September Monthly Meeting

10 AM, Sunday September 18th, 2016

Venue: Horticultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago Headquarters (Lady Chancellor Road, Port of Spain) This meeting will feature a talk by Curtis Lutchman on preparing your plants for our orchid show on October 8th and 9th. Also guidelines for entering your plants into the various classification will be discussed.
There will also be a Raffle. The prize is an Orchid plant. Will this month be your month to win it?

Don't forget to bring along your flowering orchids for the Monthly Show Table especially those new members to win a plant prize. Members who win member's choice get their orchid featured in the newsletter.

Summary of August Monthly Meeting

The meeting was held on August 21st at the Horticultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago Hall. The Photo Contest and Seedling Growing contest were launched. Information about the Grenada Orchid Show was given to the members. Any members interested in attending are asked to contact our Secretary, Judith at 299-8944.

Members Photography Competition

This monthly meeting will be the deadline for submission of photographs for the competition. The Society has all rights to the winning photo for one year. Members needing entry forms are kindly asked to email Anis at nail_786@hotmail.com or contact at 350-7539.

Dendrobium Culture

Antonio De Gannes gave a very informative lecture on growing Dendrobiums, which is the second largest group of orchids with over 1200 species. He advised that selecting plants to grow should be based on the parentage of particular plant hybrids with emphasis on selecting those with suitable intermediate to hot growing temperatures and elevation where they are found in the wild. We should select plants with warm growing parents and found at sea level.

He grows his dendrobiums in bright light with good air movement. Do not water plants after 4 pm as this promotes fungal problems. His potting media is broken red clay blocks and charcoal. He prefers to stay away from using coconut shell as it breaks down after 1 - 1.5 years at which point you need to re-pot on time or you can lose your plant. Two key indicators that your dendrobiums are doing well are each sequential growth being larger and green root tips. His fertilizer of choice is Nutrex 20-20-20 at ¼- ½ tea spoon per gallon twice per week, applied during the cooler parts of the day.

The monthly show bench was presented by Mark Robinson, one of our very knowledgeable student judges.

Members' Choice Plant
Hazra Maraj won the Members' Choice for August with her beautifully flowered Catasetum (Ctsm.) Memoria Vera Mc Millan 'Little Shaffina' AM/AOS 2007. This plant is a locally bred hybrid, bred by Carlyle McMillan and named after his mother in 1997. His hybrid was first awarded by the American Orchid Society in 1999, with a First Class Certificate (FCC) of 91 points to the clone Catasetum Memoria VeraMcMillan 'Millenium Queen'. Parent plants of this hybrid are Ctsm. Sandy Gibson, another locally bred hybrid and Ctsm. pileatum.

A Diamond Celebration of Orchids Part 2!

Continuing the TTOS 60th Anniversary Celebrations, our Annual North Orchid Show will take place on 8th and 9th of October at the Trinidad Country Club in Maraval.

The Chairman for this event is Antonio de Gannes with Co-chair Christopher Watson. Any member willing to help make this show a great success and aid in the Diamond celebrations is welcome to contact Antonio or Christopher to join the Show Committee.

Tickets will be distributed at the September Members Meeting. We are asking that each member kindly take at least 5 tickets.

Members interested in vending at this show are kindly asked to come prepared to make payment for their vending space and to fill out their vending contracts.

Cultural Corner

Cattleyas can be divided into two basic groups based on their number of leaves on the pseudobulb: unifoliate and bifoliate.

Unifoliate cattleyas (labiata, mossiae, percivaliana) have one leaf per pseudobulb. Generally quite easy to grow as long as potted while roots are active, which is generally right after they have flowered. Some types such as Cattleya labiata and Cattleya trianaei form sheaths and then rest. The sheaths may begin to turn yellow and die, at which time, if they are not carefully removed, the flowers buds may rot.

Bifoliate cattleyas (amethystoglossa, bicolor, guttata) have two or more leaves per pseudobulb. These are very sensitive to potting when not actively rooting, which must be determined for each species individually. Plants can be quite large and subject to breakage of the rapidly growing pseudobulbs, hence good idea to stake psuedobulbs. Many of these produce waxy textured flowers and spotted flowers.