Paul Phelps of Phelps Farm Orchids, Inc. will present our October program. The program titled “Cattleyas, The Queen of Orchids” is a hands on presentation that will talk about culture, potting and repotting, fertilizer needs and other growing tips specific to growing the Cattleya alliance.
Phelps Farm Orchids Inc. is a commercial Orchid farm located on five acres in North West Hillsborough County about 15 minutes north of the Tampa International Airport. The business was started in 1986 by Paul and Patricia Phelps and grew out of Patricia’s love of orchid collecting, into a thriving commercial operation. At the time the business was started, the growing area was 3500 square feet of Quonset greenhouse. In 1992 the greenhouse was doubled to 7000 square feet. In 2012 a 1600 square foot greenhouse was built to house hanging and mounted Orchids that require daily watering.
Cattleyas are the specialty of the house but other genera are grown there as well. A breeding program was started in the late ‘80’s with the main focus on the Cattleya alliance. At present Paul has made over 800 hybrids.
A web site was brought on line in 1994 featuring an on line catalog. You can visit this site at www.phelpsfarm.com. This web site is currently undergoing a renovation including a shopping cart for online ordering and a link to articles about Orchid culture and other relative information. Locally Phelps Farm Orchids was featured on NBC’s Daytime show with Cyndi Edwards and nationally they were featured on the PBS series Americas Heartland. If you would like to see the episode on the web, go to www.americasheartland.org, Click on Stories, choose Season 5 and click on Episode 503 and then select the story called Petal Pushers.
Phelps Farm Orchids, Inc. will be providing the plant raffle table as well as bringing plants for sale. Many of the plants Paul & Patricia are bringing were produced at their nursery from their breeding program.