A blue Vanda. Blue is the rarest color in the orchid family, and even the blue Vandas only approach blue by way of violet.

A Dendrobium hybrid.

A Stanhopea, whose incredibly complex flowers have clever mechanics that trap the pollinating insect until it has done its job very thoroughly.

Probably some sort of Laeliocattleya hybrid.

A Paphiopedilum.

Though miniaturized through the use of advanced transistor technology, this azalea still manages to put on a good display for the Spring Flower Show.

Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth and the cupbearer of Olympus, stands in the middle of a riotously colorful Victorian patchwork garden in Phipps Conservatory.

The Spring Flower Show is going on right now at Phipps Conservatory, and here are some of the stars.

The Fall Flower Show is over, but yesterday enough of the chrysanthemums were still in place for one last glimpse. These are hurried snapshots from a cell phone, but they give us some notion of the spectacle. Meanwhile, the Winter Flower Show is half installed, and already looks spectacular.

 

Of all the elevator shafts in Pittsburgh, the most elegant is probably this one—faced with stone, dripping with vines, and surrounded by lush vegetation—in the Indian Tropical Forest at Phipps Conservatory.

The Fall Flower Show is perhaps the biggest event of the season at Phipps Conservatory. This year’s show is not a disappointment. Here is a dragon that has taken over the whole length of the Sunken Garden.

This whimsical display is enlivened by the constant music of falling water raining from sunflower showerheads, spouting from fountains,and tumbling down a waterfall in the back.

Outside, the leaves are changing colors, making quite a spectacle in the interior courtyards.

This little arbor in the garden cleverly reflects the Gothic architecture of the original 1893 glasshouses.

The latest incarnation of the Garden Railroad in the South Conservatory at Phipps includes this delightful little model of the original Phipps Conservatory as it appeared in 1893. The scale is not exact, but it’s still a very convincing illusion from certain angles.

Phipps Conservatory’s new Center for Sustainable Landscapes will be open soon. Here we see part of it against a late-September sunset.