Manatee-Sarasota Group Boca Next Meeting: Wednesday, A Message From Your President August 3rd, 7:00 pm It’s summertime and the living is Venice Community Center easy..... and very hot and very humid! While we are enjoying no lines at the (doors open at 6:30 pm) restaurants and grocery stores, we’re Speaker: Alan Koch also watching our orchids carefully to Topic: Mini-Catts ensure they get enough air, water, dry Alan Koch owns and operates out time and treatment for the inevita- Gold Country Orchids in Lin- ble pests and diseases that seem to continually target our coln, CA. where he grows his orchid collections. Those of us who are still repotting more than 300,000 orchids. He plants are being careful to provide some extra shade and started growing orchids in 1969 air circulation to avoid heat stress on newly potted plants. with three Cymbidiums given The best time to repot is when you see those new develop- to him by an aunt and continued ing roots, about an inch long. and expanded his hobby while in college and discovered Our June 1st speaker, Bruce Holst of Selby Gardens, that many orchids would grow outdoors in S. California. gave us a fascinating, first-hand description of orchid Specializing in miniature and compact Cattleyas, he is hunting in Belize that included a white knuckle escape recognized as an expert in the Brazilian Cattleya alliance from attacking wild boar. Steve Vogelhaupt and Rick and is an internationally renowned speaker. Belisle prepared an excellent presentation, presented He has been published in the Orchid Digest, AOS mag- by Steve, on Semi-hydroponic culture at our June 9th azines, and the proceedings of the World Orchid Confer- Growers Clinic. Their presentation has been posted to ence. Alan is an Accredited AOS Judge as well as a past our VAOS website. member of the AOS Judging and Research Committees. At our next meeting, August 3rd, we’ll be hosting our He is Vice-Chair and Training Coordinator for the Cali- friends from the Englewood Area Orchid Society (EAOS) fornia Sierra Nevada Judging Center. at our joint summertime meeting. Please remember to It’s taken Alan almost two years to return to Venice bring treats to share and plant divisions for our Raffle where he last spoke to a standing room only audience in Table. Alan Koch from Gold Country Orchids in Cali- September 2014. Even better, Alan will provide free ship- fornia, one of our favorite speakers, will be presenting ping (personal delivery at the meeting) as well as a 20% “Mini Cattleyas” and will have plants to sell. Alan discount on all plants from his pre-order selection lists. always brings many interesting, miniature plants that do He’s providing a great assortment of cattleya species and very well in our SW Florida environment. He’s accepting hybrids as well as other Florida-friendly genera. Many pre-orders until Wednesday, July 27, and details are in the of his orchids are very limited in availability, so don’t Culture Supplement. hesitate. At our August 11th Growers Clinic, we will pres- Alan is a great speaker and his presentations always ent Pests and Diseases, Part Two. Starting in August, entertain, motivate and educate his audience. Continued on page 7 First Show of the Season! Ridge Orchid Show September 17th - We Need Your Blooming Plants! VAOS will participate in our first orchid show of the Set Up: Friday Sept 16th 10am - 5pm season on September 17-18 in Bartow, FL. The Ridge Or- Show: Saturday Sept 17th 10am - 5pm chid Society will host their annual orchid show and sale. Show: Sunday Sept 18th 11am - 4pm Their display design theme is “Over the Rainbow” Here Take Down: Sunday Sept 18th 4pm is the schedule: Continued on page 7 Venice Area Orchid Society, P.O. Box 443, Venice, FL 34284-0443 Minutes of the June 1, 2016 Meeting Officers 2016 – 2017 Carol Wood called the meeting to order at 7 pm by welcoming the President new members and reviewing the format of the meeting. Carol Wood, [email protected] Announcements: Vice President – Programs & • The Growers Clinic next Thursday night will be given by Steve Immediate Past President Vogelhaupt and he will be going over semi-hydroponic culture for or- Bruce Weaver, [email protected] chids. Steve noted that he received a lot of input from Rick Belisle who Vice President – Social Affairs now will be unable to attend the meeting himself. Steve reported this Sharon Kahnoski, [email protected] will be a hands-on clinic and he will have 20 small orchids for partic- ipants to pot using techniques covered in the clinic. Participants will Vice President – Show Displays then be able to take the plants home and grow them. Jay Loeffler, [email protected] • Tonight we are participating in the All Faiths Food Bank’s Annual Treasurer Campaign Against Summer Hunger to provide meals for hungry chil- Mary