Orchid nursery · Ghent · since 2019
Grown in the dark.
Raised by one line of light.
Darkroom Orchids grows Phalaenopsis, Masdevallia and the stranger Draculas in a windowless room, under a single blade of grow light we tune by the minute. You choose the plant and the week it flowers. We do the waiting.
01 — Method
Less light, placed exactly.
Greenhouses flood plants with sun and fight the heat that comes with it. We do the opposite: darkness as the default, and one narrow line of the two wavelengths an orchid actually uses.
- 01
A room with no windows
The nursery is a 1930s photographic darkroom under a print works in Ghent. No daylight, no seasons, no surprises: every hour of light the plants see is one we chose.
- 02
One blade of light
Each bench runs under a single 4 mm line of 662 nm red and 450 nm blue. It sweeps the bench once an hour, so every leaf gets the same dose and none of them scorch.
- 03
Bloom on our schedule
Shortening the light by eleven minutes a week tells a Phalaenopsis that autumn has come. Eight weeks later it spikes, which is why we can promise a bloom date.
02 — Collection
On the benches this week.
Phalaenopsis
‘Nachtvlinder’
White, faint violet lip
- Bloom
- Spikes week 46
- Light
- 14 h 20 m
€38Reserve →Masdevallia
‘Ember Kite’
Cool-growing, coral sepals
- Bloom
- In bloom now
- Light
- 11 h 40 m
€54Reserve →Dendrobium
‘Low Tide’
Cane type, lilac clusters
- Bloom
- Spikes week 49
- Light
- 13 h 05 m
€46Reserve →Dracula
‘Moth Mask’
Hanging basket, needs mist
- Bloom
- Spikes week 02
- Light
- 10 h 30 m
€72Reserve →
03 — Light recipe
Fourteen hours on, ten off, and nothing in between.
Bench 3's day, hour by hour. The beam switches on at 05:00 and off at 19:20; every week from October we take eleven minutes away from the evening end.
04 — Visit
Open Thursdays,
after dark.
Rietstraat 14, Ghent. Doors at 19:30, when the benches drop to night mode and you can walk the rows by the last of the beam. Reserved plants are wrapped and labelled with their bloom week.