Claudia Smith, the orchid lady

Sue Ettmayr

TZANEEN – Despite three operations after a car accident at the Wheelbarrow in 2007, Claudia Smith (67) runs her own very successful orchid business outside Tzaneen.

Smith was born in Mashaba in Zimbabwe and came to South Africa as a child with her mother when her parents divorced. She went to a Musina dual medium school and then switched to an Afrikaans school in the town. She completed high school at Merensky High School in Tzaneen.

Smith’s first job was with the law firm Joubert and May in Tzaneen. Later she became only one of three women to be employed as passport control officers at the now OR Tambo international airport. From there she moved to the typing pool at Iscor in Pretoria and on merit, entered the chemical laboratory.

She married in 1974. Her husband, Herman, a past pupil at Merensky, had never forgotten her. He’s an avocado farmer outside Tzaneen. They have two children. Their daughter is a medical doctor in Boshof in the Free State and their son, Herman Jr, farms avocados in Georges Valley.

Herman Jr initially joined the family farm but had always been interested in orchids. This resulted in the Smith family buying an entire cymbidium stock from a Witbank widow. Her late husband had been a cymbidium expert. The Smiths hired an interlink truck to transport the thousands of cymbidiums. Herman Jr married in 2004 and Smith took over the business now known as Smith Orchids.

Anne-Marie Brooke from Haenertsburg, who is on the Magoebaskloof Spring Fair committee, contacted her in 2010 to display and sell her orchids at the annual fair.

She took up the challenge, found a tent and had her first show at the Magoebaskloof Hotel. Three months later Brooke appointed her for the show annually. This is the only show Smith does away from home, where she has her own stunning private exhibition centre. Smith has added other orchid species to the cymbidiums and now has more than 120 species.

She experimented with orchids on mounts. Mounted orchids need moisture and humidity to mimic the forest. As most orchids are epiphytes, they’re open rooted and grow on trees. Orchids don’t thrive on all hard woods but have a preference for avocado wood. Smith only puts orchids in pots to sell them as they’re prone to root rot and overwatering.

Smith is no stranger to media exposure and was entered for a Sanlam competition. Although she did not win an award, the exposure opened doors for her. Since holding orchid shows at the Spring Fair, Smith has bought two trailers to help with the transport and two tents at a cost of R12 000 each. She has a different theme every year. This year it was logs. Last year it was all the ladders used for picking avocados. The previous year it was arches, with all the dark colours forming The Gupta Arch.

Together with her stalwart helpers, Rev Dewald Vermaak from Laeveld N.G. Kerk in Modjadjiskloof, her husband and her son, Smith has a successful show every year.