Ben Rostron | Student Judge, American Orchid Society/U of A Professor 

How do you judge an orchid?

Oh well, for instance, shape of the flower, size, the colour of the flower, substance of the flower...

Substance?

Is it flimsy, is it firm, what’s the texture? Is it sparkling, is it crystalline? What makes a good orchid depends on what it could look like. We’re looking for the ideally perfect version of that orchid, and with breeding and improvements it’s a moving target. So, if we see a species for a first time, it’s a headscratcher, but if we know one that’s been hybridized for a hundred years out of Europe, we can say, okay, well the standard for this species is 6.5 cm, but this one is 10 cm. It’s a HUGE one. Or that plant only every produces one flower, but this one has five!

Is hybridization what I think it is?

You know, you take an elephant and a chicken, and you try to make something nicer than both of them. And so, you stand around, and say ‘Do you like that?’. ‘No, I don’t like that at all’…

I don’t like the chicken elephant...

I don’t like the chicken elephant thing. So there’s some art to it, and sometimes the experiments work and sometimes they don’t.

How do you become an orchid judge?

Well, in the fall I joined the training program of the American Orchid Society to be a judge, so I’m officially a student judge.

As a student, does your judgement carry any weight, or is it just for training?

The way the program works is for the first three years, you’re a student judge, and your voting would carry no weight. We take part in the evaluations and fill out the score sheets, but then when they count the actual scores, the legally binding stuff, they discount our analysis. After three years we get updated to a probationary status.

What is it about orchids that inspires this kind of attention?

Oh well, there’s a rose club, and an iris club, it’s not just orchids. There’s a peony group and a lily society. But I think that orchids are a bit exotic, they’re presumed to be a holdout from the grand old days when royalty had them. And they’re the most bizarre flowers sometimes, some are spectacular, some huge, some expensive. But I’m really not the best person to ask.