The Most Famous Orchid Arrangement of All

The Most Famous Orchid Arrangement of All

While many folks worry about their next paycheck or their next beer, there are some that worry just about the next arrangement of orchids they will design and put together. Everything else pales in their minds in importance as these artists focus on the production of their next orchid arrangement.

In existence since dinosaurs ruled the lands, skies and waters of this earth the orchid is the center of these people universe. This may sound odd to most of us but we have not been stricken with the same beauty of the perfect orchid arrangement as these folk. Often borne into the trade they drink their milk and have their diapers changed in blankets exhibiting the most exotic of the plants in the rarest of environments. Again this may sound extreme but there is a reason for this apparent mass obsession with the orchid. Although their pain is many years distant the reason for the obsession of these folks is borne in a story from our sad past.

The Kingdom of the Orchid

Many years ago in the deep south of the United States a variety of associations had arisen based on the fact that the marshes and wilderness that surrounds the Gulf Coast is an ideal place for some orchids to grow. These orchid clubs organized an event that could loosely be called a competition. There were no prizes, no glory to be had just the pride in workmanship, when your orchid arrangement was chosen as the best. Each year members from all the clubs spent many hours developing designs and manufacturing the pot or planter to display their orchid arrangement.

Now this may not sound like a real reason for this obsession. However, considering the conditions in which most of these people lived it is actually not difficult to understand. In those days the orchid represented a true and rare sign of peace and beauty in a world of hardship and pain. Although most people had enough to eat it was not healthy food, many were ill and died before their time and most struggled through each day.

It was in this environment that the Kingdom of the Orchid took hold. It was this setting, when the groups got together to study and learn how to grow this beautiful plant, that the origins of the competition were borne. It is in this environment that when your work was chosen as the best orchid arrangement, just for a fleeting moment, you could imagine that you had the most famous orchid arrangement of all and your soul was whisked away from the painful reality of your existence.