Marie Selby Botanical Gardens officially kicks off its 50th anniversary with a year-long schedule of special exhibitions, programs, celebrations, and the unveiling of a commemorative book, Orchid. As Selby Gardens continues its mission to provide bayfront sanctuaries that connect people with air plants of the world, native nature, and regional history, it invites visitors to engage in the exploration of the Gardens today and into the next 50 years.

“Starting with Marie Selby’s selfless gift to our community and enhanced by so many dedicated individuals over the past half century, Selby Gardens has become a botanical garden like no other,” said Jennifer O. Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. “We are excited to present a season-long celebration of our world-class botanical science, unique horticultural beauty, and visionary leaders of yesterday and today as we mark this wonderful milestone.”

50th ANNIVERSARY HIGHLIGHTS:

The Orchid Show 2023: A 50th Anniversary Celebration | On view October 7 through November 26, 2023
Downtown Sarasota campus

Since its establishment in 1973, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens has formed the best scientifically documented collection of living orchids in the world. The Orchid Show 2023, presented by Better-Gro, will celebrate Selby Gardens’ 50th anniversary and highlight spectacular orchids from the living plant collection for which it is known across the globe.

The Orchid Show 2023 will include a horticultural display in the Tropical Conservatory and an exhibition in the Museum of Botany & the Arts. Orchids of various shapes, colors, and patterns will abound in the Conservatory, illustrating the beauty and diversity of one of the largest and most beloved families of flowering plants. The Museum exhibition will present a selection of rare artifacts and historical images to help tell the rich story of Selby Gardens’ first 50 years, with emphasis on the plants and people who have made it such a special place.

Orchid | The Book

Published to celebrate Selby Gardens’ 50th anniversary, Orchid is a stunning coffee-table book featuring 150 photos of vibrant, elegant, sometimes other-worldly orchids in the Gardens’ unmatched collection. The 240-page volume pairs text by Selby Gardens botany and horticulture staff with intimate photographs of fine-art quality captured by talented Selby Gardens volunteers.

Orchid was produced in partnership with arts and heritage publishing house Scala Arts Publishers, with support from Selby Gardens friends Carol Miller and Virginia Miller. The book is an accessible introduction to orchids for a general audience and an essential resource for afficionados and experts. Set for release in conjunction with the upcoming Orchid Show, Orchid will be available for purchase in the Garden Shop at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus and through online and other retail outlets.

Clyde Butcher: Nature Through the Lens | On view November 11, 2023 through August 31, 2024
Historic Spanish Point campus

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Big Cypress Gallery

Selby Gardens is excited to present the extraordinary imagery of photographer and conservationist Clyde Butcher throughout the grounds of the Historic Spanish Point campus. Large-scale prints on aluminum of Butcher’s beautiful photographs of plants, animals, and habitats of Florida will be exhibited amid the natural landscape of the 30-acre waterfront preserve, enabling the public to engage with the artist’s work like never before.

In the tradition of earlier landscape photographers like Ansel Adams, Butcher captures the beauty and majesty of America’s natural treasures in dramatic black and white. The unique environments of Florida have been subjects of particular interest to Butcher since the 1980s, when he was first introduced to the magic and mystery of sites such as Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. Nature Through the Lens will include Butcher’s photographs of regional locales such as Myakka River State Park and Casey Key. This exhibition is presented in partnership with the Clyde Butcher Gallery & Studio in Venice, Florida.

The Return of Patti Smith | November 15, 2023

In the first event affiliated with the 2024 Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition, Selby Gardens Artist-in-Residence Patti Smith will return for a special evening performance. Smith’s program will be tied to the soon-to-be-announced theme of next year’s Goldstein Exhibition, which opens in February. More details and tickets for the performance will be released in October.

Master Plan Phase One Nears Completion

From its beginnings in 1973, Selby Gardens has matured in tandem with the growth and cultural prosperity of Sarasota and the Tampa Bay region. As theinstitution celebrates its past, it also looks toward the future, with a focus on the Master Plan for the Downtown Sarasota campus. Completion of Phase One, expected by the end of 2023, will create the world’s first net-positive energy botanical garden complex. Features will include a new Welcome Center with Welcome Gallery and orientation theater, a cutting-edge Plant Research Center to house the Gardens’ priceless research collections, a new plant and gift shop, a net-positive energy garden-to-plate restaurant, and a nearly 50,000-square-foot solar array to power the complex.

