Bloom where you are planted

On a lonely two-lane road, shimmering in the bright sun, in a remote part of the Mojave Desert somewhere between the outposts of Flamingo Heights and Old Woman Springs Ranch, not far from the fabled UFO landing site called Giant Rock there is an incongruously large white building that seems remarkably out of place amid the low desert scrub, crumbling granite boulders and the gangly Joshua trees. Here, where the natives are a hard-scrabble lot as likely to be cooking meth as going to work, here, they grow, for an international market, many varieties of the lovely and delicate orchid.

It was here in the 1970s that a second-generation Swiss orchid farmer, Hans Gubler and his young family purchased the old ranch and well that had once belonged to the Sheriff's Deputy that chased Willy Boy from his Indian ways into the headlines in the early 1900s. It was the year-round sun, clean, fresh well water and already built hot-house that attracted the veteran orchid grower and here they grow thousands of the multicolored, multiscented, velvety flowers that capture the imagination of so many.

The day I was there and captured this image, a couple had driven some 140 miles from Los Angeles just to buy orchids. It was a good thing they brought their SUV because they bought a lot! While I find orchids pretty, I did not bring any home with me. I marveled more at the ingenious system they had to maintain the humidity and coolness of the building in this arid region. One entire wall of the hot house was nothing more than dripping wet meshed padding (fed by water pipes at the top of the wall and collected in troughs at the bottom for recirculating). On the opposite wall, giant fans forced air OUT of the room. The air forced out of the room was replaced by air sucked in through the wet meshed padding. The effect was a cool moist breeze across the rows and rows of growing orchids.

In the same way that orchids have adapted to different environments, we too find ways to adapt, allowing these fragile plants to live and grow where they never have before. Allowing me to capture this small bright image of orchids that have managed to bloom in the desert where they are planted.

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