Monthly Meeting

The Palomar Orchid Society generally meets at 6:30 pm the FIRST WEDNESDAY of every month in the Gowland Meeting Room of the Carlsbad City Library. The George and Patricia Gowland Meeting Room is located in the Carlsbad City Library on Dove Lane, just off El Camino Real in southern Carlsbad. The address is 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad, CA 92011.

November 2018 – Phyllis Prestia

Phyllis PrestiaPhyllis 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 »

Date: 
Wed, 11/07/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

October 2018 – Angelic Nguyen

Angelic NguyenAngelic 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 »

Date: 
Wed, 10/03/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

September 2018 – Tanya Lam

Tanya LamTanya 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 »

Date: 
Wed, 09/05/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

August 2018 – Peter Lin

Peter LinPeter LinWe are delighted to welcome back Peter Lin to our society. Peter is an excellent speaker who is quite knowledgeable on many classes of orchids, their growth and culture. Peter will speak on "Favorite Fragrant Orchids". Along with the beauty of the flowers, many orchids have an alluring fragrance that is hard to beat in the plant world. This fast paced PowerPoint presentation will highlight some of Peter's favorite orchids with truly fragrant flowers, and how to grow them.

Peter started growing orchids over 30 years ago, but then stopped due to school and starting a career. It wasn't until about 14 years ago that the orchid "bug" came back and he is now heavily involved once again. He is an accredited judge with the American Orchid Society and a hybridizer of mini-catts. He enjoys meeting with other orchid enthusiasts, and can often be found at various orchid shows and societies around the country. He also has hundreds of photos of his orchids that he maintains on Flickr.

Due to limited growing space, Peter likes to specialize in miniature orchids, both species and hybrids, for which he has received numerous AOS awards. His other interests in orchids include Dendrobiums, Angraecoids, and Neofinetias (now Vanda). He maintains a collection of a thousand or more orchids at his home in Southern California in 3 small greenhouses, as well as in an offsite greenhouse.   Read more »

Date: 
Wed, 08/01/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

July 2018 – Debby Halliday

Debby HallidayDebby 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 »

Date: 
Wed, 07/11/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

June 2018 – Karen Muir

Karen MuirKaren MuirWe are pleased to welcome back Karen Muir who will speak on ‘What Makes a Good Paph’.  Karen is an expert on Paphiopedilums, also known as Slipper orchids, and her talk will describe the better tried and true parents for good general paphiopedilum breeding and what they have contributed to good paphs. Karen also will include her experiences on orchid culture for successful growing of this fascinating class of orchids. Karen’s visit is being co-sponsored with the San Diego County Orchid Society. She will be speaking Tuesday evening on ‘Dendrobiums of Asia’ and all are welcome to attend her talk in Balboa Park. The June plant table will be comprised of a variety of blooming and non-blooming orchids, including a few paphs, selected from last month’s auction.   Read more »

Date: 
Wed, 06/06/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

April 2018 – Culture Class Panel

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 »

Date: 
Wed, 04/04/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

March 2018 – Thomas Mirenda

Thomas MirendaThomas MirendaWe are happy to welcome back Thomas Mirenda of the Hawaii Tropical Botanic Garden.  Tom is a highly sought after orchid specialist who is very knowledgeable on many facets of orchid biology as well as on numerous classes of orchids. Tom will be speaking to us on "Herding Catts: A Beautiful Walk through a Difficult Phylogeny" a talk which overviews the most popular orchids, the cattleyas and their relatives. The cattleya alliance has recently undergone a very confusing and unpopular revision by taxonomists. Tom's talk will seek to clear up some of the controversies on this interesting class of orchids.

Tom's visit is being co-hosted by POS and the SDCOS. Accordingly, he will speak on "The Big Island Orchid Scene!" on Tuesday, March 6 to SDCOS in Balboa Park. POS members are welcome to attend this talk as well. The plant table will be supplied by one of our local orchid vendors.

In September of 2017, Tom accepted an exciting new position as the Director of Horticulture, Education and Outreach at the Hawaii Tropical Botanic Garden on the Big Island of Hawaii.  For the previous 17 years, Tom was the Orchid Collection Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution, caring for and curating an extremely diverse collection of orchid species and hybrids from all over the world. He was active in developing and producing huge educational exhibits using the collection plants and visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors.   Read more »

Date: 
Wed, 03/07/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

February 2018 – Andrew Cameron

Andrew CameronAndrew CameronOur society is happy to welcome Andy Cameron, Ph.D., from California Institute of Technology.  Andy will be speaking to us on the importance of genes and chromosomes in orchids. The title of his talk is "Steamy Stories:  How Genes and Chromosomes Do Their Dance." In the present era of genomics, concepts involving DNA, genes and chromosomes are offered to explain many of the everyday processes that we, as orchidists, find fascinating. How do genes affect the shape and colors of orchid flowers? What can the number of chromosomes tell us about our favorite cymbidium hybrids? The relevance of these questions to our understanding of the growth and hybridization of cymbidiums emerges from stories about the way the genetic material behaves during plant growth and form.  His talk will take place in the Lake San Marcos conference center which is located near the pavilion.

Andy is a semi-retired member of the research faculty at the California Institute of Technology. He studies how the  genomes of marine creatures like sea urchins and sea stars dictate the form of these animals. He is past president of the San Gabriel Valley Branch of the Cymbidium Society of America and an Associate Judge for the CSA. He writes the Duffer's Corner column for the CSA Journal. He also tries to convince cymbidiums and other cool-growing orchids that Pasadena is a good place to live. One of his major goals is to introduce orchid hobbyists to the wonderful body of biological information that underlies their pursuits.   Read more »

Date: 
Wed, 02/07/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

January 2018 – Fred Clarke

Fred ClarkeFred ClarkeWe are delighted to welcome back one of our favorite and most accomplished speakers, Fred Clarke. Fred will speak to us about "Orchid Flower Judging" and will gear his talk to amateurs who would like to learn how AOS judges evaluate flowers and what criteria are used to award plants. The talk will be interactive and he will use some of the plants that are brought in by members for our show-and-tell to demonstrate what constitutes an awardable plant.  Fred is an ideal person to speak on this topic since he is a long time accredited American Orchid Society Judge in the Pacific South Judging Region and his orchids have received hundreds of awards, including 8 that have received the highest honor, the 'First Class Certificate' (FCC). 

Fred is a generous supporter and life member of the Palomar Orchid Society. He has been growing orchids since 1977 and has been hybridizing for 36 of those years. With over 30 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, http://www.sunsetvalleyorchids.com, has considerable information on plants for sale and many beautiful pictures of his award winning orchids. He is a passionate orchid grower whose curiosity in orchids is broad and varied.    Read more »

Date: 
Wed, 01/03/2018 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm