Mark Reinke with Marble Branch Farms in Walhalla South Carolina, is a long time friend of the WNCOS. Mark is a well known and respected orchid grower and hybridizer. “ Marble Branch Farms is the dream of two lifelong horticulturists, Gary Alan Collier and Mark Alan Reinke, who share a mutual passion for unique and unusual plants. Our goal as orchid hybridizers has been to produce something a little different from the same old hybrids that everyone seems to sell these days. We have looked at the current trends in compact Cattleya breeding and have noticed several voids between breeding lines being developed in places like Hawaii, the Caribbean and elsewhere that we hope to fill with new, beautiful and more temperature tolerant hybrids.”

On Sunday, January 14th, Mark will teach us about “Growing Cymbidiums in the South”. Mark’s program is entitled “Cymbidiums in the South.”  This group of orchids is often overlooked by hobby growers in our area, in part due to a lack of information on how to grow them well in a climate with hot humid summers like ours.   Mark has been growing Cymbidiums for a number of years and has received trophies at several shows for his specimen Cymbidiums with multiple spikes and hundreds of open flowers.   He will give an informative look into the genus, showing how many of the important species grow in the wild, and how the ancestry of a particular hybrid helps determine its ability to adapt to our climate.   He will show how simple it is to take this information and tailor cultural practices for the American South so that you too can grow spectacular Cymbidiums full of long lasting flowers with less care and attention than most commonly grown orchids.  Mark will bring with him some new Cymbidium hybrids he imported from Bangkok, Thailand that mix cool and hot growing species and generally more compact growth habits making them ideal for our area.

Of course he will have a truck load of his prize winning orchids with him for sale, and our raffle table. Please visit marblebranchfarms.com to learn more about Marble Branch Farms.