What's new?
Check out the additions and changes on this homepage and at Frosch® Exclusive Perennials. Frequent readers in particular will appreciate this news list as they do not have to sift through the whole site to find what´s new.
05.2024: Two new hybrids bloom for the first time in our nursery. They are being registered as Cypripedium Marita and Cypripedium Memoria Ursula Rosche at the Royal Horticultural Society in England. They will be offered for sale this autumn.
04.2024: The sterile cultivation of our seedlings in the lab runs better than ever this year. The years-long improving of our lab protocol pays off now.
01.2024: Frosch® Exclusive Perennials is now celebrating 30 years. Our quality, staying-power and love for our products has helped us maintain our position in a challenging market. We have chosen cooperation over competition, helping us to thrive where others have given up. It requires special skill to sustain a business based on Cypripedium culture over this many years!
09.2023: The cypripediums for this year have been harvested and it turns out that the extreme summer heat has had a very bad impact on the quality and size of the rhizomes. Their appearance reminds me of harvests 10 or 15 years ago when I did not really know how to cultivate them properly. In the spring the plants still looked good, but the summer spoiled a lot and made my counts useless.
It is no longer my cultivation skills that set the standard, rather the weather extremes that set the limits. It looks like we need to lower our expectations and try to become accustomed to a non-flowering size as well. All varieties, without exception, have barely increased in size this year, something I have never experienced before.
07.2023: The effects of climate change are threatening our nursery. After three dry hot weeks, the cypripediums are showing significant leaf damage from the dry air and excessive temperature, despite regular watering. Plants in the gardens as well as in nature are also looking bad. Watering is an imperfect substitute for rain water on plants!
06.2023: Two years ago (see 05.2020) we were not sure if we could produce clones of Alaskanum and Karo. Now the dream is becoming reality and a new clone, 'Frosch's Alaskan Beauty', will be offered for sale for the first time this year! Others in this group will follow, as these special miniature lady's slippers are comparatively resistant to climate change and spread like ground cover in the garden.
Seed-propagated Alaskanum will also be sold for the first time this year. The single flower grows only a few centimetres tall (1.5 inches) and can be reddish or brownish spotted.
Furthermore, the hybrids Annegret, Barbara (newly registered by us in 2022) and Jimmy will be offered for sale for the first time.
06.2022: The hybrids Axel and Johnny Petersen are ready to be ordered for the first time.
05.2022: The lab was moved to my apartment. Now I have the babies very close to me and can take extra good care of them. Before, they were 11 km away.
A new example of successful pot culture can be seen at the very bottom of the page Growth: Cypripedium Emil with 45 flowers after 15 years!
Publication in the US-American "Northern Gardener Magazine" (view pdf file).
The variation within Cypripedium grexes (= hybrids raised from seed) can be huge. At first from seed pod to seed pod if you use different parents of the same species but also between the seedlings of a single seed pod. Here you can see three seedlings of Cypripedium Henric from one seed pod as the most extreme example in my nursery this year. By the way, this is the first white Cyp. Henric I have ever seen in my life!
10.2021: Publication in the German gardening magazine "Gartenspaß" (view pdf file).
06.2021: The hybrid Blondi and the clones 'Frosch's Harlequin' and 'Frosch's Mother Earth' are ready to be ordered for the first time.
A new garden video shows how beautiful a bed planted with Cypripedium hybrids can be.
05.2021: Our seedlings from the lab are big enough to be planted at the nursery. Last August they still were so tiny- see below!
04.2021: Due to climate change, April has become the most dangerous month of the year for our hardy lady's slippers. In the meantime they begin to form shoots in March, much earlier than in the past. Therefore, the usual late frosts in April catch frost-sensitive shoots unawares. Efficient frost protection measures are indispensible, otherwise severe damage and losses can happen as we have learned in previous years. 10 and 20 years ago something like this was completely unnecessary!
08.2020: This is how our lady's slipper orchids start their lives - as tiny little globules in a sterile petri dish in the lab, hardly visible to the naked eye even six weeks after sowing. After 5-6 years less than 10 percent of them will be ready for sale as flowering sized rhizomes. No wonder that hardy lady's slipper orchids are so valuable!
05.2020: The Cypripedium clones 'Frosch's Mountain King' and an yet unnamed new clone of Hans Erni (later 'Frosch's Harlequin') impress with an unbelievable abundance of flowers this spring. The new clone will be for sale soon!
