Palomar Orchid Society

Welcome to the Palomar Orchid Society!

The Palomar Orchid Society, incorporated in December of 1965 was formed when a few people banded together to talk about orchids. We then grew and bloomed into the roughly 200-member group of orchid enthusiasts that we have today. We represent everything orchid in North San Diego County! Come and join us!!

The Palomar Orchid Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the understanding and cultivation of both hybrid and species orchids. We welcome members of all levels to join us for orchid fun and learning! Our mission is to promote interest in the appreciation of orchids and to provide an opportunity for their display and the exchange and dissemination of information relating to their culture.

Next Monthly Meeting

Next general meeting: August 5, 2026

The Palomar Orchid Society generally meets at 4:00 pm the FIRST WEDNESDAY of every month in the Activity Room 108 of the Pine Avenue Community Center located at 3209 Harding Street, Carlsbad, CA 92008.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For June, July, and August of 2026 the meeting location and time have changed: due to a conflict in scheduling, we are temporarily meeting at the Senior Center (799 Pine Ave, Carlsbad, CA 92008) adjacent to our current Pine Avenue Community Center location with the meeting running from 5-8 pm. There is ample parking and the meeting room is slightly smaller but will work for the 3 months listed. Starting September, we are back at the Community Center and the regular time slot from 4-7pm.

June 2021 – WELCOME BACK!

Wed, 06/02/2021 6:30pm – 9:30pm

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 pmFor 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… [Continue Reading]

May 2021 – Gary Yong Gee (online presentation)

Tue, 05/04/2021 7:30pm – 9:00pm

Our 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… [Continue Reading]

April 2021 – Glen Decker (online presentation)

Tue, 04/06/2021 7:00pm – 9:30pm

Our 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… [Continue Reading]

March 2021 – David Haelterman (online presentation)

Tue, 03/02/2021 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Our Zoom meeting on Tuesday, March 2 at 7:30 pm will feature David Haelterman speaking on "The Genus Maxillaria in Colombia." David has lived in Cali, Columbia for 6 years, exploring the region as an orchid enthusiast and educator. Cali is a major metropolis, sitting in the Valle del Cauca, just to the East of the Farallones de Cauda, the very bio-diverse coastal mountain range.He worked as an agronomist in his native Belgium, developing urban agriculture projects with schools and encouraging biodiversity through ecologically productive small-scale parcels. In Colombia, he explores the mountains, leads tours, gives lectures, and photographs especially… [Continue Reading]

February 2021 – Courtney Hackney (online presentation)

Tue, 02/02/2021 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Our joint Zoom meeting on Tuesday, February 2nd will feature Courtney Hackney, Ph.D. from Jacksonville, Florida. Because Dr. Hackney is located on the East coast, his presentation will start at 7:30 pm. Please log in on time to catch his talk, which will be followed by our virtual plant forum around 8:30 pm. Dr. Hackney will discuss the major lineages found in today’s Cattleya hybrids. In his talk, he will trace breeding trends and specific clones which have contributed to some of the best-known hybrids of today. His talk is based on the decade of research and interviews which went into… [Continue Reading]

January 2021 – Ron Parsons (online presentation)

Tue, 01/05/2021 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Our first Joint POS/SDCOS Zoom meeting of the year will be on Tuesday, January 5th at 7:30 pm and feature Ron Parsons. Ron is well-known to many of our members since he has spoken to our society several times. On Tuesday, he will present to us a new talk on ‘Orchid Rarities and Oddities’. This talk features some of the strangest and rarest plants in the orchid family, and includes both terrestrial and epiphytic species. The majority of terrestrial orchids are not in cultivation, and many of those shown were photographed in nature. Most of the epiphytic species presented are… [Continue Reading]

December’s Presidents’ Message

Hello POS Members and Friends,Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone!! We hope all of you had a nice and safe Thanksgiving. This has been a difficult and challenging year for all of us. The COVID-19 pandemic has created havoc in our lives, our families, and all societies. It has disrupted nearly all facets of our daily life. With the recent surge in COVID cases across the nation and our dropping down to the purple stage in San Diego County, we should prepare for another challenging year. Like many of you, we miss seeing everyone's smiling faces and… [Continue Reading]

November 2020 – Ken Jacobson (online presentation)

Tue, 11/03/2020 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Our November 3rd Joint General POS/SDCOS Meeting will be at 7:30 pm. with our speaker, Ken Jacobson, who will talk about the group of Brazilian orchids formerly known as the Oncidium crispum group and hybrids made from these orchids. The Onc. crispum complex includes Onc. praetextum, Onc. curtum and Onc. gravesianum and all are now referenced as synonyms of Onc. crispum, but are kept separate as the individuals have been know as separate species for years (Jay Pfahl, www.orchidspecies.com). To make matters even more complex, the genus of these species has been changed to Gomesa and Onc. crispum, itself, is now… [Continue Reading]

Culture Class (online)

Wed, 10/07/2020 7:30pm – 9:30pm

We are going to continue Joint Zoom Culture Classes on the Wednesday following the Joint General Meeting, which is normally the day of our regular POS meetings. Our third class will be on Wednesday, October 7 at 7:30 pm. SDCOS member Peter Tobias will conduct a class on mounting orchids. You can join this Zoom meeting using the same log in information as the previous meeting.

October 2020 – Lou Jost (online presentation)

Tue, 10/06/2020 7:30pm – 9:30pm

The speaker for our joint October 6th Zoom meeting will be Lou Jost, Director of EcoMinga Foundation, and recipient of a conservation grant from the San Diego County Orchid Society. The title of his presentation is "Discovering, documenting, and protecting hotspots of orchid endemism in Ecuador---the 2020 legacy of a 2000-2001 SDCOS grant". Lou is an internationally renowned expert in molecular phylogenices, who has made significant contributions to the protection of orchids and orchid habitat in the New World Tropics. Lou will tell the story of discovering new orchid species, learning to understand their local distribution patterns, and then starting a… [Continue Reading]