Ex-Microsoft employee raises orchids

January 26, 2011

It's not every day that a technical support worker turns into an enthusiastic botanist who specializes in orchids but, in 2003, Peter Lin retired from his job at Microsoft to create his own special hybrid flowers, according to The Southlake Journal.

To date, he has made around 300 different mixed flowers and been awarded 100 different "Highly Commended" titles from the American Orchid Society.

In order to create his masterpieces, Lin starts with a normal orchid and then controls the pollination process by hand. This requires encouraging bugs to come to the plants and then helping the flowers pollinate with the use of a toothpick. The method can take several years to produce a unique plant. He grows each bud in his greenhouse, which helps promote orchid growth year-round.

Because these particular flowers grow on the sides of trees in the wild, Lin has even gone through the trouble of putting in cork logs so that the buds can evolve naturally.

The stunning, pinks, purples and whites of orchids have been traditionally popular in the spring time. This is in part due to the demand by high school students attending proms, where the orchard corsage is the staple of the springtime celebration.

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