Wednesday November 11, 2015 

Cheshire Senior Center

240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

doors open at 7:00 pm

Greg Griffis is our speaker this month and his talk is “12 Orchids Everyone Should Own”

Greg Griffis first became aware of orchids in 2009. He first heard about them through a college friend, who had always admired orchids. Studying at West Chester University, from which he graduated with a degree in Music Education, put him in close proximity to Longwood Gardens. He attended the 2010 Longwood Orchid Show where he purchased his first orchid. One plant quickly became twenty or so, and before long he was hooked. In 2010 he visited Parkside Orchid Nursery for the first time, and by Summer 2011 he was working part time for Tom Purviance and John Salventi. He studied under their tutelage while working for them, and when they sold the nursery in 2012, he was hired by the new owners as the Grower and Manager of Parkside Orchid Nursery. He managed Parkside for one year, before leaving to grow orchids in Hawaii. He worked for Hilo Orchid Farm for more than a year, spending a large amount of time working with Paphiopedilum, as well as Intergeneric Oncidiinae and Miltoniopsis. At the beginning of 2015 Greg began working as the orchid grower at Longwood Gardens, where he remains today.

COS monthly meeting: Wednesday October 14, 2015 – doors open 7:00 pm

Farmington Senior Center 321 New Britain Avenue, Unionville, CT

This month’s speaker is Alan Koch of Gold Country Orchids.

Pre-Orders available – click on documents below to order.  Be sure to read about the discounts and how to code your order if you are ordering on line.  Might be easier to call or email your order in. BE SURE TO INDICATE YOUR ORDER IS FOR CT ORCHID SOCIETY MEETING 10/14/15.

Gold Country Orchids Two Inch Availability.rev1

GCO Discount information

Gold Country Orchids Limited Availability

Wednesday September 9, 2015 

Cheshire Senior Center

240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

doors open at 7:00 pm

A Sponsored Presentation of the American Orchid Society:

Common Pests and Diseases of Orchids

By Dr. Tom Sheehan

We’ll take a close look at the pests and diseases that plague our orchids and greenhouses, with suggested ways to solve these problems.

Dr. Sheehan writes for Orchids magazine.

COS monthly meeting: Wednesday June 10, 2015 – doors open 7:00 pm

Farmington Senior Center 321 New Britain Avenue, Unionville, CT

PRE ORDERS:  This is an exclusive list of plants available for pre order for our June meeting with Martin Motes.    MOTES Seedlings for Summer pre-sales      There are additional items on his website at www.MotesOrchids.com     EMAIL your preorders to MartinMotes@gmail.com and include the plant number and your name and reference the COS June 10th meeting. 

Meet Martin Motes

Author of Vandas: Their Botany, History, and Culture, Florida Orchid Growing: Month by Month, 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 18^th World Orchid conference in Dijon, March 2005. 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 Kew Bulletin, The South Florida Orchidist, The Orchid Digest, The Orchid Review, The Malayan Orchid Review and Orchids.

Martin was an assistant professor of English at WrightStateUniversity for several years and has taught at the University of Miami and Miami-DadeCommunity   College. He spent nine years as the director of horticulture therapy at GrantCenterHospital and was a consultant on horticulture therapy for the Hospital Corporation of America.

A native Floridian, Martin has lived most of his life in Miami, Florida, but also spent 6 years in Ohio and 2 years in Yugoslavia as a Senior Fulbright lecturer at the University of Kosova. He has traveled extensively in the Mediterranean and has observed wild orchids in Ambon, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Britain, the Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Florida, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Java, Malaya, Moluccas, Mexico, Nepal, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Venezuela, the Virgin Islands and Yugoslavia.

Martin has been interviewed by both print and TV journalists on topics ranging from community issues in southern Florida to horticultural therapy and orchids. He is an appointed member of the Miami-Dade Agricultural Advisory Board. He is a research Fellow at FairchildTropicalBotanic Garden.

Martin has twice taught Vanda Production and other topics at the University of Florida Orchid Short Course in Gainesville. He has worked as a consultant in various capacities to the extensive orchid industry in South Florida. He teaches classes at FairchildTropicalGardens which in addition to Orchids include Growing Asiatic Vegetables, and Great Tasting Tomatoes for South Florida.

As many as 20 lectures a year fills Martin’s busy schedule. In the past this has included national orchid conferences in the US, Britain and Australia. He was a featured speaker at the World Orchid Conferences in Rio, Dijon, Kuala Lumpur, where he chaired the Hybridizer’s Forum and was a panel member at the Commercial Grower’s Forum and in Singapore. He is scheduled as Key Note Speaker at the South African National Orchid Conference in September 2012. He publishes a monthly news letter “ This Month in Your Orchid Collection” geared to the special needs of orchid growers in South Florida and other tropical regions.

He initiated the Redland and Tamiami International Orchid Festivals, South Florida’s two largest Orchid events.

He is currently working on a monograph of the genus Vanda with David Roberts and Lauren Gardener of Kew, with whom he has described several new species and a new genus.

To get away from the orchid greenhouse, Martin reads and occasionally, writes poetry, tends his vegetable garden, and fishes.