orchids alberta.com Orchid Society of Alberta February 2016 Volume 40, Number 5 President’s Message ADVENTURES IN CHINA! THE SHOW MUST GO ON It is hard to believe that our 39th annual the next meeting. Let’s all do our best to ✦ This month Ben Rostron will orchid show and sale is less than two spread the word about our show! share his adventures hunting months away. Our hard-working show Tickets for the Saturday evening Orchid Cypripediums in China, while committee has been busy behind the Fair banquet are available at $40 each. scenes getting everything in place. Once Gordon Heaps explains the I encourage everyone to attend, especially again we will hold the show in the new members. The more the merrier! The finer points of orchid feeding! beautiful Moon Flower Room at the banquet is a fun evening of celebrating Enjoy Centre in St. Albert. and socializing. There are also lots of Our dedicated volunteers make this orchid door prizes donated by our great INSIDE THIS ISSUE show possible, so be sure to sign up for vendors, so please plan to come to the a job or two at the next meeting. If you banquet. You’ll be glad you did! February Meeting . 2 can’t make the meeting, you can sign –Darrell Albert, President up by contacting our show volunteer Coming Events . 3 coordinator, Yp (that’s pronounced “Eep”) DeBoer, at [email protected]. In Publishing Information . 3 addition to earning you free admission at the show, volunteering is great fun and a Orchid Fair 2016 . 5 wonderful opportunity to socialize and make a contribution to our Society. January Meeting Report . 7 Our Orchid Fair attendance was down Odds & Ends . 10 last year, partly due to the fact that we held the show in the middle of April Blooming at OSPF . 12 when people were already spring cleaning in their yards. Social media is a great way Membership Renewal . 15 to advertise, so for any of you who are social media-savvy, please post, like and OSA Contact Information . 16 share our Facebook page, Orchid Society of Alberta. If you are not social media savvy, you can recruit your younger family members and friends to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the Miltonidium Issaku Nagata ‘Volcano Queen’. like. Posters and postcards to hand out It has been blooming since March 2013. to your friends will also be available at Grown and photographed by Barb Grisdale-Helland. FEBRUARY MEETING SPEAKER WHO IS BEN ROSTRON? This should be fun! This month we My real job is “others” (including a present OSA veteran and AOS Judge Professor, Department Paph rothschildianum Ben Rostron, who will be telling of Earth and that is current in us about his Adventures Hunting Atmospheric Sciences, flower under lights!!). and Photographing Cypripediums University of My outdoor collection in China. Some of the world’s most Alberta, researching of Cypripediums lovely Cyps make their home in China, groundwater flow. includes 10 to15 I started growing different species and but few of us are lucky enough (or orchids in university hybrids. brave enough) to see them in their (1985?) with a single natural habitat. Ben will have an I’m heavily involved hybrid Phalaenopsis. in the Native Orchid interesting story to tell, along with When I joined the lovely photos documenting his finds. Conference, working OSA in 1988 or ’89, hard right now on the See the biography at right for more my collection grew 2016 Annual Native information about Ben. exponentially, limited Orchid Conference only by a graduate in Arizona. I’ve student’s salary! spent many hours CULTURE SESSION At its peak, my collection consisted of defending native plants locally as well, 11 benches plus extras, crammed into through my work with the Wagner a 7´x10´ downstairs plant room. I had Natural Area. I am a founding member focused on Phal species, but had a solid of the Orchid Species Preservation Veteran horticulturalist and master collection of red hybrids and clones Foundation, and was one of the people orchid grower Gordon Heaps will of Orchid World! I have a weakness unloading the first plants off the truck for large-flowered fragrant cattleyas, from Vancouver! present our February culture session. but have grown dendrobiums, Join Gordon to learn about Feeding As for “orchid achievements”, there cymbidiums, bulbophyllums, etc. Your Orchids, a very important subject have been a few ... finding Malaxis as we approach the spring flowering I had been interested in judging paludosa in-situ, finding albescent season! orchids since I worked in Dallas, Calypso bulbosa in-situ, winning best Texas in 1991–93. I used to attend hybrid at the COC in Regina (1997), the monthly judging there, and really winning several OSA show trophies, enjoyed seeing all the different plants getting several AOS nominations, Happy, Prosperous and Lucky and what made them particularly good. getting