Happy holidays folks! We sure have been missing everyone. While you’re reading our newsletter today, please stop now and make a note to attend our online WNCOS meeting this Sunday. Alan Koch with Gold Country Orchids is a good friend of mine, and a real authority in the industry. We really need to improve our electronic audience for these special guest speakers. You are missing out if you are not attending our ZOOM membership meetings. Last month was Harry Gallis speaking about Dendrobium species and their culture. I’m not growing dendrobiums myself, but I learned some things and definitely increased my interest. Harry was wonderful, as we expected, but we should have had more of you orchid lovers in attendance.

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It is with great pleasure that I write to you all today, a newsletter with some exciting, legitimate orchid news! Much important information will be conveyed here, so please pay careful attention and stay tuned for an entirely separate email with a ZOOM link for you to access Peter Lin’s live, online presentation on Sunday, September 20th.

Yes, you read that correctly. Peter Lin will be speaking to us on Sunday, September 20th at 2:00 pm EST. We had an issue with scheduling Peter, so we have decided to first have our monthly meeting this Sunday, September 13th at 2:00 pm. We will gather online via ZOOM, NOT in person.

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Greetings everyone! I’d like to thank everyone who came on the WNCOS field trip to Carter and Holmes nursery in Newberry, South Carolina. We had a wonderful time and overall it was a very successful event for everyone. Young transportation did a great job of getting us down and back safely, and in style.

Carter and Holmes was very excited to have us and were very hospitable. A huge thank you to Mac, Bridget and their team for having us!!! Seems like most everyone purchased plants, which I know they appreciated. The Paphiopedilums they had available were nice looking plants, so I purchased several and got them home and on the bench quickly. I can tell you a few of the larger seedlings in 4” pots have already begun to spike for me since bringing them home, so keep an eye on your plants as you might be surprised. 

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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.

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Greetings WNCOS members and guests who have opted to receive our newsletter! I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Thanksgiving and are settling in nicely to the busy holiday season. This December newsletter comes to you with much information, including a couple major announcements, so I encourage you to read it thoroughly and pay careful attention to details.

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The WNCOS has had yet another incredible year overall. The 2019 Asheville Orchid Festival was once again tremendously successful. Amazing attendance, which allows us to expose, educate and celebrate our love of orchids with our attendees and the region. Lots of rightfully earned ribbons, awards, publicity and buzz were created by the collaborative effort of our board, our festival committee and our membership. Our orchid society here is on very strong footing, we are financially strong and our reputation is one that is well respected and admired. This has been accomplished through years of strong leadership, active members, successful events and festivals, and many other positive things. Through many years of continued success and strong leadership, we’ve been comfortably able to do whatever it is we want. From throwing one of the best orchid festivals in the country, to flying in all the best speakers in the world, and hosting incredible year end parties, we’ve been afforded the ability to do all these exciting things. The WNCOS remains strong and successful, and we want to make sure everyone understands how grateful we are for all of you. We hope and expect to see a fabulous 2020, and we welcome, appreciate, and encourage more participation and new members. It has been an honor to continue to serve as WNCOS President and be in such great company. 

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Hoping this finds everyone doing well! Fall is upon us and we’ve got some exciting news to share with everyone. The SMOS had their annual orchid show this past weekend, and as we had discussed with you, the WNCOS always installs an exhibit in their show. A huge thank you and congratulations go out to Paul and Joanne for taking care of business! Please thank and congratulate them when you see them this month at the auction. Paul and Joanne traveled to Knoxville, did their first installation on their own, spent the weekend in Knoxville and then handled the take out of our exhibit Sunday afternoon. It was all done very successfully as we had several ribbons within the exhibit on some fine plants exhibited by a few of our wonderful members, along with winning the blue ribbon for the best exhibit! That is always wonderful, but doing it on your first attempt is even more special! We even had an AOS award given to one of the plants in our exhibit. Congratulations to Graham Ramsey for earning an AM on his Phragmipedium schlimii var. manzurii ‘Gabi’ AM/AOS, which earned a strong score of 84 points. Overall, we have once again done a wonderful job. 

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Greetings everyone! Hopefully, you all have enjoyed this summer and are looking forward to the beautiful fall season here in WNC that I am anticipating we will have. I personally wouldn’t mind if summer stayed around a while longer, and we had a lengthy fall season as I just dread the cold winter months. Are your plants telling you anything currently? I hope you’re listening and hoping you’ve gotten all your repotting done for the 2019 season. My collection is telling me all up and down my bench, that fall is about here and they’re slowing down. With Phalaenopsis species, for example, I always see a lot of yellow leaves and dropping leaves about this time of year. New spikes have stopped emerging on the summer bloomers, and I’m having to slow down a little bit with the watering.

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