Amos, [email protected] dren who are no longer receiving meals at school. Recording Secretary • The Englewood and Venice Area Orchid societies combine their Joanna Shaw, [email protected] monthly meetings during the months of July and August. The next monthly general meeting will be held in Englewood at Christ Lutheran Communications Director & Church on Monday July 11th at 6:30pm. The next meeting in Venice Newsletter Editor will be Wednesday August 3rd at the Venice Community Center. Car- Steve Vogelhaupt, [email protected] ol encouraged us all to bring extra snack table treats to share with our Membership Chair Englewood friends. Judy Loeffler, [email protected] • There will be no newsletter next month. • Carol announced that we are considering discontinuing the mobile Annual Show Chairs library that comes out each month for the monthly meetings. She noted Carol Wood that only 3 people borrowed books in the last year and that many soci- Judy Loeffler eties have already discontinued this type of feature. If no one objects, [email protected] we will set aside some special books for auction at the December Holi- day party, others will be for sale at the August meeting and the remain- Director At Large Renee Bynum, [email protected] der will go on the Raffle Table. There was no objection. • Sharon Kahnoski announced that most of the social events are done Volunteers for the next few months. Plans for the fall are as follows: Ted Kellogg, Webmaster We will be looking for 3 volunteers to participate in the fall home/ [email protected] growing area tours. The date is not yet set. In October we will have John Kahnoski, Raffle Table Continued on page 6 Joanna Shaw, Kristin Shaw & Cynthia Vance, Plant Table Newsletter Culture Sue Grimmer, Gary Becker, Dick Lawson, Supplement Technology For those members who Pauline Adam, Mentor Coordinator receive their monthly Kathy Beck, Librarian newsletter by email, Newsletter Production be sure to check out Barry Zack the Culture Supplement. VAOS Printer Included are culture Creative Technology of Sarasota articles and handouts from our monthly Growers Clinics. This supplemental P.O. Box 443, Venice, FL 34284-0443 information will only • Published monthly. be available in our full • Deadline for submissions is the 15th color email edition of the prior month. of the newsletter. • Please direct comments to: Steve Vogelhaupt, [email protected] • Written submissions are appreciated. VAOS News 2 July-August 2016 Plant Table Awards June 1, 2016 Some members have been surprised that their awarded plants have been given different names in the Plant Table articles. May I say that we just try to keep up with the latest nomenclature determined by taxonomists conduct- ing DNA analysis. I also thought members would be interested in the naming history of some of their orchids which have kept the same name. The First Place Blue Ribbon was captured by Steve Vogelhaupt for his spectacular and expansive Dendrobi- um (Den.) parishii in a basket. This is a dendrobium that needs a rest after Thanksgiving, so Steve gives it ‘dry’ Gom. Shooting Star rest period at that time and when flower buds have formed you, Judy for our ‘first’ Gomesa! and new growth appears, as our temperature warms up, he resumes watering and fertilizing. Indeed, Steve must The Third Place Yellow have a detailed tracking plan of his culture practices for Ribbon was won by Jackie each of his various orchids for they all seem to receive Wagner for her striking the right amount of water, light and fertilizer at the right Schunkeara (Shk.) Big Shot time. Kudos for your diligent and beautiful creations, ‘Hilo Sparkle’, a very popu- Steve! lar plant for those who love its huge star-shaped flowers. Again, this plant used to be a Beallara – a notho- genus name for intergeneric hybrids among the orchid genera Brassia, Cochlioda, Miltonia and Odontoglos- sum. “Nothogenus” comes from the Greek: “bastard” + genus! However, Beallara orchids have now become Shk. Big Shot either Aliceara or Shunkeara due to nomenclatural changes. Good growing of a favor- ite Hawaiian orchid, Jackie! The Best Species Ribbon was awarded to Renee Bynum for her lovely Paphiopedilum (Paph) godefroyae Den. parishii (left-below), a precious, 2-inch orchid. What’s wonder- ful is that it’s a sequential bloomer and already the next blooms are on the way. Paph. godefroyae originally was The Second Place Red Ribbon (top-right) went to Judy found in the lowland terrestrial elevations of Thailand Russell for her pretty Gomesa less than 50 feet above sea in the (Gom.) Shooting Star ‘Mustard’. rocks or trees. This tells us that Once a Brassidium, why now is those of us living at sea level can her plant called a “Gomesa”? In hopefully grow this orchid as well 2008, Oxford’s Annals of Botany as Renee.