May Update With The Society
Robert Culver opened the March meeting by welcoming everyone. He welcomed the new members and asked for the contact of members that had joined at previous meetings for which we have no contact information.
He then discussed the progress on a new membership system and the intent to have it live by the next meeting. This will allow members to manage their own memberships and will tie all of our various systems together.
Our Events VP, Ben Johson, gave us an update on the Spokane Orchid Society Show that we had recently attended and the upcoming Oregon Orchid Society Show, the Potting Clinic we will be having in May at Molbak’s, our fall show, and the new Indoor Plant Festival to be held next spring at the Lynnwood Events Center.
Our Education VP, Joe Grienauer, talked briefly about the NWOS library and what resources are available to members. He followed up with the Legion of Bloom and answered questions people had about that if they weren’t at the previous meeting or still had unanswered questions.
Jurahame Leyva, our speaker for the evening, and owner of The Orchid Fix Nursery Orchids from Hawaii | Wholesale/Retail | The OrchidFix spoke to us about modern trends in Paphiopedilum Maudiae hybrids. He reviewed the key species in this group of hybrids. He also discussed some of the individual plants that were selected during the hybridizing process that have yielded the spectacular results we see today. Many of the wonderful plants we see are a result of the breeding program carried on by Graham Wood at Lehua Orchids. Jurahame showed us many beautiful examples to illustrate the progress made in this group. As he was closing he introduced a number of smaller species and some of the hybrids that were a result of those crosses, showing that the development of this group is far from finished.
Any Wright was our guide for the plant table during the month of April. The table had some exceptional plants, be sure to go and check out our gallery and recording.
Our guest speaker in May is Ron Parsons. He will be speaking to us about the genus Dendrobium. Ron Parsons has been growing orchids for nearly 48 years, and has been interested in the species for most of that time.
He loves to photograph orchids and other flowers whenever he can, and does so as often as possible. Ron has more than 90,000 digital images, most of which are of orchids, and still retains a slide library that exceeds 100,000 botanical images.
To find out more about the meeting, please see the details on the NWOS Website.