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John OswaltWe are delighted to welcome John Oswalt, second VP of the SD County Orchid Society, who will speak on ‘Lessons Learned from Growing Cymbidium Orchids’. John’s talk will highlight his experiences in growing and repotting cymbidium orchids and provide useful tips to both new and experienced orchid growers. This is a very timely talk as winter and spring are the main times for cymbidium flowering and the ideal time to divide and repot them is shortly after their blooming period.  This month’s plant table will be provided by Casa de las Orquideas.

John Oswalt began growing orchids over 40 years ago when he was in high school.  After college, he put this hobby on hold due to a demanding career and corporate relocations.  After John retired in 2012, he embraced his hobby again in a big way.  John grew a collection of orchids in Atlantic Beach, Florida and then moved his collection to San Diego in 2016.  John was a member of the Jacksonville Orchid Society and now serves as second Vice President of the San Diego County Orchid Society.  John has two greenhouses that are temperature and humidity-controlled year-round.  He also has a large outdoor shade area.  John has a broad collection of orchids, but particularly enjoys growing Cattleya Alliance and Cymbidium orchids. He has had good success with his plants and has many practical lessons to share. 

This month’s opportunity table will be provided by Casa de las Orquideas.

Phyllis Prestia

We are delighted to have one of our own longtime members, Phyllis Prestia, speak at our November meeting. She will talk on ‘Wild Orchids of France’ and her educational presentation will highlight her trip through the woods, meadows, and spectacular gorges of France in search of the spectacular and often elusive native terrestrial orchids. Having trekked extensively in France over the last five years, Phyllis will present several genera through photos taken in situ of the habitats where they grow and are being conserved in the wild. Both species and natural hybrids will be included. The beauty of the landscapes and these gorgeous orchids will be memorable. The November plant table will be provided by one of our local orchid growers and Phyllis will be selling some of her own orchids at the break.

Phyllis S. Prestia is an orchid enthusiast, collector, and grower. Her latest passion is the native orchids of Europe. She has traveled extensively in France collecting photographs and sharing conservation efforts with local French orchid societies. She is also an avid supporter of the World Orchid Conferences. In conjunction with the WOC’s, she has trekked the rainforests of Madagascar and the islands of the Galapagos. Back home in California she grows these extraordinary orchids, which are presently getting ready to bloom.    Read more »

Tanya LamIt is a pleasure to welcome to our society for the first time Tanya Lam. Tanya hails from San Jose, CA, where she has been growing orchids since 1997. Tanya will be speaking on ‘ Helping your Orchids Thrive in Challenging Environments’.  Since Tanya leads a very busy life juggling a full time job, frequently traveling for business, taking care of her family as well as her large orchid collection, she has had to develop successful conditions to grow her orchids to accommodate her life style and minimized the loss of plants during her travels.

After seeing orchids growing in their habitats in Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador and China, Tanya was determined to improve her growing conditions to overcome her environmental challenges. This required her to develop orchid mixes that would stay moist for 7-14 days and she also worked to also improve her greenhouse operations.   Tanya’s current collection is now improving with her successes, and she continues to try growing many species that she avoided before.  During her talk, Tanya will share everything she does to make her collection thrive in San Jose, including how she waters, heats, cools and fertilizes her orchids. She also will provide the plant table this month. 

Tanya is being co-sponsored by POS and SDCOS so she will be speaking to SDCOS on Tuesday evening about ‘The Long Lasting and Frequently Blooming Orchid Species’.  For those interested in attending her talk, please refer to the SDCOS website.   Read more »

Debby HallidayWe are pleased to welcome back Debby Halliday as our July speaker. In her talk titled "All About Phalaenopsis", Debby will be talking about Phalaenopsis and how to be successful in growing and reblooming them.  She will also give a repotting demonstration.  These days Phals are often a person’s first orchid and, if they can grow and rebloom them, they will always enjoy orchids.  Debby will focus on discussing how and where these beauties grow naturally so that people gain an understanding of the plant’s needs rather than just trying to memorize a list of Do’s and Don’t’s.  This lecture is geared to newer orchid growers, but hopefully everyone will find some useful tidbits they didn’t know before. 

Debby is the 1st Vice President of the San Diego County Orchid Society and has spoken at all of their recent shows and for several plant societies in the region. She has served as a ribbon judge at the SDCOS shows for the last 4 years and currently leads her judging teams.  Debby enjoys helping people learn to be successful with orchids. She is an excellent orchid grower and has won many awards at SDCOS shows. She has a diverse background in growing orchids and plants in general. The following summarizes her background in her own words:   Read more »

With the influx of new members and the onset of the spring and summer growing season, our April meeting will be devoted to select aspects of orchid culture as well as addressing specific questions meeting attendees may have for the expert panel.  This program is an exciting opportunity for both new and long-term POS members to learn about or become re-acquainted with the fundamentals of orchid culture presented by our own panel of advanced POS hobbyists, who have many years of experience in growing a variety of orchid genera. The expert panel consists of Merle Robboy (watering and fertilizing), Jerry Spencer (orchid pests and diseases), and Alex Nadzan (growing mixes and repotting).  Each panelist will share their experiences (10-15 min. each) on three major aspects of orchid culture, then address questions members and guests may have on any topic of orchid culture. Members are encouraged to submit questions in advance to twisniewski1@cox.net or just raise them at the meeting.   Read more »