Posts

Hello POS Members and Friends,

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone!! We hope all of you had a nice and safe Thanksgiving. This has been a difficult and challenging year for all of us. The COVID-19 pandemic has created havoc in our lives, our families, and all societies. It has disrupted nearly all facets of our daily life. With the recent surge in COVID cases across the nation and our dropping down to the purple stage in San Diego County, we should prepare for another challenging year. Like many of you, we miss seeing everyone's smiling faces and chatting with you at the meetings. Fortunately,  advances in vaccine development are looking encouraging as are the ongoing efforts to develop effective treatments for those affected by the virus, particularly at early stages. Let’s hope these advances are successful and make 2021 a better year than 2020.

We are not aware of any of our members coming down with COVID, however, we did experience a loss of one of our beloved members, Susan Johnston, to cancer on September 30th. We sincerely hope and pray that all of you remain safe and healthy for the upcoming year. We can’t predict when our in person meetings will resume, but it probably won’t be until late 2021 or early 2022.

POS and SDCOS will continue our joint Zoom meetings and culture classes, both of which have been very informative. We believe our members have enjoyed the programs and speakers that we sponsored. On January 5th 2021 one of our favorite speakers, Ron Parsons, will share with us  his new talk  on 'Rare & Oddities of the Orchid World'. It should be an exciting  talk so please mark your calendars accordingly.   Read more »

Our November 3rd Joint General POS/SDCOS Meeting will be at 7:30 pm. with our speaker, Ken Jacobson, who will talk about  the group of Brazilian orchids formerly known as the Oncidium crispum group and hybrids made from these orchids.  

The Onc. crispum complex includes Onc. praetextum, Onc. curtum and Onc. gravesianum and all are now referenced as synonyms of Onc. crispum, but are kept separate as the individuals have been know as separate species for years (Jay Pfahl, www.orchidspecies.com). 

To make matters even more complex, the genus of these species has been changed to Gomesa and Onc. crispum, itself, is now under the name Gomesa imperatoris-maximil- liani in the Orchid Wiz and Orchid Roots  databases.

In addition to the individual species and the direct descendants of those species, Ken will cover more complex hybrids derived from the species.  A fair amount of time will be spent discussing culture, and how these plants can be grown successfully in the California coastal areas.

Ken was first introduced to orchids by his uncle in the 1960’s and has been growing orchids for well over 50 years. His collection includes Cymbidiums, Oncidiums, Odontoglossums, Lycastes, Cattleyas, Laelias, Masdevallias and several other genera.

Ken and his wife, Amy, enjoy traveling to all areas of the world where orchids are grown, visiting the local growers, and seeing various species in the wild. Together, Amy and Ken have over 7000 orchids. Ken is a judge in the AOS judging program and the CSA judging program, and is currently an AOS trustee. Amy is a judge in the AOS judging program. This should be a very informative talk and we encourage all to join us. The Zoom link will be sent with the email announcing the newsletter and will be the same as last  month's link.

Lou JostThe speaker for our joint October 6th Zoom meeting will be Lou Jost, Director of EcoMinga Foundation, and recipient of a conservation grant from the San Diego County Orchid Society. The title of his presentation is "Discovering, documenting, and protecting hotspots of orchid endemism in Ecuador---the 2020 legacy of a 2000-2001 SDCOS grant". 

Lou is an internationally renowned expert in molecular phylogenices, who has made significant contributions to the protection of orchids and orchid habitat in the New World Tropics. Lou will tell the story of discovering new orchid species, learning to understand their local distribution patterns, and then starting a foundation in 2006 to protect the areas where these species grow. Along the way Lou will talk a bit about the pace of orchid evolution and the practical difficulties of maintaining orchid reserves in Latin America. The helping hand of the SDCOS and its members has been there for all of this since the beginning.   Read more »

Fred ClarkeOne of our most favorite speakers, Fred Clarke, will be speaking on "Cattleya mossiae, the queen of Venezuelan Cattleyas" at our joint Zoom meeting on Tuesday, August 4th at 7:30 pm (details to follow via email). Fred will present a beautiful expose of C. mossiae in the wild with amazing pictures of thousands of flowers covering the trees. Once the most popular corsage flowers for Mother’s day, C. mossiae is now rarely seen in collections and cut flower trade. Fred’s PowerPoint presentation will feature magnificent pictures of C. mossiae in the wild as he discusses the habitat and the perils that await the future for the queen of Venezuelan Cattleyas.

As many of our members know, Fred Clarke is the owner of Sunset Valley Orchids in Vista. He has been growing orchids for over 42 years and has been hybridizing for 38 of those years. With over 34 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. He is a passionate orchid grower whose curiosity in orchids is broad and varied.  Although developing Cattleya hybrids has been his sustaining interest, he is also actively creating new Paphiopedilum and Aussie Dendrobium hybrids plus some others to be named if they work out!   Read more »

Our March meeting will be a continuation of last month’s culture meeting when we focused on cymbidiums. Since we are in the early stages of the orchid growing season, this month’s topic will concentrate on growing and repotting other types of orchids including members of the cattleya alliance, oncidiums, dendrobiums and phalaenopsis, the basics of which should be applicable to many other orchids that our members tend to grow. Our meeting will continue with two of our very experienced growers, Alex Nadzan and Ken Campbell.  Alex will demonstrate repotting and dividing of cattleyas and related orchids as well as phalaenopsis orchids, describing the similarities and differences among the common ones we grow. Alex also will briefly summarize the basics on general repotting that he did last month. For those of you who missed the February program, you may download the handouts provided at the last meeting by visiting the POS website (www.palomarorchid.org) and finding the speaker handouts under the meetings pull down menu. 

Ken Campbell, who has some experience and success with mounting cattleya and phalaenopsis orchids, will demonstrate how to mount them and provide some tips on how to grow them.  

In addition, Bill Wong will give a demo on using the virus test kits during the break for those members who want to see how they are used to detect the most common orchid viruses (CMV and ORSV).

Alex and Ken will address any questions you may have so bring your questions to the meeting or, if you prefer, provide them in advance to Alex at anadzan@mac.com or by phone at 760-529-5814.  This should be another very educational session for all who want to get a head start on the upcoming orchid growing and repotting season.

Finally, the plant table this month will be provided by one of our local growers.