COS monthly meeting: Wednesday October 8th, 2014 – doors open 6:30 pm

Farmington Senior Center 321 New Britain Avenue, Unionville, CT

Speaker: Alan Koch, Gold Country Orchids – Understanding Dendrobiums

Dendrobium alliance is one of the most diverse Genera in the Orchid Family.  Learn the tricks to be successful with the different sections.

He will have orchids for sale at our meeting or you can preorder plants from his select plant list here:

 Gold Country Orchids – Limited Availability

Alan offers a 20% discount on all preorders and free freight.  To be able to take advantage of this you need to do the following:

1. Under discount enter the following code, GCOD (case sensitive)
2. Under shipping enter ship to a society
3. Under comments enter CT Orchid Society, October 8th,  and he will bring your plants.

You may email in your pre-order via  gcorchids@aol.com, use the website http://www.goldcountryorchids.com,  or call it in (916) 645-8600.  Use your credit card if you phone in/web order your Orchid order,  or pay with cash or check  at the meeting .

September 2014 COS monthly meeting:
Wednesday September 10, 2014 – doors open 7:00 pm
Cheshire Senior Center
240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

Joanna K. Eckstrom

Orchid Grower, Judge, Speaker

Wilton, New Hampshire

September topic:  Preparing plants for a show. What are judges looking for–the difference between Ribbon Judging and AOS Judging.

My husband Bob bought our first orchid plant in 1988. Cymbidium Peter Pan ‘Greensleeves’ HCC/AOS.  The flowers lasted nearly four months, convincing us that we could grow orchids. We’ve experimented with many genera and, today, have about 75 Vandas and a few other genera for variety. Twenty-five years later, Peter Pan is still in the collection – it is such a vigorous grower that it breaks out of its pot every two-three years. And it never stops blooming, making it hard to find a good time to divide and repot.

Besides AOS membership (and mandatory attendance at monthly judging sessions), we belong to so many orchid societies that there aren’t enough weekends in a month to go to every one’s meeting. When we get to attend, Bob is named as ‘grower’ of any plants that we exhibit. After seven years training, I became an AOS Accredited Judge (Northeast Region) in 2012. I’ve chaired at least one show a year for various societies for twenty+ years and in 2013, Massachusetts Orchid Society honored me with the Orchid Digest Diamond Award of Excellence for doing something that I love.

June  COS monthly meeting:
Wednesday June 11th, 2014 – doors open 6:30 pm
Farmington Senior Center
321 New Britain Avenue, Unionville, CT

Speaker: Ron Parsons – Orchids of Sichuan, China

Ron Parsons is considered by many to be one of the finest flower photographers in the United States. His photography and encyclopedic knowledge of orchids is known both nationally and internationally. He has been photographing orchids, wildflowers, and almost every other kind of plant for over 25 years, and has a slide collection that numbers well over 80,000 slides! He went “digital” just over a year ago, and in this short time has taken thousands of photos orchids, wildflowers and other rare plants. See the orchid photogallery for some of his new digital photographs.

Ron is a popular speaker, and gives talks frequently on variety of orchid-related topics, as well as on California wildflowers, cacti and succulents, carnivorous plants, gesneriads and bromeliads.  His talks feature his beautiful color slides of the subject matter, in-depth information, and first-hand knowledge about the species discussed.

Ron Parsons is a member of the San Francisco Orchid Society, The Peninsula Orchid Society, The Orchid Society of California, and the Bay Area Pleurothallid Alliance. Ron is also a member of the San Francisco Succulent and Cactus Society, and the American Gesneriad Society of San Francisco.

Ron will be bringing plants for sale but there will be no pre-order list, as he will be dividing plants from his own collection and bringing them bare root.

May COS monthly meeting:
Wednesday May 14, 2014 – doors open 6:30 pm
Cheshire Senior Center
240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

Duane Erdmann
Restrepias
Duane and his wife Judy began growing orchids in 1974. First, the collection was under lights in their basement, and then it moved to a small greenhouse. Over the years, they moved five times and built greenhouses – each a little bigger. The current one is 18X24 off their garage. But they still grow under lights in their basement – the little things and those that like moderated temperatures. Paphiopedilum, tropical slipper orchids, were their main genus, but in more recent years Duane has moved over to the small side – Restrepia. He has taken trips to Ecuador to see them in their natural settings and do more detailed studies of specific species. Over 40 species are among his 400 plant collection.
The last area added to his orchid interest is native orchids of North America. He is currently editor of The Native Orchid Conference Journal.
Through all this his favorite part about orchids, and anything in nature for that matter, is photographing them. Duane does the orchid photography for Longwood Gardens’ photo database. He has traveled through much of the world crawling around in the wild to get that perfect picture. His photos have been included in various publications. Today he is sharing a photographic sampling of this much overlooked genus and cultural tips.