Orchids, and a true master, on display at South Coast Plaza’s Spring Garden Show

Orchid whisperer Andy Phillips, proprietor of Andy’s Orchids in Encintas, is among the dozens of plant vendors showcased this weekend at South Coast Plaza’s 34th annual Southern California Spring Garden Show.

A favorite at the show for well over a decade, Andy’s Orchids fills up two stalls on the plaza’s second floor with floor-to-ceiling “orchids on a stick,” either mounted on wood or in hanging displays. The vendor has been attracting newbies and old pros alike with a verdant display that’s not to be missed.

Equally breathtaking is Phillips’ encyclopedic knowledge of orchids and the fact that every specimen, rare or common, is cataloged with a label bearing the plant’s genus, species, common name, care and keeping tips and a QR code for reference.

Phillips gets his affinity for flora honestly. His grandmother, Adelaide, opened a roadside flower stand in 1936 near the 101 Freeway in Encinitas that remained in the family until 2010 and still operates today.

“I’ve been growing orchids since I was 7,” Phillips, now 62, said Thursday. “It’s just the immense variety of them — the different leaf shapes, the different flowers. Some look like grass and some look like a pouch with bubble gum. They can be found from sea level all the way up to 15,000 feet.”

Although, like most people, he first started growing orchids in pots, it wasn’t until a trip to see family in Mexico in 1977 that he saw orchids growing naturally on trees and rocks, at every layer of a forest canopy. It made a lasting impression.

“When I saw how they grow in nature, in trees, I thought, ‘Why does everybody grow them in pots?’” he recalled. “So I started growing them in tree branches in the yard. I tied them onto boards, and what really got me interested was how their roots attach to trees — it’s beautiful.”

In his 20s, Phillips eschewed garden classes and book learning in favor of sleeping in a tent in the jungles of Southeast Asia and Central South America, where he simply watched and learned for two years.

Whereas conventional wisdom suggests orchids be watered in the morning, Phillips noticed rain typically arrives in the late afternoon, dousing orchids enough to tide them over until the following day. He would later forego pots in favor of boards or tree trunks.

During his travels and those of his father, who’d pick up a list of exotic species for his son every time he went fishing Costa Rica, Phillips amassed an amazing collection of plants, many of which are now nearly impossible to find.

“Back in the ’70s, all you needed was an import permit. Now a lot of orchids are protected, so you can’t do that anymore. So much habitat is being destroyed, and a lot of orchids are being destroyed with them. And once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” he said. “So I’m sort of like Noah’s Ark.”

Phillips brings his immense knowledge, experience and passion to bear at a nearly 1-acre nursery in Encinitas that became so popular he limits visitors to in-person appointments.

He used to do more shows, but now South Coast Plaza is one of the few places where the visiting public can see Andy’s Orchids in person. However, the nursery will open its doors June 21 through 23 for a summer open house.

Lynn Brainard, who’s directed the Spring Garden Show for the last six years and oversees vendors and area nonprofit organizations and clubs who appear annually at South Coast Plaza, said Phillips’ stall is a place visitors can discover things they may not see anywhere else.

“Every vendor has its speciality vision for the product offerings they sell,” Brainard said, pointing out a booth for Unsolicited Plant Talks, a Yucaipa-based indoor plant online retailer that sells tropical hoya plants and has amassed a huge social media following. “They’re all very unique.”

Seal Beach resident Kenny Lam made a special trip to Costa Mesa Thursday to catch the opening of the show and to check out the offerings at Andy’s Orchids.

“I come every year,” he said. “I look forward to it, because I don’t make it down [to Encinitas], so when they come up here, it’s a good way for me to get out. I’m always buying something.”

A member of various garden clubs, Lam has turned his home garden into a bit of a jungle in the past nine years. He’s particularly fond of Maxillaria tenuifolias, commonly called coconut orchids for the unmistakable aroma they emit.

“That smell — that’s what you want,” he said, fanning out the long grassy leaves of a large hanging specimen with small crimson flowers for maximum effect. “This one, if I put it in a garden, I could smell it 20 feet away.”

Nearby, enthusiast Fawn Downs engaged Phillips in questions about various plants and their care. She came from Diamond Bar with friend Angela Kwon specifically to check out Andy’s Orchids, which she first saw years earlier at a show in San Francisco.

A plant lover from age 5, Downs, now 60, said she likes the challenge of growing orchids, even if she’s not always successful.

On Thursday, she’d picked out a heavy hanging eria brachystachya so large she could hardly hold onto it.

“I just like the bushiness of it, the jungle look,” she said. “This will add an instant tropical look to my yard. I’m from Vietnam, so I always have to have greenery.”

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