My wife, judywhite, has been working on a new book on orchids. She wrote and shot all the pictures for the award-winning Taylor’s Guide to Orchids, the best selling title in the Taylor’s Guide series and she’s recently finished her second, very different, orchid book, which will be out next year.

She passed me the text to look over before she sent it off to the publisher and I was very struck by the way she described the flowers of spider orchids, Brassia, as “arranged like Rockettes on a spike”.

Now I know very little about these tropical orchids, I have to say, and although I can tell a Brassia from a Brassica that’s almost as far as it goes. But in using just one word you can see exactly what she means. She gives a very precise picture of how the flowers are shown off without resorting to three convoluted sentences describing the arrangement of the flower parts.

I can’t wait to see the book when it comes off the press later next year – especially as she shot all the pictures for this new book too.

Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when it’s available.

Declaration of interest: see first line (above)!