Posts

Gilbert J. HoStanhopeas are the upside-down jewels of the orchid world. They are not often cultivated but fairly easy to grow in our Southern California climate with a few basic rules. These plants are highly fascinating as their pendant flowers are among the most highly evolved and specialized of all orchid flowers. The flower spikes emerge through the bottom of the growing basket to hang freely like birds in flight.  With an emphasis on the roughly 70 species currently recognized, Gil's talk will cover basic information about different Stanhopea growing conditions in nature and the origins of Stanhopea collecting and identification. Hybridizing stanhopeas will be mentioned briefly and the talk will conclude with an overview of cutlure conditions for growing Stanhopeas in our Southern California area. This section will serve as this month's culture class.   Read more »

An Amateur’s Attempt at Orchid Hybridizing

Alex NadzanOctober’s speaker will be our own Alex Nadzan who has been collecting and growing orchids for over 20 years with emphasis on Cattleya, Oncidium and Cymbidium species and hybrids. Alex was first bitten by the orchid bug in the late 1980’s when he attended an orchid show at the Chicago Botanic Garden and purchased from Orchids by Hausermann, Inc. two orchids, a Cattleya and Oncidium, both of which he still owns and manages to bloom on a yearly basis.  His orchid collection, which now consists of a few thousand orchids, expanded after he and his family relocated to San Diego where conditions are favorable for growing outdoors compared to the Chicago area.  

Over the last 7 years, Alex has embarked on an orchid hybridizing program devoted primarily to creating novel, compact and cold-tolerant Cattleya hybrids.  He will discuss his attempts at producing new hybrids, providing an overview of orchid hybridization basics including pollination, seed production and germination, deflasking and raising orchid seedlings to blooming size. He also will show blooms of some of his first hybrids and share some of the novel hybrids in progress.

As part of his talk and in place of the culture class, Alex will demonstrate how to deflask and start out orchid seedlings for those members who may what to try their hand at it.   Read more »

We are fortunate to have return one of our favorite speakers and long time member and supporter of the Palomar Orchid Society, Fred Clarke of Sunset Valley Orchids, who will speak to us on “Growing the Best Orchids”.

Fred’s talk will cover multiple aspects of growing orchids including general orchid culture, repotting, potting materials, lighting, fertilization, what orchids grow best together, etc. Fred’s power point presentation will review the ‘best practices’ for growing a variety of orchids and include pictures of some of his novel hybrids and species.  The presentation should be of considerable interest to both the novice and advanced orchid hobbyist.  As many of our members know, Fred is an excellent, highly sought after lecturer in the orchid world so his presentation should not be missed.

Fred has been growing orchids for 34 years and has been hybridizing for 26 of those years. With over 26 years as a professional grower and manager in the horticultural industry, Fred applies these skills at his orchid nursery, Sunset Valley Orchids, located in Vista, California, just north of San Diego. His nursery’s website is http://www.sunsetvalleyorchids.com/ 

Fred is a passionate orchid grower whose curiosity in orchids is wide and varied. Although developing new Cattleya hybrids has been his sustaining interest, he is also actively creating new Bulbophyllum, Paphiopedilum and Aussie Dendrobium hybrids. Moreover, his pioneering work in Catasetum intergeneric hybrids led to the development of several notable hybrids, most recently the grex, Fredclarkeara After Dark, which produced “the closest flower color to black ever witnessed”. This grex received seven FCC’s and three AM’s on the first flowers shown for judging.    Read more »

Hi POS Members,

Since there are a lot of items for the virtual show and tell, we will take submissions until the 25th of each month, on which day they will be posted once for that month.  Because of the quirky nature of Flickr, each addition requires a redo of the whole set.  This saves my fingers from having to post and change the show and tell many times during the course of each month.  Pics after that will be rolled to the next month's show and tell.  Thanks for your help!

Gil Ho

"Indoor and Outdoor Orchid Growing Structures for Southern California and Beyond"

Nico Goossens is a grower and co-owner of Lico Orchids and Flowers, Encinitas, CA. Since 1982, he has also worked in the construction industry. His first exposure to orchids came in 1978 when he was given custodial care of a shipment of bare root central American orchids that had been inspected by US Agriculture, fumigated, held in quarantine, and warehoused for over two months, and finally refused by the consignee. In spite of total degradation, with time and lots of research on orchid care, Nico managed to bloom some of the plants, thus, marking the beginning of his passion for orchids. He continued to sparingly and cautiously dabble with growing orchids outdoors until about 1995 when Lisa Humphreys and he started Lico Orchids & Flowers and build their greenhouse, thus adding greenhouse building and growing to his knowledge.

Nico enjoys growing all kinds of varied orchid genera and especially species. He is also very interested in the conservation of Southern California’s local native orchids. He has traveled to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ecuador, Brazil, and China to see orchids growing in the wild.  This should be a very educational talk for our members.

Lico Orchids will provide plants for the opportunity table this month.

June's culture class will be given by our own Jerry Spencer who will provide culture tips on "Growing Magnificent Specimen Orchid Plants". As POS members know, Jerry and Anita Spencer are experts in producing wonderful specimen orchids, several of which have won awards.