Tidewater Orchid Society
Newsletter
May 2006
Meeting:
May 7, 1:00PM, Old Dominion University Mills Godwin Auditorium, Room 101:
The Annual Purchased Plant Auction
President’s
Message
The orchid show put on by The
Richmond Orchid Alliance went very well. We put in a lovely display. I would
like to thank all the people that grew the beautifull orchids we took up there,
and made our display a stand out. But most of all I would like to thank Mitzi
Lipford, Nancy Breininger, Arthur Kaplan, Tia and Tom Voytilla
and Allan Adair for their hard work in setting up and putting in the display. It
was a fine learning experience for me, the first time I have put a display in.
Also I would like to thank Mitzi, Tia and Ken Peterson for finding the parentage
of all the plants and especially Mitzi for taking the plants into her house and
using it as a storage area. Our display won first place in its category,
and congratulations to both Arthur Kaplan and George Heuser for winning
trophies; Arthur for Best Miscellaneous in show, and George for Best Dendrobium
in show with Den. "Pixie Princess". Altogether we must have won
between 25 - 30 ribbons. Well done everyone.
It was especially nice meeting old friends from the ROA. They greeted us
and treated us very well. A camera crew from Channel 12 filmed us putting
orchids on our display and was going to show it on the 5:30 news that evening.
Our May meeting will be our annual auction. Arthur Kaplan always buys a
couple of hundred plants from different growers around the country. Come early
so you can view the plants because we will be starting as soon after 1:00PM as
we can. We are going to set up the plants for early viewing in an adjacent
room. Please read Arthur’s announcement in this newsletter. Bring your check
book, sit back and enjoy the bidding.
Dave Wheatley
Future
Meetings
June
4 – Annual picnic and donated plant auction. The Kaplan will be our gracious
hosts.
Aug/Sept
27 – Ernie Gemeinhart of Enlightened Orchids will speak on Paphs.
October
1 – Annual donated plant auction.
November
5 – Rob Griesbach will join us. Topic to be announced.
The budget will be published in the June newsletter and voted on at the
June meeting at the Kaplan’s house. We encourage everyone to attend.
TIDEWATER
ORCHID SOCIETY PRESENTS ITS 2006
ANNUAL
SPRING PLANT AUCTION
Sunday, May 7TH.
AUCTION STARTS EARLY at 1 PM [Note
that this is not our usual 2 PM meeting time]. Plants will be displayed with
lists for your examination from 12noon-1 PM in Mills Godwin classroom 127.
Your committee has worked hard to obtain approximately 250 of the best
orchid plants available anywhere. We have developed a close personal
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, HI
with wonderful seed-grown species. And stateside, Oak Hill Gardens, Dundee, IL
with their great selection of species and hybrids [Their catalogue lists more
plants than any 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, Missouri. 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 deadlines with the
plant lists.
We hope every member of TOS will support this auction on Sunday,
May 7th, at 1 PM. Come to have fun and buy plants or if you can resist
buying a new plant or two, just sit by and cheer the other bidders on. As
always, this will be one of the most exciting and 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 to 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 plant not in bloom
could look like. This helps new members in particular see what they may be
bidding on.
We wish to let everyone know that this auction is being announced at ODU
and we hope to have a lot of competitive bidding from guests from ODU to make
this a more exciting day. Let’s make them welcome.
We look forward to seeing you. Happy orchid growing!
Arthur S. Kaplan. M. D., Auction Chairman
Correction
Last month in the newsletter your editor mistakenly said the auction
proceeds were designated for a specific project. They are not. Auction proceeds
go into the general fund. My apologies for any confusion.