Cypripedium Lucy Pinkepank gx

Cypripedium Lucy Pinkepank gx is a superb hybrid that combines hardiness, vigour and spectacular spring flowering. This garden orchid The large flowers of this orchid, truly superb, have the characteristic shape of the Venus Slipper, with a remarkable fuchsia and white colour. Like all garden orchids, this variety has specific cultivation requirements. It appreciates light shade and semi-shaded areas, temperate climates, cool, sandy and humus-rich, slightly acidic soils.

Cypripedium Lucy Pinkepank gx is the result of a cross between the vigorous Cypripedium kentuckiense and the C. tibeticum. Its first parent grows in the deep gorges with acidic soil of the mountainous massifs in the central part of the United States, from Tennessee through Kentucky, Missouri, Texas and Ohio. Cypripedium kentuckiense is the American terrestrial orchid with the largest flowers. Its second parent, Cypripedium tibeticum, is distributed in Bhutan, Sikkim and western China. In nature, this montane species is found growing in colonies in meadows, at the edge of forests, on limestone cliffs and in scree, between 2300 and 4600m (7546 and 15092ft). Its flowers are particularly colourful.

The Lucy Pinkepank gx variety develops vigorously from a fleshy stump from which light green, elliptical oval leaves emerge in early spring, sessile and embracing, with strongly impressed parallel veins. The stump slightly suckers, allowing it to eventually form small colonies in the undergrowth. In late spring, around May-June and for about two weeks, the plants produce leafy flower stems measuring 70-80cm (28-32in) in height, each bearing a large flower measuring up to 12cm (5in) in diameter when not fully open. The flowers are formed of slender, twisted sepals and petals, strongly striated with fuchsia red on a rosy white background, and a large ventral lip of white colour bordered with fuchsia pink, the inside of which is speckled with red. The foliage turns yellow in late summer and disappears in autumn, while the plant enters a dormant phase. 

Cypripedium Lucy Pinkepank gx is a perennial adapted to mountain climates, resistant to frost. It thrives at the edge of forests, in light soils that never completely dry out, but are not waterlogged. Plant it in not too dense shade, in a fresh rock garden, between rocks or at the edge of a cool understory alongside Calanthes, Paris, Bletilla and other Trilliums. It will also thrive in a container, in an unheated greenhouse, and in a non-calcareous substrate.

When you receive your orchids, handle them with care: these plants produce few roots and are delicate!