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January 2009
February Meeting
February
9, 2008 Marni Turkel on "The Lesser Known Oncidium Alliance Relatives" Marni
Turkel is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area and has been growing
orchids since 1980. She has been an active member of the San Francisco
Orchid Society since 1982. A hobbyist grower, she has been growing in
two greenhouses at her home in Santa Rosa, California. In August of
2006, her interest in dry rest plants led to the construction of a
third, cold greenhouse intended for plants that benefit from a cool, dry
winter. Her main interest is in cool-growing miniature species but
plenty of larger plants have crept into the collection as well. Though
the collection has never been counted, most guesses put it at several
thousand plants representing a wide range of genera. Marni has been a
contributor to Orchids magazine with her series called 'Well Worth the
Space'. Her articles have been translated into Dutch, German and
Portuguese for international publication. Photographs of her plants have
been feature in articles for the past several years in both Orchids
Magazine, Orchid Digest, Richardiana, The Orchid Review, and The
Australian Orchid Review. A working potter for almost 40 years, she owns
and manages Stony Point Ceramic Design which is a pottery studio that
produces vases, orchid planters, flower arranging containers, ceramic
barrel rims and urns. February Culture Clinic If you've attended a recent meeting, you may have noticed there is now a brief segment devoted to orchid culture. This was introduced with the intent of giving members an opportunity to learn how others in the society handle specific problems and their growing recommendations for our area. In February, in anticipation of both the Northwest Flower and Garden Show later in the month and the NWOS Annual Show in April, George Grantham will offer tips about displaying orchids.Display Table: Sales Table: Raffle: NEXT MONTH: Dennis
D'Alessandro will present a program on the Orchids of Ecuador. SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING MEETINGS March 9, 2008 April 13, 2009 May 11, 2009 June 8, 2009 The NW Flower & Garden Show is upon us! We could use a few more volunteers for orchid and moss placement on Monday, February 16th. Someone with good penmanship skills would be most welcome. If you plan to display your orchids, this is the day to bring them to the Convention Center. You will need a "pass" to gain entry so please see Joff at the February meeting. The Show opens to the public on Wednesday, February 18th and runs through Sunday, February 22nd. Volunteers are still needed to staff our garden display and provide orchid security. Or you can station yourself at our membership booth within the Orchid Sales area. Either way, volunteering gets you into the Show for free! The following work shifts are in need of a few more people: Thank you to all those who have signed up already. I will have your wristbands for Show entry at the February meeting. Sign-up sheets are available at the meetings or you can send me an email (vrugdish@gmail.com) or leave me a phone message (# is in the Roster). Check out http://www.gardenshow.com/seattle/index/index.cfm to learn more about the NW Flower & Garden Show. ~ Joff MorganPresident's Notes Kathy Murray, president Flower & Garden Show, Potting Clinic, Annual Show and Mother's Day Sale None could take place without an extraordinary level of volunteer support. Joff Morgan has been working on the society’s display garden for the Flower and Garden Show since September along with a handful of others. George and Cylvia Grantham and Jamie and Dennis Notman also deserve special thanks for their efforts. The NWOS display will again be in a prominent area near the garden entrance and the NWOS will also have a booth in the orchid sales area where we can tell people about orchids and the society. Chris Peterson has created special flyers for distribution. Both areas require staffing so please sign up to work at least one shift. In return, you will receive free entry that will let you to spend as long as you wish at the show on the day you work. Jamie and Dennis also are co-chairs of our April Show and of the Mother's Day Weekend sale. Sign up sheets will be available at all meetings. If this looks like a very few people are doing the bulk of the show and sale planning, you are correct. We really need others to volunteer