North Carolina
Asheville Orchid Festival brings ‘best of the best’ to region
ASHEVILLE – The Asheville Orchid Festival will return in all its showy glory for 24th time March 27-29.
The festival, hosted by the Western North Carolina Orchid Society and the North Carolina Arboretum, will have an “Orchid Kingdom” theme this year, and will be an American Orchid Society sanctioned judging event.
Festivalgoers can expect to experience world-class orchid growers and breeders, regional orchid societies displays and hundreds of orchids presented in displays.
Orchids will be for sale from across the United States and Ecuador and will include rare species and cutting-edge hybrids.
“The Asheville Orchid Festival has been recognized as one of the best orchid shows in the country today,” Mike Mims, past president of the WNC Orchid Society said. “A huge orchid festival that is unlike any other orchid event in the region and lures the best of the best in the orchid industry to come to Asheville for a few days to engage and show off.”
WNC Orchid Society President Graham Ramsey, and his wife, artist Leslie Keller, each year create a theme for the festival.
Last year the two created the “House of Orchids” theme to transport visitors to another time, with a Victorian-inspired model greenhouse.
“Usually we arrive at a theme, believe it or not, when we’re out hiking. We try to think of a theme that we can also come up with a neat display to match,” Ramsey previously told the Citizen Times.
In 2023, for the “Orchid Express” theme, Ramsey and Keller created a 24-foot-train that functioned as an eye-catching display for many orchids featured by the festival.
The Asheville Orchid Festival is one of the most important events of the year for the WNCOS. Beyond the opportunity for members of the society to “strut their stuff” as Ramsey put it, the event also provides crucial funding for the nonprofit’s operations.
Ramsey said the group welcomes any orchid enthusiast, “whether you have one orchid on your windowsill or 1,000 orchids in your greenhouse.”
He encourages anyone with even a passing interest in orchids to stop by the show this weekend.
“When you walk into the auditorium and see all the orchids on display, it’ll just blow your mind,” he said.
If you go
The Asheville Orchid Festival will be 4-7:30 p.m. March 27 and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. March 28-29 at the North Carolina Arboretum. Admission is $5 for attendees older than 12 and free for WNC Orchid Society members.
As of March 1, parking fees were increased to $25 for personal/standard vehicles. On the first Tuesday of every month, a $10 discount is offered for personal vehicle parking.
Admission fees include all orchid exhibits, programs and educational lectures and benefit the Western North Carolina Orchid Society to help expand the mission of “sharing the excitement and joy of cultivating orchids and promoting orchid conservation.”