African violets are the easiest things in the world to grow IF you water the dish. You wet the leaves, you've killed the plant. Those crazy things grow in yogurt containers, for crying out loud! Cuttings are easy to propagate. Google it, grow it, use the right growing medium, and water the saucer!
As for those confounded orchids, they are epiphytes that love to grow in trees. In my home country, they are weeds. Go figure!
I grow mine in wood chips (epiphytes grow on wood) and wood in New England LOVES, LOVES, LOVES critters. I've had termites move in on orchids. The fight was on. I won but the orchids lost.
England was chosen by the gods to be Heaven's garden. The Pacific Northwest in the US comes so close it's scary. You have cloud cover, cool weather, no extreme temperatures, and beautiful soil. (I actually brought back of your dirt to work into my compost bin hoping your critters would go forth and multiply.)
If you're in London, your River Thames produces crazy cool organisms that are carried by wind (I checked.... not lyin') and that beautiful, moldy, stinky stuff at low tide is food from the powers that be.
This may make you gag but I have been known to bring in spiders from the garden and lay them on my potted plants. A free lunch really does exist.
But all in all, as much as I love bringing the outdoors in, I keep it to a minimum.
The spiders don't pay my bills.
😉