Welcome to the Palomar Orchid Society Website!

Paul TuskesThe Palomar Orchid Society is pleased to welcome back Dr. Paul Tuskes. Paul’s presentation will be on “Encyclias and their relatives”.

Encyclia and related genera occur from south Florida to Brazil and live in a wide range of habitats and elevations….. meaning they are ideal for everybody.  He will focus on the best plants for the San Diego area and some of their hybrids.

Paul has been growing orchids for 30 years and his photographs have been used in various books and journals.  He serves as an AOS orchid judge and co-founded with his wife Ann the orchid species study group of the San Diego County Orchid Society. He was one of the first members of that society’s conservation group, which received a Conservation Achievement award from the American Orchid Society.

Kai Klausing (and daughter)We are delighted to welcome back Dr. Kay Klausing, 1st VP of the San Diego County Orchid Society who will speak to us on orchids viruses. The title of his talk is "Orchid Viruses:  Introduction and Practical Aspects of Virus Testing". During his Masters and PhD work, Kay used a virus as a model system for replication and, as such, he has had a long interest in and fascination with viruses. Kay will give a brief introduction to orchid viruses, but will focus mainly on the practical aspects from the point of growing orchids. He will give a live demo on how to perform tests, share the test results for his collection and provide tips on how to prevent the spread of virus in a collection.

Kay was born and raised in Germany, but he did not start growing orchids until he was in college. The University of Konstanz, where he got his Master and PhD in Molecular Genetics, had a lone Dendrobium kingianum specimen covering 2 huge baskets that had developed thousands of keikis due to being kept too warm. The gardener gave him a few keikis, which got him hooked on orchids. Kay moved to the US in 1990 to do a postdoc at UCSD and gave his collection to his dad who also got “infected” with the dreaded orchid virus, much to his mom’s dismay.    Read more »

Ron MidgettWe are pleased to welcome Ron Midgett of New Earth Orchids, NM, as our speaker for February.   Ron is an accomplished orchid hybridizer who will be describing his cattleya hybridizing efforts with a talk entitled   ‘Beyond Sc. Beaufort – A 20 Year Odyssey in Cattleya Breeding’.  Ron’s visit is being co-sponsored by POS and SDCOS, thus he will be talking about his experiences with oncidium hybrids at SDCOS on Tuesday evening with the talk “Oncidinae Intergeneric Hybrids—What Are They and How Do I Grow Them?”.  He also will be providing the POS opportunity table and have some of his novel cattleyas crosses available for purchase.

Ron began growing orchids in 1969 in an orchid-rich environment of Southern California. Since then, he has grown orchids in many different regions of the US and in the Caribbean for 3 years. Currently, Ron resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a breeder with an emphasis on Cattleyas, Paphiopedilums, and Oncidinae. Several cultivars from his crosses have received AOS awards.  

In 1990, Ron founded the New England Orchid Company in Franklin, MA. In 2003 he moved his orchid business to New Jersey and changed the name to New Earth Orchid Co., aka, New Earth Orchids. In 2010, New Earth Orchids was moved to Santa Fe, NM.

In addition to Ron’s activities in the orchid business, he has been very active in the local orchid societies wherever he lived. This includes serving as an officer, chairing orchid shows, and running the New England Orchid Fair for 3 years.  Before leaving New Jersey, Ron founded the Jersey Highlands Orchid Society.