Aphid in My Eye: Adventures in the Orchid Trade

Thomas Powell may be known to you as the distinguished, award winning editor and publisher of the monthly newsletter, The Avant Gardener, and the author of popular garden books. But, back in the nineteen fifties and sixties, he and his wife Betty were just starting out in horticulture when they were suddenly drawn headlong into the high flying world of the orchid trade, in the days before tissue culture and mechanized greenhouses made the world's most beautiful flower available to all. The cast of orchid-obsessed characters in this book range from super rich, even titled customers to explorers, breeders, lecturers, judges, growers, and professional orchidists of all sorts.

If you have ever been part of a special interest organization or a competitive flower show, you will laugh with recognition at these boisterous tales of the old days when newlywed New Yorkers Betty and Tom took on the world of orchid collecting and showing with innocence and energy. You will enjoy Betsy West's spirited illustrations, too.

Tom, in this tribute to Betty, lays out the perils and pleasures of lecturing to snorers and poisoners, foiling pollen purloiners, corsaging buxom matrons for the horse show, and blanketing caskets with lovely orchids for gangster funerals. He takes you along for tours beset by beauties, bores and boars, the challenge of keeping a behemoth boiler going to save the orchids from bitter cold, an artful escape from a wife swapper, and the ultimate heaven/hell experience managing thousands of raging and rabid orchid exhibitors at the "greatest flower show of all time."

This is a story of the heights of Mother Nature and the wild ways of human nature. Aphid in My Eye is a treat for anyone who has ever admired, seen, or attempted to grow an orchid.