” said Winde.
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