Arne's Orchid Corner: Arne and the Maryland Orchid Society

Monday, October 3, 2016

Arne and the Maryland Orchid Society

Today's post is about Arne's experience as a new and active member of the Maryland Orchid Society. He has put together a little story of his experience. The photos in this post are two specimen that was awarded the first and third place at the local Maryland Orchid Society meeting in September. I hope you will enjoy.

A) Broughtonia sanguinea Karin' AM/AOS, this orchid was awarded first place.

Maryland Orchid Society (MOS):

I have been growing orchids for 16 years in the US and for much longer if I think of my years in Sweden. I joined the American Orchid Society (AOS) the same week I arrived in the US, but it took another 16 years before I joined the Maryland Orchid Society (MOS). It is a nice club where a member or a temporary visitor can listen to presentations by selected orchid growers and look at a large u-shaped show table. Any member can exhibit plants put in different categories such as the Cattleya, Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium alliances as well as in the species, miniature, various-other-hybrids, and fragrance sections. To make sure everyone can show something, there are also the novice, homegrown and greenhouse sections. Although there is some aspect of competition, it is all very friendly and the real purpose is for anyone to see different flowering orchids nicely displayed. For instance, most people have only seen obscure pictures of rare orchid flowers and they will never know how the flowers and the plants really look like until they actually see them in real life. Some of them might be gigantic plants with beautiful but relatively small flowers whereas others turn out to be very small plants with rewarding cascades of showy flowers perfect for confined spaces at home.

This paragraph was contributed by Arne.