an AOS award for one of my Chinese New Year! I had told Ingrid Ostrander that if the plants (Red Hot Imp ‘Catherine’ THE YEAR OF THE MONKEY AOS ever opened a judging centre in HCC/AOS), seeing my first hybrid Vancouver, I would consider being flower, getting accepted as an AOS a student. So once they opened the judge, etc. Centre, they came calling! I guess the two things I like most about In May 2014 I became a fully orchids are the great people and the accredited judge in the American sense of the unknown surprise! There is Orchid Society. My orchid collection always something new and exciting just now consists of about 300 plants around the corner... indoors – mostly Phal amboinensis, – Ben Rostron bellina and violacea, with a few The Monkey Orchid (Dracula simia) Ben Rostron photo from the (Photo from Pinterest) archives of the Vancouver Sun. 2 ✦ OSA News ✦ February 2016 Vol 40, Num. 5 ✦ Orchid Society of Alberta COMING EVENTS WEB CAFE PUBLISHING AOS Webinars INFORMATION OSA News is published monthly, Find them at http://www.aos.org/Default.aspx?id=509. nine times per year. There is no Orchids of Mexico - Tuesday, February 23, 2016; 8:30 PM EST newsletter in July, August or Members Only - many webinars are free, this one is for AOS members only. December. Ron McHatton, Director of Education of the American Orchid Society, will discuss Deadline for submissions is the the orchids of Mexico. This will be an informative look at some of the attractive last day of the month preceding orchid species to be found in Mexico, both the well-known and the lesser-known, publication. with comments on their habitats and cultural needs. Mailing Address: You can enjoy a FREE webinar at http://www.aos.org/Default.aspx?id=509. Check Orchid Society of Alberta out the list on the right side of the page. I just finished watching a good one titled PO Box 31117, Growing Phalaenopsis, by Tom Harper – very interesting! RPO Namao Centre, – David Whitaker Edmonton, Alberta, T5Z 3P3 Article / Photo Submission Deadline: FOOTHILLS ORCHID SHOW – YEE-HA! The 10th of each month. Anything After some discussion, our Calgary submitted after the 10th will appear colleagues have decided to hold in the newsletter of the following “Orchids for Everyone”, their annual month. show and sale, on May 27, 28 and 29, To arrange for submission of articles, 2016. The show will take place at the contact the OSA News editor, Triwood Community Centre, the usual Lynne Copeland home for the Foothills event. For more by telephone at (403) 865-0027; details, check out the FOS website, by mail at www.foothillsorchidsociety.com. 4919-48 Street, Innisfail, Alberta, T4G 1N1; Remember, the OSA likes to enter by e-mail at [email protected] a display in Calgary, so mark your Advertising Rates: calendars and start thinking about ✦ what plants you might be able to enter. Full page: $50 Half page: $30 We are always short of volunteers for Quarter page or less: $5 per this event, so if you think you can help column inch organize an OSA entry at the Foothills show, please contact Darrell Albert or any other Executive member. Contact information for every Executive member can be found on the last page of this newsletter. LINKS ALIVE Where do orchids come from? For your convenience, all the links From a mommy orc and a daddy orc in this newsletter –set in bright blue– are alive and functional. Orchid Society of Alberta ✦ Vol 40, Num. 5 OSA News ✦ February 2016 ✦ 3 COMING EVENTS, continued WESTWARD HO If you’re looking for an excuse for a trip to the coast, consider heading to the Vancouver Orchid Society’s show and sale. The show is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, 2016, in the Floral Hall at the VanDusen Botanical Garden, 5251 Oak Street, Vancouver. Find details at www.vancouverorchidsociety.ca. Rumour has it the tulips will be in bloom, too… Cymbidium goeringii, grown and photographed by OSA members Mary and Allan Quong. Masdevallia veitchiana hybrid, photoraphed by OSA member Bruce Bretzlaff OSA CALENDAR 2016 Pull out your Day-Timers – here’s our Society’s year at a glance! Please note the change of date in March: our meeting will now be held on March 20, to avoid Easter Sunday the following weekend. January 24, 2016 Terry Groszeibl, Forestview Gardens – Paphiopedilum Culture February 28, 2016 Ben Rostron, AOS Judge – Chinese Cypripediums in China March 20, 2016 Speaker TBA April 1–3, 2016 Orchid Fair 2016 – Enjoy Centre, 101 Riel Drive, St. Albert. Set-up on March 31. April 24, 2016 Beginners Month – Expert growers present hands-on demonstrations May 15, 2016 Glen Decker, Piping Rock Orchids – Topic TBA June 26, 2016 Fred Clarke, Sunset Valley Orchids – Topic TBA September 25, 2016 Speaker TBA October 23, 2016 Speaker TBA November 27 2016 Annual Meeting and Silent Auction 4 ✦ OSA News ✦ February 2016 Vol 40, Num.