Welcome to the Palomar Orchid Society Website!

Arthur PinkersWe are delighted to welcome Arthur Pinkers as speaker for our July 11 (please note the date change!) meeting. Arthur’s talk is entitled “Miltoniopsis, Pansy’s of the Orchid World: where they started and where we are now”.  The genus Miltoniopsis (Mltps. or Mps.) consists of six species native to Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador and Columbia. They are cool to intermediate growers and like moist conditions.  Hybridizers have produced many magnificent and very colorful hybrids for orchid hobbyists and the general consumer. Arthur’s talk should be very informative on a subject that we have not had in recent history. Arthur will provide the plant table, which will feature plants from Santa Barbara Orchid Estate and Orchids Royal, including some Miltoniopsis.   Read more »

"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.