1August Speaker

2Upcomming Events

3How Many Orchid

Do You Have?

The BackBulbC A R M E L O R C H I D S O C I E T Y

August 2018

August Speaker: John OConnellOrchid Addiction 101, A Brief Overview of the World of

the Orchid Obsessed.

It is amazing how often the words orchid is pairedwith addiction or obsession. Two of my favorite

books are: The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty andObsession and Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love

Lust, and Lunacy. The titles say it all, orchid people are nuts.John may be nuts, he is certainly nuts about orchids, which

makes him qualified to teach Orchid Addiction 101. A briefoverview of the world of the orchid obsessed. Topics coveredinclude: orchid culture, and the culture of orchid people,

John blames his addiction on his youngest sister who gave himhis first orchid as a house warming present. It would be tenyears before that first orchid bloomed again. Along the way thatfirst Cattleya was joined by a Phalaenopsis then, upondiscovering the Atlanta Orchid Society Orchid Show, a littleLycaste. He didn't know it at the time, but the Lycaste was thebeginning of a fascination, perhaps obsession with orchids.

At first, the whole collection fit quite comfortably on awindowsill. Then hissister in Ohio becameobsessed with them andthe race was on, fueledby shared interest, andsome sibling rivalry,both their collectionstook off, doubling thendoubling again. Fed byplants available atmeetings, and anincreasing number ofshows, John’s collection

In order to provide a selection of treats at our meetings, we are asking members with

last names that start with the letter A thru F to bring refreshments to the next meeting.

John's first growing area

COS Officers

President

John OConnellVP Program

Jerry Loomis

Recording

Secretary

Janette Ford

Treasurer

Daniel Bellem

Directors

Janette Ford

Carol Easton

Susan Holm

Lesley Olsen

Carolyn Salmon

Jeanie Sturges

P.O. Box 223462

Carmel, CA

93922­3462

BackBulb Editor &

Webmaster

John OConnell

BackBulb C A R M E L O R C H I D S O C I E T Y

Upcoming Events

August8/6 7PM Monday COS August Meeting.

SeptemberThere is no regular COS meeting in September

9/1 Saturday COS display at the Monterey County Fair

9/8 Saturday 12PM, COS Fall BBQ

9/22 California Orchids Fall Sale! 9am-4pm 515 Aspen Rd.Bolinas, Ca.

October10/1 COS October meeting

10/26-27 Friday-Saturday COS Fall orchid Festival

Page 2 August 2018

outgrew the windowsill. A 400W metal halide light wasobtained, an aquarium was added to give moisture loving,warmer growing orchids a place to grow. Things were getting alittle out of hand. The collection outgrew the 400W light, and hecouldn't bring himself to buy a second one, the collection wasstraining his wife's limits. She kept telling him that there was nomore room, she didn't understand that there is ALWAYS room forone more orchid. Then they moved to Monterey with it’s mildclimate, and year around outdoor growing became possible. Asimple hoop house greenhouse was bought and quickly filled, alarger, and more expensive, 13’ x13’ greenhouse followed. Thecollection reached a steady state, subtractions (deaths and givealways) balancing additions, and the comments about nothaving enough room subsided. The desire to fill every availableinch of space with orchids subsided and was replaced by orchidsociety board duties: newsletter editor (100+ issues), websitedesign/maintenance, President, VP, and even givingpresentations for monthly meetings!

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Page 3 August 2018

Save the Date: Saturday September 8This years COS Fall BBQ is at Cely Cruz’s home. 12 PM on Saturday September 8. The

Society will provide the main course and everyone is asked to bring a dish to share, either an

appetizer, side dish or dessert. Each person should also bring their choice of libation and their

cash or checkbook to buy raffle tickets. The Board will be providing an interesting plant table.

Watch for more details in September’s BB.