“With Phase One of the Master Plan near completion, we are thrilled to begin to realize the full potential of our beloved gardens, while also preserving our important history for the generations to come,” said Rominiecki. “We look forward to welcoming visitors from diverse communities across the United States and around the world to join us as we embark on another 50 years of plant exploration, discovery, and celebration.”

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Dr. David Berry, Curator, The Orchid Show: Endless Forms

By Dr. David Berry

Many botanical gardens host orchid shows, but few if any are able to do it more completely than Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. As home to the finest scientifically documented orchid collection in the world, Selby Gardens is uniquely placed to explore the beauty and diversity of one of the most intriguing families of flowering plants on earth. For the second year in a row, Selby Gardens will be presenting a show that combines a dazzling display of living orchids in the Tropical Conservatory with an elegant exhibition of orchid treasures from its bibliographic and preserved collections in the Museum of Botany and the Arts.

The theme of the 2018 Orchid Show is “Endless Forms,” emphasizing the remarkable range of shapes and sizes of different orchid species (October 12 – november 25, 2018). The phrase is drawn from the famous final line of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, in which he stated that “from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

The Tropical Conservatory will be filled with spectacular orchids, including rare and unusual specimens from Selby Gardens’ living plant collection. Visitors will be exposed to the extraordinary variety that exists among the more than 27,000 orchid species found nearly the world over. Form will be emphasized by a series of large sculptural elements, located throughout the conservatory, from which epiphytic orchids will be suspended in dramatic fashion.

The walls of the north gallery of the Museum of Botany and the Arts will be covered with groupings of orchid species, each consisting of a print, pressed herbarium specimen, and fluid-preserved spirit specimen. The groupings will enable comparisons between various types of botanical evidence, each with its own particular benefits to the botanist. Two table cases in the middle of the gallery will contain rare botanical books from the Selby Research Library. Highlights will include A Monograph of Odontoglossum, an impressive oversized volume published by British horticulturalist James Bateman in 1874, and Illustrations of Orchidaceous Plants, produced in the 1830s by Austrian artist Francis Bauer, considered one of the greatest botanical illustrators of all time.

The south gallery will feature three main elements, each of which will address the subject of form in a different way. The centerpiece of the gallery will be a table-top terrarium filled with living orchids, enabling close investigation from multiple perspectives. In addition to the terrarium will be a screen with animated 3-D models of orchids, produced in partnership with the Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and a series of panels with images of and information on the six most common genera of orchids, each identifiable by the distinctive shape of its flower.

The Orchid Show: Endless Forms presented by Better-Gro will be accompanied by an assortment of educational programs and events offering something for every orchid enthusiast.

Lead sponsors include Williams Parker, MISH New York, Gold Coast Eagle Distributing, Total Wine & More, State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues. Additional support is provided by The Ringling, Sherran Blair (in memory of Mary Perry), Alice Rau, Triad Foundation and University of South Florida.

Exhibition curator Dr. David Berry is the Assistant Director of Academic Affairs at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. He has worked as a consultant with Selby Gardens since 2014. He is the guest curator of the Orchid Show in the Museum of Botany and the Arts.

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While you may not find all of our orchids at commercial shops and nurseries, here is a quick key to com common (and beautiful!) varieties of orchids.

Cattleya (kat-lee-ya)
Considered the “queen of orchids,” cattleyas come from Central and South America. This popular, showy variety features spectacularly huge and fragrant flowers; often used in corsages. They have water-storage organs, called pseudobulbs, and large, fleshy roots with a spongy covering useful for capturing moisture.

Dendrobium (den-droh-bee-um)
Dendrobiums are one of the most popular and numerous genera of orchids with about 1,500 species. Dramatic flowers perch atop tall, cane-like stems. Native to the Eastern Hemisphere, they can be found in environments ranging from the islands of the South Pacific to the foothills of the Himalayas in India. This broad growing range makes them extremely popular with gardeners. Some are deciduous, meaning they lose their leaves seasonally when rainfall decreases.

Oncidium (on-SID-i-um)
Oncidiums are Western Hemisphere orchids found in habitats ranging from sea level in the tropics to high elevations in the Andes Mountains. They are commonly known as “dancing ladies,” due to the resemblance of the broad, flat lips of their flowers to ruffled skirts. These flowers are most commonly yellow and brown, while some species are pink, red, magenta, green or white, many with exotic markings.

