Tropical Splendor: Orchid oasis, Key Lime roadhouse & Wild Bird sanctuary
By Augustus Mayhew
Last week’s planned day trip to a wild bird sanctuary in Key Largo turned out to be a bit more when I realized it had been years since I last stopped in at R.F. Orchids, home to the world’s leading orchid couturiers, Robert Fuchs and Michael Coronado. I called ahead, and yes, Fuchs and Coronado were not in Lhasa or Tegulcigalpa but would be in town for the Redlands International Orchid Show at the nearby Fruit and Spice Park.
Esteemed Columbian orchid grower Gustavo Aguirre of Orquídeas Katía in Medellin was in the guesthouse for the weekend and would also be showing at the Redlands festival. The 90-minute drive to R.F. Orchids was longer than I remembered, as the orchid domain is as far west southwest of west Miami as you can be without being in the Everglades.“The last frontier,” said Robert Fuchs.
![]() | ![]() | | The one-and-only Robert Fuchs. R. F. Orchids has been recognized with prestigious awards from the Royal Horticultural Society in England, the Japan Grand Prix, South African Orchid Congress Shows, and from orchid societies in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. A life member of the Royal Horticulture Society of Thailand, Fuchs is also a fellow with the Royal Horticulture Society in London. Dubbed "the king of orchids" by The New York Times, Fuchs was recently the first orchid grower to be inducted into the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame. |
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Sublime spectacle
Ever since Robert Fuchs was awarded every best of the best award possible at the 1984 International Orchid Show held at Coconut Grove’s Dinner Key, his Vanda orchids have made him the world’s orchid kingpin, a title and enterprise he shares with Michael Coronado, his life partner and business associate. Thus, in June 1990 when a Miami Herald headline read “Thieves take $97,000 in prized orchids,” Fuchs’ loss shook the highly-competitive uber-secretive orchid world from Bangkok to Rio. Someone had stolen what had taken Fuchs a lifetime to create.
Regarded as some of the world’s rarest prize-winning specimens, the hybridization of this valuable stock could transform a shady mediocre orchid enthusiast into a world-class purveyor. At the time, Fuchs and Coronado could not have imagined that their ensuing tangled escapades and courtroom dramas would a decade later become a plot line for The Orchid Thief, a best-selling non-fiction book by Susan Orlean. Later, the book became the basis for the film titled Adaptation. In the film, Meryl Streep played Susan Orlean and actor Chris Cooper, as John Laroche, received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
“There was some literary license in the book,” laughed Fuchs, who I found much more approachable and affable than how some accounts have portrayed him. Fuchs transformed his family’s backyard hobby into an international global orchid conglomerate. At 13, he joined his father on orchid safaris in Central and South America. For his high-school graduation, he wanted only one thing, an orchid greenhouse.
I first met Fuchs sometime in the mid-1980s at one of the International Orchid Shows in Coconut Grove. I recall his inspired sense of stagecraft and how my jaw dropped admiring the Vanda Ogden Phipps. Years later, he, along with Coronado, have remained resourceful and innovative, maintaining the necessary standards for creating the most beautiful orchids in the world. |
