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Next Meeting - Tuesday, July 28th @ 7:30PM at the Bartow Civic Center - 2250 S. Floral Avenue, Bartow. This month's speaker will be Ken Roberts, the Chairman of the Florida North Central Judging Center in Tampa, he will speaking on the purpose of the Judging Center and what judges look for when judging a plant for AOS awards.

June Culture Club Meeting at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland

The June meeting of the Ridge Orchid Society's "Culture Club" was held at the Circle B Bar Reserve, June 20, 2009. The Reserve, which was for many years a working cattle ranch was purchased by Polk County a little over two years ago and includes many diverse areas of natural, native Florida habitat.

By 9:00 A.M., when I arrived at the Reserve, early enough to scout out the best viewing areas for our Florida native orchid Encyclia tampensis, the temperature was already over 90 degrees. The group was scheduled to meet at 11:00 A.M. and I was getting a little concerned that no one in their right mind would show up in this heat. Getting rid of those negative thoughts, I proceeded to first introduce myself to the staff and Director of the Reserve and to talk with them about our Society and how we could become involved with the Reserve and it's abundance of native orchids. Karen Hagood, the Director of the Reserve and I bounced ideas off of each other and both agreed that a working relationship between our Society and the Reserve would be a great service to both the Reserve and the general public. We parted ways both agreeing to talk to our respective powers that be and to talk again in the near future.

I scouted the Reserve and found some incredible spots that were just covered in colonies of Encyclia tampensis and headed back to the parking lot to await the arrival of the rest of the brave souls who were foolish enough to venture out in the oppressive Summer heat and humidity. I didn't have to wait long. By 11:20 we were a group of 13, ready and chomping at the bit to get started. We didn't have to go far, the trees surrounding the parking lot that I chosen to park in were laden with tampensis in full bloom. The group was like kids in a candy factory, oohing and aahing over one colony after another, vying to be the first to find yet another bigger and better colony. When the initial excitement died down and the group had become extremely proficient and spotting plants in the trees, we proceeded to have a group discussion on what seeing the plants in their native habitat taught us about how to care for them at home in our collections. The best answer came from Charles Frensdorf, when asked what he had learned from seeing the plants in their natural habitat, his answer was "to leave them where they are".

The group decided that it was time to eat and to continue the discussion over lunch. We took advantage of the hospitality of the staff and Director of the Reserve who made a screened in room, complete with ceiling fans and picnic tables and benches available to us. Fully satiated, rehydrated and refreshed, I really expected that we would each go our separate ways and enjoy what was left of our Saturday afternoon. To my surprise the group, bless their foolish hearts, decided that they wanted to explore more of the Reserve, so off we went in search of more orchids. I decided to play a game with them and to give them more incentive, I offered an orchid from my collection to the first person who was able to find an orchid other than Encyclia tampensis. Try as we might, we came up empty handed, although, Dan DeCausey, always the joker, claimed that he had won the game having seen a "ghost orchid", when asked to point i out so that we could verify his win, his response was "you can't see it, ghosts are invisible", needless to say I didn't fall for it.

Hot, sweaty and totally exhausted we made our way back to our starting point in the parking lot, pleased with ourselves and the experience, looking forward to our next meeting and adventures to come.

Richard Holley called me the next day to say that he was not happy with the pictures that he had taken and was going back to try again. On Tuesday morning, the phone rang and it was Richard who was at the Reserve taking pictures and finding even more colonies of tampensis. He came across a branch, covered with tampensis, which had fallen from a tree during last week's bad storm that had blown through the County. I had received a call from another friend that told me about the same branch earlier in the week but could not locate it on Saturday. I had spoken with Karen Hagood about it and offered to remount the plants if I found the branch to which she agreed. I told Richard to go to the Welcome Center at the Reserve and let them know that he had found the branch and they asked him to take the branch and to care for it until we could arrange to remount the colony back into another appropriate tree. The Reserve personnel is in the process of filling out the required permits for Richard lest someone think that he had poached the plant. I look forward to the day when a group of us goes back to the Reserve to return the plant back to the old growth oak trees where it belongs.

Until next month, happy growing.

New "Culture Club" Gets Off to A Great Start

Trichoglottis fucata from Sue & Niyom's collection was a big hit

The first meeting of the new study group, "Culture Club was held on Saturday, May 23rd at the home of Sue & Niyom Dowudom. The turnout was better than we had anticipated with 18 ROS members, new and old, showing up eager to learn and share their knowledge with fellow members.

The day started out bright and sunny as people started to arrive and everyone was anxious to get started, first came a tour of Sue & Niyom's orchid collection and greenhouse. People were reluctant to leave all the beautiful flowers behind but we had to start the proceedings, after herding up the last few stragglers in the greenhouse we got down to business.