A selected mother plant of Cypripedium Alaskanum produces three twin flowers this year. I have never seen any twin flowers of this hybrid! Unfortunately, Alaskanum is hard to propagate in vitro. Thus it is not sure whether this hybrid will ever be available for sale. We will try our best! It is such a beauty.
A new cross between Alaskanum and guttatum flowers for the first time and is being registered as Cypripedium Karo at the Royal Horticultural Society in England. Do you notice the different flower colouration of the various specimens? Also in this case we are not sure if we will ever be able to produce this cross for sale.
09.2019: I am very content with this year's harvest. Meanwhile even extra large rhizomes grow in soil within four years due to further improved cultivation methods in the lab and nursery. All this without the use of pesticides, grown under conditions close to nature and outdoors!
06.2019: The hybrids Henric and Schoko are ready to be ordered for the first time.
Our web-presence is now fully up-to-date after a complete overhaul, including optimized display on mobile devices. To this end we've deliberately kept the layout simple.
05.2019: New garden examples from Belarus illustrate how beautiful and vigorous plantings with hardy lady's slippers can be.
After an extremely dry and sunny year 2018 this spring shows again that Cypripedium hybrids are markedly more robust than species. Even experts have to accept losses or weaker growth of species whereas the hybrids don't show any problems. Some of them are even stronger due to the high amount of light last year!
Cypripedium Henric, for example, is marvellous this year in our nursery.
01.2019: Frosch® Exclusive Perennials is now celebrating 25 years. Our quality, staying-power and love for our products has helped us maintain our position in a challenging market. We have chosen cooperation over competition, helping us to thrive where others have given up. It requires special skill to sustain a business based on Cypripedium culture over this many years!
09.2018: We are very happy about our excellent success in germinating Cypripedium hybrids in the lab this year. Trials and failures in past years haven taken us a great step forward. Also the seedlings from last year's sowing are really good for the first time and meet our highest quality standards.
06.2018: With the update of our website we add advice for nurseries and improve the design for mobile devices even further.
05.2018: For the first time we register a new hybrid at the Royal Horticultural Society in England: Cypripedium Christian. A very promising cross!
03.2018: Stefanie Stuke, a German landscape gardener, made a tattoo of her Cypripedium Dietrich onto the leg of a workmate. Incredible!
02.2018: We make considerable progress with our lab procedure. The in vitro seedlings look better than ever, despite the fact that we made a basic mistake at the start of the sowing season last summer. Next time we know better!
09.2017: The orchid harvest this autumn was very pleasing, the quality excellent. Constant improvements of our culture methods and the newly built protection against weather extremes due to climate change show effect.
Size 0 represents "jumbo size", size 1 flowering size, and size NF will flower in 1-2 years. Please note the extra long roots due to outdoor cultivation!
08.2017: Publication in the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" (view pdf file).
06.2017: A second clone, 'Frosch's Queen of the Mist', and the hybrid Dr. Ernst von Siemens are ready to be ordered for the first time.
A new video shows the incredible vigour of hardy lady's slippers in a normal garden.
05.2017: Blooming time in my nursery! It wasn't easy to protect the plants from severe damage by late frosts this year. Our March was unusually warm and so two late frost and snow periods end of April hit the garden orchids shortly before flowering, when they are no longer frost-resistant. That was close, but in the end our frost protection measures turned out to be successful.
03.2017: Publication in the Austrian gardening magazine "Sabine Gartenparadies" (view pdf file).
10.2016: Publication in the Russian online magazine "Ogorod.ru" with many photos (view the article).
With the professional production of cypripediums, there can be a narrow line between joy and sorrow. We have experienced this again during this year's harvest. Some beds gave perfect rhizomes, other beds by far not as good roots due to the extraordinary cold and wet spring this year. We will improve the technical equipment of the critical beds to be more independent from extreme weather conditions in the future.
This is perfect and at real "Frosch®" quality level:
The rhizomes below don't make us really happy. Still they are stable and will grow in any garden, but they are not perfect:
A dream result, my first real clone 'Frosch's Mountain King' in top quality! Please note the length of the roots and the root to shoot ratio. This is the result of a natural way of growing them outside.
09.2016: Publication in the German gardening magazine "Der praktische Gartenratgeber" (view pdf file).
08.2016: Publication in English language in the Portuguese gardening magazine "Mediterranean Gardening and Outloor Living" (view pdf file).