Paphiopedilum (paff-ee-oh-ped-di-lum)
Paphiopedilums originate in the rain forests of East Asia. These semi-terrestrial orchids grow on the forest floor, on cliffs, or occasionally in trees and look quite different than other members of the orchid family. They require shady conditions and constant watering, as they have no major water-storage organ other than their leaves and roots. These long-lasting flowers are known as ‘lady slipper orchids,’ because their distinctive, pouch-like flowers resemble women’s footwear.

Phalaenopsis (fal-en-op-sis)
Known as “moth orchids” (due to their moth-like appearance), Phalaenopsis originate in tropical Asia and the South Pacific. They are the most common variety of orchid sold today and the easiest to grow in the home. They have large, broad leaves and long flower stems with blossoms of white, yellow, green, pink, and red. They require constant watering, as they have no major water-storage organ other than their leaves.

Vanda
Vandas are found throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, with the highest concentration in Southeast Asia. While some grow in mountainous areas, most are lowland plants that live in warm and humid conditions with bright sunlight. Vandas can be large or small plants with flowers of corresponding size in a variety of colors, many with a powerful fragrance. They are long-lasting and bloom several times throughout the year.

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Roger Capote, Director of Events at Selby Gardens and a floral designer, helped reimagine arrangements at Better-Gro’s Florida headquarters.

Recently, Selby Gardens’ Director of Events, Roger Capote, visited the design studios of our Orchid Show sponsor, Better-Gro, a national gardening retailer, to discuss different ways to display orchids. Capote, a professional floral designer, spent a day with the company’s leadership team at its national headquarters in Arcadia, Fla., reimagining some of the orchid and bromeliad arrangements that the business supplies to retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s throughout the country.

Capote’s top tips for balanced floral design for display in homes include:

• Create a three-dimensional design so that the arrangement looks good from all angles and doesn’t have a “front and back.”
• Consider the color of potting materials as much as a pot. Changing a moss from a brown to a darker green can change the feel of an entire arrangement. Natural materials like lava rock and stone also can add texture to the display.
• Infill with height to create a line from the tallest orchid in your arrangement down to the base. Don’t worry so much about potting a mass of foliage to fill a pot; instead consider smaller elements like birch bark, mosses or even metallic wiring.

Capote met with Better-Gro’s leadership team during his visit.

The Orchid Show: Celebrating 40 Years at Selby Gardens takes place Feb. 14 – March 27, 2016 with thousands of orchids on display at the Bayfront botanical garden. Additional details about lectures, classes and social events hosted throughout the six-week show are available here.

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A nursery area at Better Gro, sponsor of The Orchid Show.

In preparation for Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ 2016 Orchid Show, Angel Lara, Assistant Director of Horticulture, visited the production greenhouses of the event sponsor, Better-Gro, a national gardening retailer earlier this month. During the site visit Lara met with the lead growers and merchandising team members to determine size, shapes and colors of the retailer’s orchids, bromeliads and aroids that will be incorporated into the Gardens’ 40th Anniversary Orchid Show display, which runs February 14 – March 27, 2016.

Lara said the inclusion of Phalaenopsis orchids of heights up to 18 inches in some of the show’s larger display elements, creating large swaths of color. The scents of Cattleya orchids will fill the conservatory where thousands of orchids will be on display throughout the six-week show.

“We have a longtime relationship with Better-Gro, and I know we’re all excited to create this over-the-top, wondrous show for people to enjoy,” Lara said.

Better-Gro was founded in 1956 as Sun Bulb Company, Inc. by the Hollingsworth family. During its 60 years of operations, there have been various relationships with Selby Gardens, from assisting with plant sourcing to leadership representation on the Board of Trustees.

Interspersed throughout the show will be rare orchids from Selby Gardens’ collection, showcasing different varieties of the plant, which is known to have more than 25,000 species worldwide. Souvenir orchids similar to those displayed in the show will be available for purchase in the Selby Gardens shop throughout the exhibition.

The Orchid Show: Celebrating 40 Years at Selby Gardens takes place Feb. 14 – March 27, 2016 with thousands of orchids on display at the Bayfront botanical garden. Additional details about lectures, classes and social events hosted throughout the six-week show are available here.

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