for special tasks for the April Show. Please contact Jamie, Dennis or me if you will head the Saturday potluck lunch committee, help with publicity, do data entry, or chair ribbon judging or awards committees. It isn't necessary to join the Show Committee but we'd love to have more members. Mike Pearson has provided photos for a show poster, which Brian Anderson is creating. The poster will be available at the March meeting. My thanks to both and to all of you who place posters. NWOS Promotional Ideas and a Board Change I'm pleased to report that Mike Pearson (who is also the NWOS Webmaster) has agreed to fill the Board position that Christina vacated. Would you like to be an NWOS Board Member? Orchids for Sale and Free Supplies In December, on a bitterly cold day-just before our first snow-the NWOS helped with a sale of Dr. Michael Hrankowski’s orchid collection. In return, Dr. Hrankowski gave the society 20 percent of the proceeds-nearly $200. He still has a number of orchids he would like to sell. Please phone or email him for an appointment and mention that you’re an NWOS member. He will again donate a portion of sale proceeds to the society. Here is a partial list of available plants: Masdevallias; two specimen plants of Dracula vampira, HCC/AOS; Odontoglossom intergenerics; Dendrobium nobile and Negro Hirsute; Cymbidium hybrids; Paph species and hybrids; Miltoniopsis; one really big blue vanda; Brassia intergenerics; Cattleya species and intergenerics; Laelia species and intergenerics; other hybrids and species. Contact information: Michael Hrankowski, DDS, 1230 NW Blakely Court, Seattle, WA 98177; 206.306.2006 HOME; 206.778.7456 CELL; hrankowski@comcast.net Bruce Gelman has notified the society that he has about 80 orchids for sale. He said, "I am willing to make a great deal with a serious buyer who will take good care of them. Rhynchostylis, Phalaenopsis, many 1year old seedlings and Darwin’s orchid are in the sale." Contact Bruce at 206-697-0526 anytime or at gelmanb@hotmail.com Free supplies to hobbyist in Bremerton/Silverdale area - Michael Mills bought a house that came with orchid supplies. He’d like to give these to someone in his area. Contact him at 360-908-3535 or at mhsmills@msn.com Schoenfeld and Northen Trophy Winners At the December meeting, NWOS members voted for their two favorite orchids brought in by members-one large and one miniature. A Paphiopedilum gratrixianum owned by Mike Foster and Donna Pierce was voted the "most impressive" of the large orchids and they again took home the Schoenfeld Trophy. (They also received it in 1994 and 2000.) Abby Chang received the Rebecca T. Northen Miniature Orchid Trophy for an Isabelia virginalis. She previously won the Northen trophy in 2006-so she’s won it half of the times it’s been given. As an author of numerous articles and books on orchid growing, Rebecca Northen popularized hobbyist orchid growing. She was an NWOS member after moving to the Seattle area late in her life. Her daughter, Betty Lyons, a current NWOS member, and her family gave the society the Northen Trophy in 2005 in memory of her mother. Rebecca’s books, Home Orchid Growing and Miniature Orchids, are in the NWOS library and may be checked out by society members (contact Librarian Caroline Mann if you’d like her to bring them to a meeting for you: cmannesq@gmail.com). Note: This is a new email address for Caroline-please correct your directories. Here is some information Mike provided about the Paphiopedilum gratrixianum, which he and Donna grow as a greenhouse plant-although he said it can be grown well indoors: "According to Braem and Chiron, in their book Paphiopedilum; the Paph. gratrixianum species is closely related to Paph. villosum and Paph. insigne. The plants grow naturally in southeastern Laos and central Vietnam and gratrixianum was first described in 1905.
Paph. gratrixianum is noted to produce numerous new growths every year, but growths do not bloom until they are fully mature, which usually takes two or three years.
They go on to say that the flowers will last longer when plants are grown in lower light. We have had our plant since 1993. It was purchased as a one-growth plant. It has slowly reached its present size, with a few divisions along the way, and we were thrilled to have four flowers bloom at the same time." NWOS Orchid Displays at Shows Past and Future
The Tacoma Orchid Society Show and Sale was held at Windmill Gardens in Sumner Jan 17-18.
