Yvonne's Orchid Fancy / Schreibers Orchids

A growing passion (or a passion for growing)

 Yvonne and Gary have shared a mutual interest in growing things since they first met.  Their first apartment was soon populated by tanks of colourful fresh water and salt water fish.  The move to their first home in 1972 meant that Gary could start growing roses and Yvonne could have a vegetable garden and flowers.

  But fate intervened in 1979.  They bought their first orchid, a hybrid purple cattleya.  After two years of trying to get this plant to re-bloom (they had bougainvillea and hibiscus blooming in their south-facing living room window), they joined the Southern Ontario Orchid Society.  The addiction had begun.  By 1982 the entire fourteen feet of their living room window was full of hybrid phalaenopsis.  Their daughter and son , then four and two, were very keen on watching Sesame Street on TV and decided to put their sorting and colour recognition skills to work.  They re-arranged all the plant labels by colour - not the pots, just the labels.  The front porch was turned into a lean-to greenhouse and Schreibers Orchids was born.

  The space in the front greenhouse rapidly became inadequate as dendrobiums, paphiopedilums and flasks of phalaenopsis competed for space with the blooming-sized phalaenopsis.  The solution was to set up fluorescent lights in the basement for the seedlings.  Part of the basement was partitioned off with plastic and eight four foot four bulb fixtures were installed.  The seedlings prospered, and grew larger.  More space was needed.  A garden shed frame, 8 x 10, was covered with a double layer of plastic and an electric barn heater installed. Ah, they could grow under natural light.  The plants grew, the shed grew (to 8 x 28 feet).  Something had to be done.  There were so many different species and so little room.

  November 1990, the vegetable garden no longer exists.  In its place is a 28 x 48 greenhouse, serious growing space for a wide variety of plants.  Cattleya, phalaenopsis, paphiopedilum, barkeria, coelogyne, dendrobium, angraecum, oncidium,odontoglossum.  So many different species to explore.  Gary and Yvonne are still enjoying the challenges of growing orchids and are always willing to share their enthusiasms.