07.2016: Publication in the Danish orchid journal "Orkideer".
06.2016: Our website has been redesigned and is now also suitable for mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers.
03.2016: Mark Bramble from the U.S. publishes an excellent article about his garden culture of cypripediums in "Orchids", the journal of the American Orchid Society (view pdf file).
10.2015: Once again, it turns out that during shipping our Frosch® rhizomes remain healthier than those cultivated in greenhouses. Our way of cultivation, grown outside and using purely biological crop protection, produces more robust plants in contrast to the forced greenhouse cultivation where chemical plant protection is used.
06.2015: The hybrids Columbianum, Eurasia, Lucy Pinkepank and Monto are ready to be ordered for the first time.
04.2015: Publications in two German magazines for the horticultural trade, "gestalten und verkaufen" (view pdf file) and "florieren!".
03.2015: Publication in the German gardening magazine "Gartendesign exklusiv" (view pdf file).
10.2014: Here I am, at my yearly harvest of the Frosch® Cypripedium rhizomes, grading them for different size classes (jumbo, flowering size, non-flowering size). All plants of a year are being harvested and shipped at once at the beginning of October in order to keep the quality as high as possible. This is also the reason why I only sell them as dormant, bare-rooted rhizomes in autumn to nurseries and dealers worldwide.
08.2014: An especially nice article with many photos is published by the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" (view pdf file).
06.2014: The hybrids Chauncey and Hans Erni are ready to be ordered for the first time.
05.2014: A new video shows the development of a bed for hardy lady's slipper orchids over a period of four years.
04.2014: Portrait of my business in the German newspaper for horticulture, "TASPO" (view pdf file).
Publication in the German journal for florists, "Florieren" (view pdf file).
03.2014: A German magazine for the horticultural business, "Gärtnerbörse", publishes an entrepreneurial portrait of me (view pdf file).
02.2014: TV report about Cypripedium hybrids in the gardening magazine of the German TV channel "Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg".
Publication in the German gardening magazine "Gartenspaß" (view pdf file).
01.2014: Believe it or not, we are celebrating our 20th anniversary this month! Frosch® Exclusive Perennials will offer 20 different Cypripedium hybrids for 2014 on this occasion.
12.2013: We open our own laboratory for the sterile sowing and raising of seedlings. Until now this task had been given to an external service provider. It takes 15 months before the plantlets are big enough to be transplanted into the unsterile conditions of the nursery. And from there another 3-6 years until the first flower! Not really a job for impatient people...
11.2013: Frosch® Exclusive Perennials wins the TASPO Award 2013 for being the "Ornamental Plant Producer of the Year", as part of a gala at the Grand Hyatt in Berlin. Once again the garden orchids stand in the public spotlight!
09:2013: Publication in the German gardening magazines "GartenFlora" (view pdf file) and "Mein schöner Garten".
08.2013: Frosch® Exclusive Perennials has applied for the TASPO Awards 2013, a contest of the German horticultural industry, similar to the Academy Awards ceremony ("Oscar"). The result: We are finalist (top five) in two of three submitted categories. Whether it is sufficient for an award will be seen at the awards ceremony, 8th of November in Berlin. Only then the envelope will be opened, according to the motto "And the winner is...". We are looking forward to this event with eager anticipation!
07.2013: Lecture about cultivation and selling of Cypripedium hybrids at the conference of the Perennial Plant Association in Vancouver (Canada). The PPA symposium was a big success for the hardy lady's slippers. Over 200 horticulturists from Canada and the U.S. were listening to my lecture and asked many interested questions. The story of the cypripediums goes on!
06.2013: The new clone 'Frosch's Mountain King' is ready to be ordered for the first time. This means that Frosch® Exclusive Perennials is no longer only offering hybrids raised from seed, but also clones taken from tested, outstanding individual plants.
Article in the Russian gardening magazine "Vestnik Sadovoda" (view pdf file).
05.2013: Article in "Le Lien Horticole", the French newspaper for horticulture (view pdf file).
04.2013: We still have frosty winter weather at the beginning of April. Many nurseries with heated greenhouses complain about high heating costs and flowering outdoor plants which do not sell. Now the strategy of Frosch® Exclusive Perennials pays off. We only grow outside in beds with organic plant protection. In this way our plants remain dormant and wait for spring patiently, without energy consumption and energy costs!
TV report about Cypripedium hybrids in the gardening magazine of the German TV channel "ARD".
