June 2017 – Tim Culbertson

Tim CulbertsonPOS is pleased to welcome Tim Culbertson who will be sharing his presentation on “Laelia purpurata, the Queen of the Cattleyas”.  Although large, these spectacular cattleyas grow well outside in Southern California, and with their myriad colors and a relatively unique blooming time, these are great plants for every collection, extending the blooming times in the Cattleya Alliance through July.  With more and more Laelia purpurata clones and seedlings coming in from Brazil, and large grexes being bred in the United States, these stately, magnificent plants have seen a resurgence in popularity of late, and with good reason!  By the end of this presentation, you will have a new appreciation of the range of color forms of Laelia purpurata and its hybrids, as well as an appreciation of their beautiful flowers and ease-of-growth.  Tim will be providing a plant table of outdoor growing cattleyas, including many plants of Laelia purpurata in bud. He also will have additional plants for sale

Although Tim teaches middle school kids for a living, one of his passions has always been plants.  Tim began growing orchids as an offshoot from working at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia just after college.  From the very beginning it was all about paphs, particularly awarded and select clones of historic importance, of which his collection numbers nearly 3000.  While Tim loves finding old, rare stepping stones in paph breeding, he also does a little hybridizing on his own, and growing up his own babies is a blast.  Tim is the youngest accredited judge with the American Orchid Society, and he has served in various capacities with various orchid societies in California and on the East Coast. Tim loves meeting other people who like orchids too, and doing so often finds Tim traveling to shows, vendors, and peoples’ greenhouses to see the latest and greatest in new hybrids and to get the best orchid gossip.  Tim likes to be involved in plants as much as possible: in addition to Longwood, Tim has worked at the Smithsonian Institution tending to their orchids, and for years for the United States National Arboretum, collecting rare plants and documenting cultivated species and hybrids for their herbarium.  In short, Tim really likes plants.