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SFOS March 2019 Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Mar 172019
 

Mac Rivenbark — ‘Orchids in Paradise’

Mac Rivenbark photo

Mac Rivenbark

Mac Rivenbark is a long time South Florida orchid grower and seller. Mac specializes in Philippine and other Asian species and currently grows and blooms over 300 different types.

Mac is a past president of the Fort Lauderdale Orchid Society and enjoys giving lectures and educating others about orchids.

Mac’s presentation this month is ‘Orchids in Paradise’ and will cover a number of genera that grow right here in South Florida. At the end of the program, Mac will provide culture tips and will take questions from members.

 

 

Mac will also be providing plants for our raffle table and for sale.

 

SFOS January 2019 Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Jan 162019
 

Norman Fang

Norman Fang

Norman Fang

Even before 1988, when he received his degree in Ornamental Horticulture from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Norman Fang was already immersed in orchids. While still a student, he managed the Raymond Burr Orchid Collection on campus. Two scholarships to study plant tissue culture also allowed him to study under Dr. Murashige at the University of California and Dr. Tanabe at the University of Hawaii.

In 1986, he started his renowned nursery, Norman’s Orchids, based in both California and Taiwan. His parents, brother and sister soon joined him in the company as it grew, and he wisely was the first to secure the domain name of www.orchids.com. Exhibiting at shows across the US, he has received more than 400 AOS flower quality awards and 20 AOS Show Trophies. In addition, he was honored in 2005 with the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Agriculture at Cal Poly in Pomona.

As the second youngest judge to become fully accredited, Norman has traveled around the world to judge orchid shows, from Asia to South Africa, from Canada to South America. In 1996, with Paul Bechtel, he initiated AOS Judging at the Taiwan International Orchid Show and since then has served as the AOS Judging Coordinator for the show. He has also long served as the AOS Representative for the Taiwan Orchid Growers Association. As a result of these relationships, he has been instrumental in bridging the license agreement with TOGA and the Taiwan Paphiopedilum Society to include their award records in Orchids Plus.

As a former Vice President of the American Orchid Society and having also chaired their Development Committee, he is currently serving on their Public Relations Committee. In addition to these AOS volunteer activities, he’s a Founding Member and Regional Director of the International Phalaenopsis Alliance, currently celebrating its 25th year!

As an active member of several affiliated societies, Norman is a sought-after guest speaker for society meetings, shows and conferences. He generously supports Judging Centers, societies and the AOS with generous financial, scholarship and plant donations.

Recently, he became the Orchid Advisor for the famed KBCC at Pintung,Taiwan 辜嚴倬雲植物保種中心

 

SFOS November 21st Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Nov 192018
 

Yolanda and Segundo Cuesta of Quest Orchids

Segundo and Yolanda started hybridizing orchids in 1984 and in 1992 opened their retail orchid business. They started with two greenhouses and today have 50,000 square feet of growing space.

Quest Orchids specializes in Art Shaped Cattleyas and in cloning old standards. They also have a new breeding line of standard flowers with compact plants, which have been very successful for them.

Quest Orchids also participates in about fifteen shows across the country each year.

Segundo will present a program titled “Growing Cattleyas in South Florida”. The program will cover culture, disease and pest control.

Quest Orchids will kindly be providing plants for this months raffle.
Remember! Guests are always welcome at our meetings!

SFOS October 17th Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Oct 152018
 
Paph Raingreen's Scarlette 'Springwater' AM/AOS

Paph Raingreen’s Scarlette ‘Springwater’ AM/AOS

Thanh Nguyen is the owner-operator of Springwater Orchids (Melbourne, FL). He is an engineer by trade, but also has been collecting and growing orchids for 35 years. His orchid business began in 2001, mainly selling on the internet but gradually moved to orchid shows in recent years.

