Old World of Cymbidiums 
Cym. Gaddon Loch ‘Chailey’ — light pink — 14cm flower 
News from the 
CYMBIDIUMS 
Text and pictures by Jim Durant, McBeans 
Yust a brief communication to let you 
eJ know what’s happening in the “Old 
World of Cymbidiums” at McBeans (my 
37th year here.) 
Although we are situated in the south of 
England, we have just experienced one of 
the coldest winters in many years, record- 
ing 53 overnight frosts with 14 nights of 
—5°C and four nights of -9°C which is not 
SO good with regards to oil consumption. 
We are continuing our large flower 
cymbidium breeding program, but most 
production is based on the miniatures. 
Obviously our plants are sold as indoor pot 
plants, thus as a rule, the smaller the plant 
the better, our miniatures outsell the larger 
cymbidiums many times over. In fact the 
smaller the plant, the higher the demand 
and price, with the big plants having a very 
small market and currently don’t justify 
their additional growing space. But we 
continue to breed newer varieties aiming 
The Australian Orchid Review, June/July 2009 
for a more compact plant. 
We have just come to the end of our 
main flowering season (mid April) with 
great results at our shows, including Kew 
and the London Orchid Show. In fact, we 
have just been awarded the Lawrence 
Medal for the best display in all shows for 
2008: 
We have noticed a great interest in open 
old-fashioned flower shapes rather than 
the later cupped shapes, and sell every 
Cym. lowianum as soon as it flowers. 
At McBeans we grow ina bark, peat and 
perlite mix which gives us a good con- 
trolled growth, and our customers are 
familiar with the more traditional growing 
media. We flower our mini cymbidiums 
three years from flask, and four years from 
flask for the large flowered cymbidiums. 
Often we cut and sell the single flower 
spikes, preferring to sell plants on the sec- 
ond flowering with two or three spikes. 
As you can see from the accompanying 
photographs we have developed some 
strong large flowers through our ongoing 
breeding program. We just need to reduce 
the plant size to meet the demand. We have 
increased our Odontoglossum, Odontioda 
production, along with a few 
Paphiopedilum to add to the Phalaenopsis 
for our sales through the summer until the 
miniature cymbidiums start flowering in 
September/October. 
Due to the cost of oil, we have reduced 
most of our night temperatures through the 
winter, running 12°C in the seedling 
houses and as little as 7°C in the mature 
cymbidium houses with little effect on the 
plants, as long as we keep the greenhouses 
as dry as possible through the night. 
Kind regards to all. Al 
Jim Durrant 
McBeans Orchids 
www.mcebeansorchids.co.uk 
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