South Florida Orchid Society

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. Until his recent retirement, he worked 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.” Now that Jim is retired, their plans for their own retail nursery are full steam ahead. 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.

Their interest in the Phalaenopsis species, bellina type especially, come from taking care of over 2,000 phalaenopsis of one of their clients. They have grown to love and appreciate this genus and its species more than they ever thought they would!

Jim and Melana will kindly be providing plants for our raffle table as well is having plants to sell.

Don’t forget to make your plans now to attend the 73rd Miami International Orchid Show, “Orchid Treasures.”

© Ron Hunt

This month is our annual Installation of Officers and Awards Meeting. This is where we take a few minutes to honor our best and most prolific growers from the past year. We’ll also be honoring those members who have given their time to help the South Florid Orchid Society grow. And, lastly, we’ll be installing our new officers and board members for the coming year.

So, come out and help us celebrate!

No glitter, please!

Also, please note. There will be no plant judging this month. We’ll resume judging with the July meeting. We will, however, have a plant raffle courtesy of Dan & Margie Orchids! So bring plenty of cash!

Gail Miller has been growing orchids for many years. She has won numerous awards from .AOS “Millers Pink Magic Vanda” whose flower measures 9 inches across and is flat rather than ruffled. Gail is a two-time recipient of the acclaimed William Hackney Award, which is given to most awarded plants of a given year.

In her past life, she was an orthopedic nurse practitioner and nurse supervisor. She worked for the orthopedic surgeon who developed the original knee and hip joint replacement and has been an author in many medical journals.

Gail is a past president of three orchid societies in Florida. She is a teacher, lecturer and comedian.

Have your notebooks handy because there will be lots of information to write down and many new ideas for making our orchids grow more beautifully.

Gail’s lecture will be on “Tricks of the Trade”.

Gail will be bringing plants for our raffle table and will have plants available to sell.

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

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.