Newsletter
May
2005
May
1st – 1:00PM- Purchased Plant Auction to be held at the Virginia
Zoo, located at 3500 Granby St, adjacent to Lafayette Park in Norfolk.
Park in the main parking lot and enter classroom directly to the right of paid
zoo entry. You do not need to pay to go to the classroom. We will
have a little sign near the classroom door to aid you in finding it. Come
early to get your list of plants and look them over before the auction
starts.
President's Message:
I hope to see everyone at the
Virginia Zoo for our purchased plant auction on May 1, 2005. Remember to
come early, buy some plants, and help support our Society. Invite your
friends and neighbors, too. Thanks in advance to Arthur Kaplan and all
those who helped him get everything ready for the auction.
Congratulations to our newly
elected officers and trustees. Our incoming officers are Dave Wheatley,
Pres.; Ruta Skrinska, Veep; Charles Rhodes, Sec.; Sharon Peterson, Treas.;
Nancy Dillingham, Trustee; Gil Gillespie, Trustee. They will be
installed at our picnic on June 5 at the Botanical Gardens Picnic Area.
The society voted at our April
meeting to donate $5,000 to the AOS memorial fund established for Merritt
Huntington. The AOS plans to build an educational meeting room on their
grounds in his memory.
Thanks again to Jon Herrell for
all his work on developing our web site. Please see the info in this
newsletter so you can check it out.
Thanks to Howard Warren for
arranging some educational opportunities for our members. Hopefully,
many of you will be free to attend. Details should be in this publication.
Joanne
Bryan
ATTENTION:
If you have an orchid in bud or bloom you would like to donate as a door
prize contact Cindy Adair at aladair@cox.net
. She will gladly accept any donations and all plants, regardless of bloom
status, all donations welcomed and appreciated.
EDUCATION:
(See Education link on links menu on web site)
On May 14th our society will be touring
the commercial greenhouses of Plato Matthews at Orchid Alley, 2737 Bunch
Walnuts Road in Chesapeake. Join us for a great time to learn some of the
secrets of this multiple award winner and hybridizer as we enjoy the beautiful
plants in Plato’s large greenhouses. Directions and maps will be available at the meeting,
and on the website.
Tidewater Orchid Society presents its 2005
Annual Spring Plant Auction at the Virginia Zoo on Granby Street at Lafayette
Park.
Sunday,
May 1st. Auction Starts Early at
(Note that this is not our usual 2PM meeting time).
Plants will be displayed with list for your examination at 12:30 PM.
This year our action is dedicated
to the memory of Merritt Huntington. Merritt
had been our auctioneer for as many years as we can remember.
He was a past President and Trustee of the American Orchid Society and
had worked tirelessly for AOS for over 50 years.
His knowledge of orchids and his priceless humor while auctioning made
this day one not to be missed. He
will be sorely missed by TOS and in his memory the society is donating
$5,000.00 to the Merritt Huntington Memorial Fund of AOS with this auction
supporting much of that donation. You may see his memoriam on the web site.
Your committee has worked hard to
obtain over 200 of the best orchid plants available anywhere. We have
developed a close person relationship with the growers over the years and are
assured of getting the finest quality plants: From Hawaii, Carmela Orchids
with their magnificent Cattleya alliance and Phalaenopsis hybrids, and
Tropical Orchid Farm of Maui with wonderful seed-grown species. From stateside, Oak hill Gardens, Dundee, IL with their great
selection of species and hybrids (Their catalogue lists more plants than nay
other grower here or in Hawaii). Lastly
we are delighted to announce that we will again be getting Phrags, Paphs, and
Bulbophyllums from Marilyn LeDoux of Windy Hill Gardens in Labadie, MO.
Marilyn has a reputation as one of the best Phrag and Paph growers in
the country and has won the awards to prove it. We look forward to her plants.
Our thanks to those members, who
have volunteered to receive, carefully unpack, label and house the plants and
bring them to the auction: The DeCoudres’s, Walchs, Adairs, and Dot Pierce.
And a big “thanks” to Charles Rhodes who is our unsung hero for racing to
make last minute deadline with the plant lists.
We hope every member of TOS will
support this auction on Sunday, May 1st, at 1PM. Come
to have fun and buy plants or, if you can resist buying a new plan or two,
just sit by and cheer the bidders on and enjoy the snacks and drinks!
As always, this will be one of the most exciting an entertaining as
well as educational meetings of the year. We promise there will be something
for everyone. For new growers, we will seat you next to an experienced grower
to keep you from overbidding and to guarantee that you don’t buy something
you can’t grow. There will always be another plant to buy. Feel free to
invite your friends who might want to buy orchids.
We welcome them and everyone, bring your checkbooks and plenty of
cash!!! (We will have some boxes for plants but you might want to bring a box
or two of your own.) Culture
sheets to help you grow a plant with which you may not be acquainted will be
available. In addition, all members are encouraged to bring all the blooming
plants they can for the display table to help demonstrate what a particular
plan not in bloom could look like. This helps new members in particular see
what they may be bidding on.
We look forward to seeing you. Happy growing.
Arthur S. Kaplan, M.D., Auction Chairman
Web
Page
Jon Herrell is redesigning our web
page. The new site is http://www.mycommunityis.com/tos . Please
take a moment to check it out. Jon has done a fantastic job. You can get
culture information, see bio’s on members, see beautiful photos and many
other things. He will also be posting the current month's newsletter.
Just click on the tab for the newsletter. Once you check the online
website if you will click on the "Contact Webmaster" link in the
left hand column and include your name, it will send an automatic email so
that your "current email address" may be captured and added to our
master email address list. If you have done this since last meeting you don't
need to do it again, until you change ISP's.
Members were asked if they would
check the newsletter on line, in lieu of receiving one in the mail. We
sent around a list at the April meeting. We will wait one more month
before deleting names from the newsletter mailing, just to be sure everyone
can find the website. If you would like your name added to this list
after checking the website, you can email Jon or let Joanne Bryan know.
We'll be able to save money on paper and postage.
Also, if you take a moment to
click on the link on left side of site (Contact
Webmaster) Jon will get your email address
and he can generate an email list so we can send the newsletter to you when it
is ready.
Table
Judging Results
April 2005