March 2018
Howdy folks, it’s March Madness time! No, I am not talking about basketball either, I’m talking about all the orchid madness. We are two weeks away from installation of our 20th annual , 2018 Asheville Orchid Festival ‘Awesome Orchid Collections’. Not sure how best to describe it for you folks who have not yet had much involvement, other than it’s been fast and furious! If you’ve not yet had involvement, you need not to worry as you have ample opportunities to get in the mix with us and volunteer some of your time. Right now, the very best thing I can tell you is to be at this Sunday’s meeting! We will be focused solely on the big event, we will answer all your questions, and yes we will even have a raffle table full of awesome orchids.
Our vendors and exhibitors are all lined up. Our catering needs for our AOS judges luncheon on Friday is all set. The great folks at The North Carolina Arboretum are excited, preparing and hoping to see another exceptional festival on their campus. It’s important to me and the WNCOS that we remember our great partnership, and all that we’ve accomplished through the years.
When I tell you all just how special our orchid festival is and that it is one of the biggest and best on the east coast, please know that this is not hype. Many of you newer members have yet to see our festival. Believe me, it is a first class event and we’ve got attendees coming from all across the country to be a part of the festivities.
This year, we have many new faces having involvement with the event. We’ve got a new design team, new vendors, and a greatly expanded educational program series. As part of the general entry fee to the festival, we have a total of nine orchid programs available over the course of the weekend to everyone in attendance. This is super exciting! While I can go on and on here about the quality of our 20th annual Festival, I am going to stop myself here as I have so much more work to do.
In closing, please accept my apologies for the delayed newsletter. While the WNCOS has an outstanding board of directors, and an outstanding group of festival committee chairs and volunteers, we are well short as I write this of all the needed volunteers it will take to pull this off perfectly again. I need you all to be at The Asheville Visitor’s Center on Montford Avenue, this Sunday at 2pm.
We’ll be helping you sign up and commit to times and places for you to be a major player this year at the festival. If you’ve only got an hour or two to offer, or can bring in some home cooked refreshments, please let us know how it is you can help make our 20th annual festival a smashing success!
Cheers!
Mike Mims, WNCOS President
Looking ahead to April
Once we recover from the 2018 Asheville Orchid Festival, we’ll be smooth sailing as we have an incredible line up of world class speakers coming to the WNCOS to teach us about orchids. We have firm plans for the remainder of 2018. For me personally, I am most excited about our guest speaker who’s lined up to visit us here in April.
Pat van Adrichem of Kingfisher Orchids in Victoria, British Columbia is flying all the way here to Asheville to speak about fragrant, novelty phalaenopsis. Pat is a friend of mine, but more importantly he is an incredible grower and breeder of fine phalaenopsis orchids. He’s also one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, and is going to be offering his very latest phalaenopsis hybrids for pre-order. More to come next month!
I have just received Pat’s latest plant list of what he’s got available for purchase. If you’re interested in seeing his pre-order list of phalaenopsis hybrids, please send an email to me at michaelmims@gmail.com. I will then send it to you immediately. He has some primo stem propagated phalaenopsis selections, as well as seedlings of his latest hybrids. I will be reviewing his list this week and placing my pre-order immediately. If you have questions, please send me an email and I will be helpful.