Once in a past life when I was a beginning native dendrobium hybridist emeritus AOC judge Gordon Giles said something to the effect that "the trouble with you native breeders is that you muck around in your backyards with your toothpicks and you still haven't come up with a hybrid that is as good as a decent speciosum". Although this observation rankled a bit at the time I think I know what he was getting at. 'Rock Lilies' can reliably produce long racemes of relatively large white, cream or yellow flowers late in winter or spring and, being native to most of the Australian east coast, will thrive in their home range given minimum care. Dendrobium speciosum Var. speciosum 'National White' HCC/OSNSW is definitely my favourite native and possibly my favourite orchid overall even though there are probably 'better' clones around.
Den. speciosum does best when given a little protection from the weather extremes of the increasingly angry summer sun and biting winter frosts but even then they will survive these tortures looking only a little worse for wear as a result. There is no need to molly coddle these workhorses like some of the newer temperature and water sensitive hybrids! The ideal situation would be where they receive sun from dawn to sundown under 50% shadecloth on benches that enable some degree of control over slugs and snails.