COS at the FairThe Carmel Orchid Society has been invited by the Marina Coast Water District,Water Awareness Committee, to share some booth space at the 2017 MontereyCounty Fair, Saturday, September 1, 2018. We would like to set up a memberplant table display to attract people to the booth. Please let Daniel or Carol know ifyou have some blooming Orchids for the display. We will have the opportunity todisplay our banner for the 2017 Fall Orchid Festival, which will be great advertisingopportunity for our Festival.

A couple of blooming plants from Carolyn's collection

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Page 4 August 2018

And How Many Orchids DoYou Have?Do you know what orchids you have?Do you even know how many youhave? If you keep an inventory of yourorchids you do. Some of us keeprecords to remind us of what we haveso we don't buy duplicates. Some of ushope to learn something by keepingtrack of when plants bloom and whichones do well and which ones die. Someof us are just compulsive list keepersand statistics gatherers.

Orchid lists take all forms from low tech3x5 cards in a box to fancy databaseprograms, but most list keepersprobably just keep it in a spreadsheet.The data gathered ranges from barebones: name and significant dates, toexhaustive: name, description, photos,bloom history etc.Compulsive recordkeeps may assign anaccession number(unique numberassigned to a museumor botanical gardenaquisition) when a plantis formally added totheir collection.Frequently there arecriteria that must bemet before a plant isformally added to thecollection: no NOIDs (noid), no rescue plantsthat will be given awayshortly, etc.

Record keeping tends tobe time consuming so it

is easier for those of us with moremodest collections. I was once told byone of Dan Newman's helpers “If youcan keep track of all your plants youdon't have enough of them”, whichseems to be true, there don't seem tobe may people with a large greenhousewith several thousand plants that keeptrack of each one. With the notableexception of Andy Phillips (of Andy'sOrchids) who has a large number of hisorchids cataloged on his computer (youcan see them on his website) but evenmore amazing is that he can tell you ifhe has any particular plant in stock andthat stock consists of over 5000species and over a hundred thousandindividual plants.

I too keep records of all my orchids.This is a little unusual since I am not acompulsive record or list keeper, noram I the most organized person (ask

my wife, the professionalorganizer). I think that thelist originated with my dayjob, computerprogramming, whichmeans that I wrote aprogram to keep myinventory. My custominventory program seemsto sit at the intersection oforchid and computergeekdom. It allows me tosay that I have exactly258 orchids in mycollection, 40 wereacquired in 2017 and 37either died or were sold orgiven away. I also try tokeep data on blooming,repotting, what the

BackBulb C A R M E L O R C H I D S O C I E T Y

C A R M E L O R C H I D S O C I E T Y2018 Membership ApplicationPlease make checks payable to the Carmel Orchid Society and mail to: Carmel Orchid Society ­

Membership c/o Carol Easton, P.O. Box 223462 Carmel CA 93922­3462

Please print

Date

Name

Address

City State zip

Telephone

Email address

If you were referred by a current member, please provide

his/her name

Renewal _ New Member _

Member of the American Orchid Society _

Membership Receive Newsletter

Type Via E­Mail Via US Mail

Single $25 _ $30 _

Couple $35 _ $40 _

Vendor $35 _ $40 _

Page 5 August 2018

original tag said, who I got it from, what it is potted inor mounted on and some cultural requirements, ifknown. I would like to add pictures and more reports(to satisfy the urge for statistics) but I just haven'tgotten a round to it.

I think the most valuable benefit of keeping record ofyour orchid collection is that it provides a repositoryfor any cultural information you may find on yourplants, light requirements, temperature range, theneed for a dry winter rest, most of us research ourplants requirements soon after we get the plant, butremembering all of that information for years can bedifficult once the collection grows beyond what will fiton a windowsill. So if you don't currently keeprecords, think about starting then you can also tellpeople just how crazy you are with 258 orchids,believe me the looks on peoples faces are worth thetime it takes.

JohnFrom Carolyn's collection, sometimes theflowers just don't want to display properly