Welcome to the Palomar Orchid Society Website!

Fred ClarkeWe are delighted to welcome Fred Clarke as our first in-house speaker this year who will talk on ‘Becoming an 80 Percentile Grower’. If any of you are wondering what the most important requirements are for growing the best orchids, Fred will teach us about the underlying reasons of how and why orchids grow as they do. He will then explore the fundamentals and advanced growing techniques to best grow them. Orchid plant culture is explained as you have never heard it before so attend the meeting and find out how to become an 80 percentile grower and expect to be wowed by Fred’s talk! Fred is a long time, generous supporter of the Palomar Orchid Society and one of our most favorite speakers. Fred 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, just north of San Diego. His nursery’s website has considerable information, plants for sale and many beautiful pics of his award-winning orchids. 

Fred 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 other generas including Sarcochilus, Zygopetalum Alliance, Lycaste, and Stanhopea and their relatives.    Read more »

Based on the recent positive polling of our membership, we are resuming our in-person society meetings on Wednesday, June 2. The meeting will be held at our regular location, the Lake San Marcos Conference Center, starting at 6:30 pm

For our first meeting, we will not have a formal speaker but have an informal meeting consisting of a Q&A session for attendees who have pressing questions about their orchids that weren’t addressed during the last year and a half. It would be desirable for attendees to send us your questions in advance so we can select ones to address during the session. Please send them to Alex and Bill. Our own expert growers, Jerry Spencer, Ken Campbell and Alex Nadzan will try to answer your burning questions.

In addition to the Q&A session, we will have a Show and Tell, a plant table, and a silent auction for those who may want to sell some plants. There also will be ample time for socializing. For this month, the society will provide light snacks, water and coffee so don’t bring anything other than yourself, a friend and your plants.

Please note that we will abide by existing state and local guidelines at the time of the meeting so bring your masks and please do not attend if you are not fully vaccinated yet or you feel ill.

The July 7th meeting will resume our formal speaker program starting with one of our most favorite speakers, Fred Clarke, who also will provide a plant table.

We hope to see all of you on June 2nd!

Gary Yong GeeOur May 4th Zoom General Meeting will feature Gary Yong Gee who will speak on ‘Epiphytic and Lithophytic Orchids of Southeast Queensland'. Gary's talk will feature the species that grow wild close to Gary’s home city of Brisbane. Some genera which you may be familiar with will be Cymbidium, Dendrobium, and Sarcochilus. An understanding of the habitat where these species grow will provide an insight into how to better cultivate them at home. Gary Yong Gee is an Australian born Chinese and lives in Brisbane, Australia. He began growing orchids about 40 years ago. These days he maintains a large hobby greenhouse where he cultivates Australian native and exotic species. He has over 100,000 orchid photographs taken on travels to parts of Australia, New Guinea, Asia, Europe, Central and South America, South Africa, and Madagascar both at shows and in situ. Gary is a judge with the Australian Orchid Council. He is also a member of several Australian orchid societies, the American Orchid Society, and the Orchid Conservation Alliance. Gary’s main interest are species orchids. He has contributed comprehensive monthly articles to the Orchid Species Bulletin, which is published by the Orchid Species Society for over 30 years. Gary has also written occasional articles for Orchids Australia as well as the Australian Orchid Review and he has given numerous talks to various orchid societies. His website showing some of his photographs is at www.yonggee.name.

Glen DeckerOur April 6th, 7:30 pm, Zoom General Meeting will feature Glen Decker who will speak on ‘My Life with Slippers’. Slipper orchids, including Paphiopedilums and Phragmipediums, are orchids that many of us envy but sometimes can find challenging to maintain. Glen Decker will take us on a journey to see slipper orchids around the world, including Peru, Ecuador, and throughout travel, culture, as well as stories about the people who share his obsession with slipper orchids. Glen has been growing orchids for over 40 years and holds the degree of Associate in Applied Science in Ornamental Horticulture. He is very active in the orchid community and was the owner of Piping Rock Orchids in New York. He also has been a Director of the Orchid Digest Corporation, and Chair of the AOS Publications committee. Glen has won numerous AOS quality and culture awards, including the Butterworth Prize for most outstanding culture of any orchid, the W. W. Wilson Award for most out-standing Cypripedium alliance plant, the Herbert Hager Award for most outstanding Phalaenopsis genus plant, the Carlyle A. Luer Award for most outstanding Pleurothallid alliance plant and the Nax Botanical Trophy for most outstanding species orchid. Glen has appeared in Martha Stewart's Better Living Magazine and on a PBS TV special "Orchid Delirium". He rewrote the Slipper section of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's "The Best Orchids for Indoors", and he was technical editor for the "Orchids for Dummies" book.   Read more »