Publication in the German journal for florists, "Florieren" (view pdf file).
03.2013: The cooperation with Christian Schreiner from HardyOrchid Wholesaler enables us to add "Garden Orchid" cypripediums to our program. Now we can offer three different brands of cypripediums to our wholesale customers from the horticultural business: "Frosch®", "HardyOrchid" and "Garden Orchid".
02.2013: Lecture about cultivation and selling of Cypripedium hybrids at the conference of the International Hardy Plant Union in Gruenberg (Germany). Perennial plant growers from 12 nations came together to exchange experience and knowledge.
12.2012: Frosch® Exclusive Perennials has started an own Facebook page. Visit us and give us a "Like"! We will be happy about it.
08.2012: Publication in the Austrian gardening magazine "Garten + Haus" (view pdf file), the German agricultural weekly paper "BWagrar" (view pdf file) and the German garden centre magazine "Mein Paradies" (view pdf file).
An especially nice article with many photos is published by the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" (view pdf file).
06.2012: The hybrids Achim, Anna, John Haggar and Pluto are ready to be ordered for the first time.
Two new videos show impressive garden examples with lady's slipper beds.
Article in the American journal of the Perennial Plant Association, "Perennial Plants" (view pdf file).
03.2012: Article in the German garden centre magazines "Mein Paradies" and "Paradiesgarten" (view pdf file).
01.2012: Article in the German magazine for landscaping, "DeGa GalaBau" (view pdf file).
11.2011: Now the effects of the extremely cold and wet summer 2011 can clearly be seen. We harvested less flowering sized rhizomes this autumn and this will also be the case next year. The cypripediums barely increased in size in 2011. I haven't experienced anything like this before.
10.2011: Article in the German magazine for horticulturists, "DeGa" (view pdf file).
09.2011: Articles in the German gardening magazines "Der praktische Gartenratgeber" (view pdf file) and "Gartenspaß" (view pdf file).
08.2011: An especially nice article with many stunning garden examples is published by the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" (view pdf file).
06.2011: The hybrids Birgit Pastel and Peter are ready to be ordered for the first time.
Two new videos show impressive garden examples with lady's slipper beds.
05.2011: Article in the German magazine for horticulture, "DeGa" (view pdf file), in the American journal of the Perennial Plant Association, "Perennial Plants" (view pdf file), and in "Le Lien Horticole", the French newspaper for horticulture (view pdf file).
04.2011: Articles in magazines for horticulture, "Gärtner & Florist" in Austria (view pdf file) and "g'plus" in Switzerland (view pdf file).
03.2011: Article in the German newspaper for horticulture, "TASPO" (view pdf file).
01.2011: Thanks to the kind permission of gardenorchid.com we can show the growing cycle of cypripediums on our page Planting Advice.
09.2010: Articles in garden magazines in Austria ("Garten + Haus") and Germany ("Flora Garten", "Hessischer Kleingärtner", "Der Staudengarten" - view pdf file).
08.2010: Publications in the German lifestyle magazines "Living at Home" and "Wohnen & Garten", and in the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" (view pdf file).
07.2010: Now you can also watch videos about Cypripedium hybrids! More productions are on schedule for autumn 2010 and spring 2011. Another new page explains the division of Cypripedium clumps.
Publication in the journal of the Scottish Rock Garden Club, "The Rock Garden" (view pdf file).
06.2010: The hybrids Dietrich, Michael Pastel and Rascal are ready to be ordered for the first time.
We modernized our logo and the design of this website. Additionally we designed pot tags for the sale of potted plants by retail nurseries. Again our trade mark gives you a guarantee for high quality.
04.2010: Article in the German newspaper for horticulture, "TASPO" (view pdf file).
At the Bavarian Garden Show in Rosenheim, an exhibition of 46 different, flowering Cypripedium hybrids in 184 pots (grower: Sebastian Urban, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation) has shown their potential as valuable garden plants. The journal for landscaping "GaLaBau" published a large report (view pdf file). You can also watch a video of this extraordinary display.
01.2010: Articles in the German gardening magazines "Eisenbahn-Landwirt" and "Traumgarten", and in the Swiss journal for horticulture "Der Gartenbau" (view pdf file).
10.2009: The harvest this autumn was absolutely sensational. Latest improvements of the culture methods led to a quality we only could dream of in the past. It seems as if we had reached our aim - perfect plants for happy garden orchid enthusiasts!