We started with introductions, as there were new members and members who hadn't been to meetings in quite awhile in attendance and not everyone knew each other. A roundtable discussion of peoples collections, growing conditions and issues that they were facing followed.

We then moved on to the prepared topic for the day which was repotting orchids in general and the different types of medium available. Samples of different media were passed around and their pros and cons were discussed. Then came the fun part, several members brought in plants that needed to be either repotted or divided. Glen Gary with the help of Niyom Dowudom and Herb Quiller lead the discussion and demonstrated how he trims back roots on an overgrown Cattleya. An audible gasp escaped the group as he proceeded to prune back the roots all the way to the rhizome. After calming the group down and assuring them that what he had just done was for the benefit of the plant and why it had to be done, Niyom took over and demonstrated how he divides an over grown Cattleya. The group was in a panic again as he hacked away at a 10" tree fern pot, first cutting it in half and then further dividing it from there.

Sue announced that lunch was ready, the members had brought covered dishes to share, and we begrudgingly went inside to eat. No one really wanted to eat at this point they were all so interested in learning more, but eat we did. With what Sue had prepared herself and all that was brought by other members, when we got inside a feast was laid out before us. Everyone rushed thru lunch so that we could get back to work outside. A number of members having developed a new found sense of security from our demonstrations dove in and got their hands dirty repotting and dividing. Niyom passed out divisions of his two plants that he had used during the demonstration and everyone was thrilled.

What was scheduled to be a 2 hour meeting including lunch, turned out to be an all day affair with the last of the group leaving Bartow at 3 PM, just as the skies opened up. All in all a great time was had by all and everyone is looking forward to June's meeting which will be a walk thru the old oak trees at the Circle B-Bar Reserve in Lakeland on Saturday, June 20th at 11AM to see the Encyclia tampensis in bloom followed by a brown bag picnic lunch.

So mark the date on your calendars and join us for a fun time with "Culture Club"

ROS Display at the Lakeland Cancer Center

Bill Byrd and the ROS display committee took time out from their busy schedules to put in a orchid display in the lobby of

the Lakeland Cancer Center in Lakeland. The Cancer Center was holding an annual weekend party for cancer survivors.

Bill has done this display himself as Byrd's Orchids for the past several years

and thought it would be a good community service project for our Society to take over.

Ridge Orchid Society enters display in Tampa Bay Orchid Society Annual Show

"Orchid Holiday"

The Ridge Orchid Society Display Committee was at it again, this time at the Tampa Orchid Society Show. The Display Committee built our Society's display on Thursday, March 12, 2009 and were back again on the 15th to tear it down. We left Tampa tired but excited and proud. Our members walked away with a total of 21 ribbons, 3 trophies and a check for $100.00 for Best Society Display. Below is a breakdown of who won what and a photo gallery of pictures showing the set-up and ribbon winners in the display.

Ribbon Winners

Dina & Keith Emig - 1 Blue, 1 Red, Gail & Jonnie Hutchinson - 2 White, Jean & Bob Mitchell - 1 Blue, 1 Red, Dottie & Dan DeCausey - 3 Blue, 1 Red, 4 White and a Trophy,

Julie & Dan Williams - 2 Blue, Danny Cochran - 3 Blue, 2 Trophies, Sue & Niyom Dowudom - 1 Blue, 1 Red.

The Sumner's took 2 plants to the Regional Judging Center in Orlando on February 14, 2009. They were hoping to get their Blc. Hawaiian Princess (a cross of C. Princess Bells X Blc. Meditation) awarded. As both parent plants have white blooms, the fact that theirs is a seed grown cross and is pink made it unusual. However, the blooms lacked shape, so it was passed over.

The Blc. Fringe Benefits, a cross of Blc. Ports of Paradise X B. digbyana, is a very old division of a seed grown plant that they got in Hawaii. It had 2 blooms that were just opening that morning and they didn't want to go to Orlando with just one plant, so they took it along. Blc. Fringe Benefit was registered in 1983 and has 13 1st generation off spring, but none have ever been awarded. This really got Barbara and Dave excited when the judges awarded their blooms with an 81 point Award of Merit.

AOS Judge Bill Thoms wrote the following description: Two rich, beautiful green flowers on one short inflorescence; sepals slightly thin, acutely pointed and equilateral, very pleasing concolor jade green, petals narrow at column, broad centrally and pointed at tip with slightly wavy margins, light green; lip full, surrounding column with medium fringe on ruffled margin, deep green in throat fading to light green on outer 1/3 with a very pleasing citrus scent; substance firm; texture crystalline on petals, matte on sepals and lip.

A very accurate description as you can see by the photo below, kudos to Barbara & Dave.