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Larry Cox acquired his first orchid, a cattleya, almost forty years ago. His second was a paphiopedilum, Paph. Maudiae ‘Magnificum.’ The cattleya is long gone, but he still has a piece of the paph. When he began with paphs, he com- monly heard, “You can’t grow those in South Florida,” but the first one lived and bloomed, and the paphiopedilum collection continued to grow. In the mid 1980’s most of the other orchids were sold or given away, all for the love of paphs. In 1989 he moved from his South Miami residence to a more spacious property in the farming district of southern Miami-Dade County where he built his dream greenhouse of 3000 square feet. He has suffered setbacks, such as hurricane An- drew in 1992, but with perseverance and with the discovery of new paph spe- cies ,and the consequent new hybrids, Larry’s love of paphiopedilums has been re- newed over and over again. In 1983 Larry won his first AOS award for Paph. Maudiae coloratum ‘Elektra’ AM/AOS. Since then his orchids have earned forty
AOS awards, including four FCC’s. Six years ago, Larry retired from thirty-seven years as a teacher, the last fif- teen teaching Advanced Placement high school English . He now spends his time reading, traveling, maintaining his property and, of course, growing paphs. Larry has experimented with other orchid genera and has found success with lycastes, phragmipediums, and pescatoreas. He has even rediscovered the wonder of cattleyas, particularly species. Our speaker for the June meeting will be Axel Cahiz with Amazonia Orchids. Axel stud- ied Bio-tech engineering at Clemson University and has been growing orchids for a little more than 30 years. Axel is a second generation orchid grower, with his father starting the business in Venezuela. Amazonia Orchids, Inc. opened its doors in 1992.
Amazonia Orchids own and operate their own lab where they do seedling and cloning of orchids. Amazonia Orchids, Inc. has around 200,000 plants plus the ones in the lab. They specialize in Cattleyas Species and its hybrids and also do some genetic studies on the orchids. One of Axel’s plants was awarded with Reserve Grand Champion in 19th WOC in Miami Florida. His presentation will be on the proper growing of Cattleyas. Next Meeting Tues Sept 13th at 7:30 pm Sharp!
Woman's Club of Deerfield Beach SPEAKER OF THE MONTH: Tom Kuligowski on “Unusual and Natural Mounting” Tom Kuligowski has been an orchid hobbyist for well over seventeen years. He has created and cared for three collections throughout that time period. Each collection being larger in number and healthier than the previous. As any other hobbyist, he is a firm believer that you learn from your mistakes. As you learn, you should see your collection not only grow in size (the mortality rate or loss of plants decreases) but you should also see an improvement in the quality and number of blooms in your collection. Being a professional photographer, Tom has documented every aspect of his collections. He has created two programs over the last few years using the images that he’s captured. The first program is that of the Angreacums he has specialized in growing since early 2000. The second regarding an orchid’s natural growing ability as epiphytes and/or as lithophytes. The second program entitled “Unusual and Natural Mounting” is his latest to be presented to various orchid societies. In it he discusses the reasons behind mounting, why mount, materials that work best and shows results he has achieved through his mounting techniques. For More about Tom Visit: www.artimages.us |
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