Orchid Daze, the annual celebration of the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s signature plant collection, opens on Valentine’s Day. This event features a vibrant display of color and fragrance throughout gallery-like spaces.
The exhibition transforms the Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid Center into three interlocking modernist galleries showcasing an array of orchid hybrids, culminating in a distinguished display of the Garden’s permanent collection of orchid species. This collection, representing 2,000 species, highlights the Garden’s 38-year commitment to cultivating its flagship plant collection.
Upon entering the Conservatory Lobby, visitors will encounter a modernist-inspired gallery adorned with a warm palette of yellow, tangerine, and scarlet orchids. The gallery walls are integrated with living Cattleya, Dendrobium, and Pansy orchids set in portrait-like niches.
Adjoining the Conservatory Rotunda is a grand glass hallway that rises two stories. This gallery features a labyrinthine design with graceful arching Moth Orchids and Cattleya orchids. The passage opens into a sunlit Atrium where the orchid palette shifts to include yellow and wine-colored Slipper Orchids and Dancing Lady Orchids. A reflecting pond, bordered by Zygopetalum orchids, is framed by a pavilion with heavy beams and geometric orchid columns. Beds of fragrant orchids, bromeliads, and other lush tropical plants enhance the interior atmosphere.
In the Orchid Display House, visitors are welcomed by a cool-toned palette of pink Oncidium and blue-violet Dendrobium nobile orchids, framed in a theatrical setting with shimmering translucent panels.
Following these galleries of stunning orchid hybrids—designed by Tres Fromme of 3Fromme Design with assistance from Wilson Carroll of More Than Matter—guests may explore the Garden’s extensive permanent collection of 2,000 orchid species, of which approximately 10 percent is regularly on display. Orchid Daze presents this global collection via two looping pathways that meander through the Orchid Display and Tropical High Elevation houses.
The Orchid Display House concludes with an interpretative gallery, where visitors can discover the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Garden’s orchid conservation initiatives, learn about orchid biology, and explore the history of the orchid collection and the Orchid Center.
