Chadwick's in The Washington Post
This florist started caring for ailing orchids on the side. He’s now babysitting 13,000.
Teddy Oh walks past Chadwick & Son Orchids in Richmond after purchasing his first orchid. Art Chadwick opened the Museum District shop 15 years ago. The business is known for boarding customers’ orchids between bloom cycles. (Jennifer Heffner/For The Washington Post)
April 10
Even within Richmond’s redbrick historic neighborhood known as the Museum District, Art Chadwick’s florist’s shop seems like a quaint throwback to an earlier time. A bell chimes as you open the door, and fans swirl below a pressed-tin ceiling. Cymbidiums, cattleyas and other flowering orchids are presented in decorative pots on round tables. Along one wall, a green pleated sofa invites patrons to linger and chat.
I am here on a mild Friday afternoon in winter, and a small but steady stream of customers arrive, chatting in relaxed fashion with the proprietor. Chadwick, 56, is dressed casually in a brown cable-knit sweater, and he seems to be a guy comfortable in his own skin, smooth and urbane — in sum, exactly what you might expect in the genteel and luxuriant world of orchids.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Chadwick's in Smithsonian Magazine
Here’s How Horticulturalists Made the Michelle Obama Orchid
This year’s orchid show takes over the cavernous naturally-lit Kogod Courtyard with thousands on view
Michelle Obama is the 14th consecutive First Lady to have a cattleya orchid named in her honor (above). Last year, the Melania Trump orchid was earning acclaim in the plant world. (Courtesy of Arthur E. Chadwick)
FEBRUARY 27, 2019
The plants, cultivated by Chadwick himself, were a specialized breeding of the hybrid Cattleya Mini Purple and the species Cattleya trianaei to create a new variety that would be known as Cattleya Michelle Obama. The orchids were to be presented as a gift to Obama, the 14th consecutive First Lady to have a cattleya orchid named in her honor.