Thanh loves orchid species. And although he grows and sells all orchid genera, his forte has always been the genus Paphiopedilum. He collects fine plants; grows, sells, breeds, and enjoys sharing his experiences with his customers and colleagues. His passion in paphs resulted in numerous award winning plants and an on-going paph breeding program using local lab work, and local growing environment. His goals are to bring the excellence of a paphs breeding program back to America, and augment the enthusiasm of paph growing by way of sharing his growing experience and educational programs via shows and society speeches. You will see these goals reflected in his breeding program with well thought process to target various audiences; from easy growing/flowering plants to state of the art breeding catered to the most difficult collectors’ interest, in parallel with conservation of breeding species, improving overall plant and flower quality, broaden their growing conditions to make growing paphs a joy, not an aggravation!

Give it a try, and buy a paph seedling!

For this upcoming meeting, Thanh will discuss a dozen of orchid species he recommends for Florida … He will also bring other orchid genera to sell at the meeting.

SFOS September 19th Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Sep 132018
 

 

Meet Martin Motes
Martin Motes

Martin Motes

Author of Vandas: Their Botany, History, and Culture, Florida Orchid Growing: Month by Month, and Florida Vanda Growing, Martin Motes is a second generation orchidist who has been growing orchids for 60 years.

He is president of Motes Orchids, a major producer of vandas. He has bred hundreds of new hybrids for which he has received scores of American Orchid Society awards including three FCC’s and three Awards of Quality. His hybrids received Gold, Silver and Bronze medals at the March 2005 18th World Orchid conference in Dijon, France. One hybrid garnered the trophy as “Best Vanda in Show”. Other hybrids have won medals in previous WOCs as well as at the European Orchid Conference. Additionally numerous of his hybrids have been recognized by the Royal Horticultural Society and in other international judging venues.

He is an accredited American Orchid Society judge. Martin’s frequent articles have appeared in The Fairchild Garden Bulletin, The South Florida Orchidist, The Orchid Digest, The Orchid  Review, The Malayan Orchid Review and Orchids.

AOS 2018 Ad (4)

SFOS August 15th Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Aug 122018
 
Jose Esposito

Jose Esposito

Jose Esposito was born in Cuba and emigrated to the USA during the 1980 Mariel Boat Lift.

He founded Soroa Orchids in 1985, which is well known for numerous awards obtained with his Phalaenopsis breeding program. He is a Senior judge of the American Orchid Society, as well as a world lecturer who has given presentations at both the World Orchid Conferences in Brazil and in Malaysia.

He is the current president of The Redland Orchid Growers Association, a past board member of SFOS, past president of EEOS and The Coalition for Orchid species. He is the Orchid Curator at The Bonnet House in Ft. Lauderdale.

Jose will present his Orchid Survival Summer Guide.

I’m sure you won’t want to miss this interesting and informative lecture.

Remember, guests are always welcome at our meetings!

SFOS July 18th Members Meeting

 Monthly Meetings
Jul 132018
 
Jim and Melana Davison

Jim and Melana Davison

Jim and Melana Davison are AOS Accredited Judges. They have an extensive and diverse orchid collection that seems to be continuously growing.  Not only involved in caring for their orchids, they are actively involved in several South Florida orchid societies .Melana is the current President of the Orchid Society of Coral Gables and past President of the South Dade Amateur Orchid Club. Jim is the past President of the Orchid Society of Coral Gables and the East Everglades Orchid Society.

Jim’s appreciation for orchids stems from his scientific background. He works as a Nuclear Chemistry Manager at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant. Melana is more interested in the aesthetic qualities of orchids, especially the ones that look strange and other worldly.  She owns her own Orchid Maintenance business and is known as “The Orchidiva.” They have plans to eventually open their own retail nursery.. Together, Jim and Melana have 7 grown children and five grandchildren. They live in Homestead with their 4 dogs, four of the five grandchildren and 3,000 plus orchids.

They specialize in L. anceps, C. walkeriana, and C. aclandiae.  The “L. anceps” presentation will showcase Jim’s favorite species, L. anceps. Aspects of both the species and hybrids will be discussed.

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Dan Christensen of Dan & Margie Orchids will be providing plants for our raffles this month. Thanks, Dan!

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