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May 2012
About the May Meeting
Sam was born in Hong Kong on November 23, 1952. He traveled to the United States at the age of 22. He attended Illinois State University graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor in accounting. He has since completed his MBA. While still an undergraduate student, Sam was employed by Country Insurance and Financial Services based in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. He retired January, 2008 from Country Insurance and Financial Services as a Senior Software Developer in their Information Systems Division. Sam is now concentrating, full time, on his orchid growing business.
Sam met Jeanie Ting while studying at the university. Jeanie is also from Hong Kong. They were married In May, 1983.
He began growing orchids in the early 1980's. After trying many types of orchids, he became a serious Paphiopedilum grower in 1985. In 1990, he began hybridizing with Paphiopedilums and continues that work today. As he became more involved with Paphiopedilums, he started selling commercially in 1995 as the Orchid Inn. He grew orchids in his basement and greenhouses attached to his house. As the business grew, in 2004, he purchased six acres of property and built his first commercial 6,000 square feet greenhouse. Currently he makes over 300 crosses, produces 4,000 to 5,000 flasks or approximately 100.000 seedlings annually.
In the past 15 years, Sam has been very active in the orchid world by traveling to shows, promoting sales, and lecturing. Sam currently fills orders from around the world and attends over 20 orchid shows/conferences a year. He also does approximately 20 Paphiopedilum programs/lectures to orchid conferences, societies and groups annually in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe. Over the past 12 years, he has judged at the Japan Grand Prix, the world's largest orchid show.
Hybridizing is Sam’s passion. He emphasizes Paphiopedilum species, Brachypetalum, Parvisepalum and Multifloral hybrids. He only selects the best, most vigorous parent plants in his collection for breeding/hybridizing. He continues to improve his breeding stock by selecting plants or flasks from his fellow orchid growers that he believes are outstanding examples of their type.
As a result of Sam’s breeding program, his orchids have been honored with approximately one hundred and ninety-eight awards (as of March 24th, 2012) from the American Orchid Society, Cymbidium Society of America and European Orchid Congress. His most prestigious awards include eleven First Class Certificate (FCC/AOS) awards; three Cultural awards including an 93 points Certificate of Cultural Excellence (CCE/AOS) award; and seven breeder Award of Quality (AQ/AOS) awards. All these awards are from American Orchid Society.
Display Table:
Sales Table:
Raffle:
Every year at our June meeting we honor a special member of NWOS for outstanding contributions to the society. Nominations can be made by any member and the winner is decided by ballot of the board members. Several individuals have already be nominated. I will accept additional nominations by email until the next board meeting on May 8th. You may give me nominations by email.
George Grantham
The Spokane Orchid Society Show and Sale was held March 31 and April 1. Far from being an April Fool’s joke, it was an excellent show and extremely well attended. The NWOS display consisted of 54 plants from the following members: Susan O’Connell, George Krasle, Daniel Kerr, Ellen Covey, Mike Foster and Donna Pearce, Kyong Hu, Jerry Hoffmeister, Mike Cory and Cylvia and myself. There were 54 plants in our display and we received 22 show ribbons. Due to the high quality of plants in the show overall we didn’t receive any ”Best Of” awards nor any AOS nominations or awards. The AOS trophy went to the Spokane Society. Hopefully next year we can ferret out some really stunning plants to give the Spokane folks some competition.
Of course the other big news was the success of our own show at Sky this year. My sense was that it was the most successful show we have had for a number of years in terms of the general ambiance of the show. Attendance was good. Visitors were enthusiastic and made many favorable comments about the show. Our own display carried over the music theme from the Flower and Garden show. Volunteers worked exceptionally hard from the setup Friday through to cleanup on Sunday to make our display and the entire show a success. It was good to see our very own Ellen Covey as a new vendor and thanks to the efforts of Andy Wright, Joff Morgan and Peter Maunsell a great selection of species from Andy’s Orchids was offered. Andy Wright set up his own display in the show area with a wonderfully displayed selection of species orchids. Thank you to all who contributed plants and who volunteered to help with the show.
The South Central Washington Orchid Society is having their show in Kennewick May 6-7. Mike and Abby will take down a modest sized display and Cylvia and I will bring them back Sunday. Tacoma Orchid Society is planning a show June 30-July1. This is the first summer show in our area in quite a while. We will definitely want to send a display to this show and will need some help with it because Cylvia and I will not be available most of the weekend. More about this show later.
Thanks again to everyone for generously sharing their plants for display at these shows.
George Grantham, 2nd Vice President
Thanks to everyone that helped make the Show and Sale such a success!!!!! We had great weather which helped draw folks into Sky Nursery. Both the Show and Sales areas were buzzing with people of all various levels of Orchid growing, which is inspiring. Combining the Show and Sale in the greenhouse space was the biggest improvement from the 2011 event. The Sky staff were happy to have us and have invited us back for 2013. Dates are set for the weekend of April 6 & 7 with set up on Friday the 5th. Put this date on your calendar and as we get closer consider becoming part of the show committee to help with the coordination.
Mike Foster
Here's a few of the winners: Photos courtesy of Joff Morgan and Diane Drisch
David Edgley gave a great talk about recent developments in the breeding and culture of Phalaenopsis.
After David talked, Abigail Chang talked about the upcoming show at Sky Nursery. Since it's an AOS judged show, she showed slides and reviewed the process of how we should enter our plants. She made the process easy to understand which helped encourage participation.
We did not formally review the plant table, but the members had ample time during breaks to see what others had brought in. Here are some of those plants.
June 11, 2012 - Annual Potluck & Gary Baker Service Award
August ? - The Annual Picnic at the Maunsell's
Reminder for Officers & Board Members
The schedule of meetings for the rest of this fiscal year is: 5/8/12. Meet at 7 p.m. at Mike Cory's house unless notified that it's been moved elsewhere.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
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