By Shelby Brooks
A sense of duty to continue his father’s hobby is what led Devon Meadows’ Murray Harding on a 40-year journey to becoming a renowned orchid grower and collector.
Murray isn’t sure why his father Alfred first started growing orchids.
Growing up as a kid in Footscray, Murray said he couldn’t have cared less about his father’s quirky interest.
It wasn’t until his father passed away when Murray was 45, that he began to step his foot into the world of orchids.
“At the time I wasn’t even remotely interested in them,” Murray said.
“He asked me to take care of them.
“You don’t go and kill your Dad’s orchids, so I joined an orchid club.”
A friend informed Murray his father’s collection was primarily Australian native orchids, so he was recommend to join the Victorian branch of the Australasian Native Orchid Society (ANOS).
“I figured I better learn something about these,” Murray said.
“In the first meeting, I didn’t understand a word they said!”
Since then, Murray has gone on to serve as president of ANOS, Dandenong and South Suburbs orchid societies, currently serving as president for the last nine years of the Berwick Orchid Society.
Murray and wife Di Lester have proudly been awarded one First Class Certificate (FCC) for an orchid, which is an extremely hard worldwide ranking to achieve.
Last year, Murray and Di won the Victorian Australian Native Species Orchid of the Year 2021 with an orchid called Dendrobium fleckeri ‘Murray’ HCC.
Murray said one of his proudest awards was from 2004 when he won the Grand Champion Orchid of the Orchid Societies Council of Victoria (OSCOV).
Murray has also spoken hundreds of times about orchids across the country in guest speaking roles as well as consulting.
He shared his knowledge in the establishment of the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne.
The highlight of his keynote speaking career was being invited to speak twice at the Singapore Botanic Gardens to the Orchid Society of South East Asia.
Murray describes his obsession for orchids as a “universal disease”.
“There is no cure,” he joked.
“The more you learn about them the more you want to know.
“It’s the desire to fully understand something which can never be fully understood.”
Four years after inheriting the love of orchids from his father, Murray moved to Devon Meadows and built a custom shadehouse which today homes over 10,000 plants.
Murray is also passionate about where orchid growing is heading in the future and wants to ensure many of these native species do not become extinct.
He is seeking funding from the Australian Orchid Foundation to put together a living archive of Australian native orchids which are no longer in the wild.
“In other words they are dead if our collections find a home when I’m no longer around to take care of them,” he said.
One orchid Murray has he believes has been gone from the wild since 1940 and another one collected in 1959 and has not been seen since.
“I’m just one collector. Most collectors are getting around my age, that’s the problem,” he said.
“These plants could be gone forever.”
