January 2020

Happy New Year everyone! We hope this finds all of you doing well, and hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Wishing you all a healthy and positive new year! The holiday party was well attended and successful. I think everyone enjoyed it and was excited to take home a new lady slipper from Hawaii. We’re looking forward to seeing these plants later on in our show exhibits and at the monthly show and tell table. As we move in to 2020, we’re kicking off the New Year in style, and on a tour bus! The WNCOS is taking a field trip to Carter and Holmes Orchid nursery in Newberry, SC. It’ll be a super fun day, but will consume the entirety of the day. We’ve chartered a bus by our friends at Young Transportation here in Asheville, and they’ll be scooping us up at 9am and plan to have us back in Asheville by 5pm. It’s about a 2 hour drive down to C&H, where we will get a tour of their facilities. They will provide us with lunch and a strong, 25% discount on many plants. We even understand they currently have a huge selection of plants in spike and in bud. You’ll have a couple of hours to shop and enjoy everything there is that they have growing. Go to their website, www.carterandholmes.com to become better acquainted with their plants and facilities. Also, they’re taking pre-orders if you see something on their website and want to go ahead and reserve it. Give them a call to take care of any pre-orders. They’ll accept cash, checks, & credit cards I believe. We figured January would be a great month to get out of town, head south a bit in efforts of trying to warm up in their cozy greenhouses. January is also an excellent time to find new plants in spike too. So, perhaps you’ll find some new treasures that should be blooming right about the time of our 2020 Asheville Orchid Festival ‘The Orchid Express’. You know we will soon be calling on you for your blooming orchids in preparation for our exhibit. Here’s what we need you to know, and the action we need. Know that this field trip is free to current members, another perk of joining and being a member of the WNCOS. Many of you who attended the holiday party signed up or followed directions and emailed me privately, thank you. The chartered bus will be really comfortable however it can only take 36 people. As it is always hard to predict attendance for any event, we’re going to maintain a roster of those members who sign up. I have already heard from a handful of members who will be going on the field trip, but wish to drive their own vehicle for one reason or another. We will do our best to get everyone there, even if it means a few of us drive our personal vehicles and carpool down highway 26. So, if you have not yet signed up or communicated with me, and want to sign up now for the January field trip, please immediately send me an email to michaelmims@gmail.com. We will be using the LOWER parking lot at the Asheville Visitor Center where we meet for our regular meetings. We will be planning on departing at 9am, and returning at 5pm. So, be there early. I’d say show up by 8:30. Please, please do not show up at the buzzer as we have a tight schedule and cannot afford to get behind. Now, if you are planning to meet us at Carter and Holmes and have NOT informed me of this, I need to know. They need a proper head count for lunch, so please communicate with me. If for some reason you have signed up but now need to cancel, I need to know this as well. Thank you for your understanding. As we look toward February, 2020, we will be holding a program on 2/9/20 entitled “what’s wrong with my orchid”. This is something we do every couple years and gives everyone an opportunity to discuss what’s going wrong with your orchids. We’ll put together a panel of experts and growers from the society who have been growing for many years and who have a ton of good experience. Our March meeting will focus on the Asheville Orchid Festival. The one meeting you simply cannot miss. Graham Ramsey will be leading this incredibly important meeting as I will be attending the 2020 Taiwan International Orchid Show and the 23 rd World Orchid Conference. 2019 was an incredible year for the WNCOS. So, here’s to an even better 2020! I appreciate all of you.