The NWOS display consisted of 52 plants belonging to 10 members. The quality of plants was
excellent and there were many large and specimen plants and very few "filler" plants. Altogether
we received 19 blue and 12 red show ribbons. Special awards included the following:
In addition to the above mentioned, Jamie Notman and Joff Morgan sent plants. Ewa Chmura helped us with set-up and tear-down. Thanks to everyone for helping make our display an excellent one and thus helping Tacoma put on a successful show and. congratulations Harry and Ewa on your AOS awards! Northwest Flower and Garden Show:The next NWOS display will be at the NW Flower and Garden Show. Again this year we will join forces with Mariposa and will have mask carving in the display in a jungle-like setting. We will be setting up the main features of the display on Sunday Feb. 15th and on Monday we will be placing plants in the display and completing the setup. We will need help on both days, from noon to 5 on Sunday and noon to 8PM on Monday. You may bring plants either day during those hours. We will need as many plants as possible for our display. We have a large area to fill and would like even more plants than we had last year. This may be the last flower and garden show in its present form so lets make a memorable one. You may bring plants on either Sunday or Monday for the display. Please call Joff Morgan if you are able to help with the display. Help is also needed for shifts throughout the show. Mt Baker Orchid Society Show and Sale: Mt. Bakers's show will be held again this year at Skagit Valley Gardens Nursery in Mt. Vernon. We will be collecting orchids on Thursday, Feb. 26th . Setup will be early on Friday because they close the Nursery at 5PM. It’s a great show to visit as the drive is short and there is a café in the nursery that serves a nice lunch. More Spring Shows: The Spokane show will be held March 28-29 and we will be collecting plants on Thursday, March 26th. and of course our own show will be held April 18-19. South Central Washington will be having a show May 2-3 and we hope to send a display. If you might be interested in assisting with a display for that show, please contact me. Oregon Orchid Society will host their show on the weekend of May 10th and we expect to be there. More on all those shows later! A Thought... This has been an exceptional year in Seattle of record cold and snowfall. Being used to our mild winters of recent years, we are not always prepared for the potential failure of heating systems and even less prepared for unpredictable events such as tree or wind damage to a greenhouse. Some of our fellow members have suffered serious plant losses from due to events such as these. As members of NWOS we are members of a community of orchid growers and I suggest that, if in a position to do so, we assist our fellow members by offering to share extra plants or divisions of quality plants with those who have suffered losses. George Grantham, 2nd VP John Patrick Burke
John was a Philosophy faculty member at the University of Washington and at the University of Puget Sound. Later he was the Director of Student Services in the Department of Economics at UW until his retirement in 2000. The oldest of five children of Jerry and Mary Burke of Paso Robles, California, John was bitten early by the fishing bug, loved social events, kids, sports, dogs, cats, music, books and long discussions on every topic imaginable. He was a mentor, tutor and adviser to his disabled younger brother, Robert, who died in 2006. He played soccer as an adult, and traveled to England, Ireland, Greece, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Mexico and to the Southern and Eastern U.S., enjoying various cultural experiences everywhere he went. He wrote prose and fiction, collected and grew orchids, kept detailed notes on the interests of his five grandchildren, Hudson, McLean, Crew (David and Kelsey’s kids) and Jack and Timmy (Tom and Lisa’s sons) and kept the children supplied with books. He was a favorite Uncle John for a whole tribe of nieces and nephews, as well as Onkel John to the family’s Bavarian relatives and friends. His former wife, Vivienne Burke, and his wife Deborah Prince, and siblings Mary Riggs, Teresa Burke and Michael Burke remember with affection and humor the booming voice and laugh, the wide-ranging interests, and the sheer delight in life's unexpected adventures which characterized John. |
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Born in Idaho, John grew up in Riverside, California, where he earned his B.A. with honors at the University of California at Riverside and his Ph.D. in Philosophy at UC San Diego. While a student, he was very active in the anti-war movement.