For the first time rhizomes of "jumbo size" are available. Watch out for our Frosch® logo when buying!
08.2009: Article in the German orchid journal "Orchideenzauber" with especially beautiful garden examples (view pdf file).
07.2009: Article in the German garden magazine "Garten Eden" (view pdf file).
06.2009: The hybrids Kristi Lyn, Paul, Renate Pastel and Victoria are ready to be ordered for the first time. New spectacular garden photos are added to most of the other hybrids.
05.2009: New garden examples show the great potential of Cypripedium hybrids.
04.2009: An exhibition at the Botanical Gardens Munich (grower: Sebastian Urban) attracts great interest and Bavarian television is filming a special report about Cypripedium hybrids for the garden.
09.2008: Publication in a journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, "The Orchid Review" (view pdf file).
05.2008: The hybrids Sebastian und Ventricosum Pastell are ready to be ordered for the first time.
New garden examples show impressively the enormous growth rate of Cypripedium hybrids.
04.2008: At the Bavarian Garden Show in Neu-Ulm a special exhibition of 37 different, flowering Cypripedium hybrids (grower: Sebastian Urban) shows their potential as valuable garden plants.
05.2007: The hybrids Aki Pastel and Ventricosum are ready to be ordered for the first time. New garden photos are shown of Gisela, Hank Small, Ingrid and Michael.
04.2007: Anthony Darby from Scotland won first prize with a seedling of Cypripedium Sabine after only six years of pot culture in the Hardy Orchid class of the Perth show of the Scottish Rock Garden Club (see image).
05.2006: In a garden in Southern Germany, Cypripedium Gisela shows proof of its vigorous growth. After eight years 152 flowers developed from just three shoots. This year it is even better, the plant appeared with 230 shoots!
The Cypripedium forum now contains more than 2000 contributions.
06.2005: The hybrids Aki, Hank Small and Inge are ready to be ordered for the first time.
05.2005: At the German Garden Show in Munich a special exhibition of 24 different, flowering Cypripedium hybrids (grower: Sebastian Urban) attracts considerable interest.
06.2004: The hybrids Ingrid, Michael and Sabine are ready to be ordered for the first time.
Emil and Ingrid show in a garden in Munich the vigour of the hybrids. Who would not want 65 lady's slipper blooms in their garden after only three years?
New garden examples demonstrate how lady's slippers can be used in the garden.
05.2003: The hybrids Aki light (the later Aki Pastel), Philipp and Ulla Silkens are ready to be ordered for the first time.
The Cypripedium forum now contains 800 contributions. A search engine with a direct link to the forum has been integrated in order to improve your research.
05.2002: A new garden example shows the vigour of Cypripedium Gisela, 25 flowers after only 5 years!
01.2002: We are going to prolong the cultivation period of our lady's slipper orchids by one year to allow for bigger growth of the plants. This means that we will not be offering any new hybrids this year, however the offer still remains for Gisela and Gisela Pastel. Look forward to the orchid innovations in 2003!
11.2001: The website is converted to full screen mode in order to make viewing easier.
10.2001: The Cypripedium forum has been technically improved for users with Netscape browsers. It now contains 450 contributions.
06.2001: After two years of testing a new groundcover, Leptinella (syn. Cotula), can be recommended for Cypripedium beds.
A new photo shows Cypripedium hybrids in a very different way, as cut flowers in a vase!
05.2001: Since last year the Cypripedium Gisela has increased rapidly from 33 to 50 shoots and from 24 to 42 flowers in the garden in Munich!
04.2001: The Cypripedium forum now contains more than 300 contributions and has been redesigned to reduce the time for loading the pages.
01.2001: The website navigation has been given a more user-friendly design.
10.2000: The hybrid Gisela Pastel (previously referred to as Gisela Yellow) is ready to be ordered for the first time.
06.2000: The second, improved version of the website goes online. Emil is the next hybrid to be offered.
05.2000: The Cypripedium forum has been so sucessfull that it now includes more than 100 contributions after only half a year. Therefore it is necessary to break it up into several categories to improve clarity.
04.2000: The Cypripedium forum now includes photos in the contributions.
11.1999: Publishing of the website and official start of the Cypripedium nursery "Frosch® Exclusive Perennials".
06.1997: For the first time a Frosch® Cypripedium hybrid (Gisela) is offered.
01.1994: Start of production.