Welcome to the Palomar Orchid Society Website!

Brandon TamIt is our distinct pleasure to welcome back Brandon Tam as our first speaker of 2019. Brandon will talk to us on "Wild Orchids of Ecuador" which resulted from a trip he took in May, 2017 that included Harold Koopowitz and others on a trek in Ecuador led by Pepe Portilla (President of Ecuagenera), where the group saw many wild orchids and focused on the study of Selenipedium aequinoctiale. Brandon’s presentation is a multimedia talk that includes both photos and videos of his trip highlighting the diversity of orchids found in Ecuador as well as the interesting local cuisine and a visit to the expansive nurseries of Eucagenera, which supplies thousands of orchids to countries around the world. This is a very exciting and educational presentation not to be missed. Alex has seen the talk twice and it is, in his opinion, one of the best travel orchid talks he has seen over the years.

Brandon is passionate about his career as the Orchid Collection Specialist at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. He is a dedicated supporter of our orchid societies and has hosted several of our San Diego societies trips to the Huntington Library to view their extensive orchid collection.   Read more »

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 »

Angelic NguyenWe are happy to welcome Angelic Nguyen to our society as our October speaker. Angelic’s topic will be ‘The Fascinating Orchids of Vietnam’ where she will provide us information on established and new species identified from Vietnam.

Angelic emigrated from Vietnam to the US in 1990 and has been growing orchids for over 20 years. She started her company, Orchid Design, in 1999 located in San Jose, CA and sells a variety of orchids at several orchid shows throughout California. Angelic grows several varieties of orchids including hybrids and species of cattleyas, phalanopsis, laelias, dendrobiums, oncidiums, paphs, phrags, lycastes, bulbophylums, and vandas.  She also has several rare cymbidiums, including standard, pendulous and peloric, and has done some hybridizing of cymbidiums, laelias, and cattleyas.  She will be providing the plant table this month.

Angelic is being cosponsored by our society and SDCOS. She will be speaking on ‘Fragrant Orchids’ at the SDCOS meeting on Tuesday evening in Balboa Park and POS members are welcome to attend her talk.   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 »