Society News - What You Need to Know About our Thursday, September 18 Meeting This Week

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Message from the President - Fran Roberts

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. We have a lot of things happening this month. 

1.) The Ridge Society Orchid show will be taking place the weekend of Sept 13 - 14, 2025. At the United Women's Club at 1515 Williamsburg Square in Lakeland. Show times are 10a - 4p. Give your budding orchids a thorough screening. If you have any plants that might be ready for the show, please reach out to Ruth Ullery at Accentorchids@gmail.com. We need plants!!!! Please remember to clean your plants and clip and affected areas, also please ensure that your plants are free of ALL pests. 

2.) Show season has started up again. The first one in our region will be at Ridge Orchid Show. Please check the schedules on the AOS website for dates of upcoming shows. We will post information. Please support our sister societies. 

3.) Our first board meeting of the new board members will be held on Sept. 15, 2025. Board meetings are usually open to the general membership, however this one will be board members only. 

SEPTEMBER MEETING AGENDA

1.    Welcome  -  Fran Roberts

2.    Membership  -  Heather Ferrell

3.    Approval of August Minutes  -  Fran Roberts

4.    Ridge Show Display -  Ruth Ullery

5.    Education  -  Bret Ullery

6.    AOS Corner  -  Laura Newton

7.    Treasurers Report  -  Julio Hector

*******  BREAK  *********

8.    Presentation  -  Kathy Cox

***** QUICK BREAK ******

9.    Bloom Table – Nancy Losgar

10.                   Raffle –

11.                   Adjournment

From Kathy Cox - our VP of Programs

Hi Everyone,

I'm very excited to tell you that our speaker for September will be Tomas Bajza with Tarzane Orchid Group, and he will be speaking on miniature orchids. His bio is attached. He will be bringing plants to sell, but has also provided us with a coupon code to use on pre-orders that he will bring as well. Please take a look at his website, and use this coupon code to treat yourself to something special.

Coupon code will be active from SEPTEMBER 3 - 16, 2025

ONLY VALID ON WEBSITE

TARZANORCHIDS.COM 

18% OFF YOUR ORDER - USE CODE “TAMPA2025 

Terms & Exclusions

Reusable Code

While supplies last. No minimum purchase. Only valid on our website. Cannot be used on previous orders. Code must be used during checkout. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

Excludes Gift Cards, Taxes and Shipping

VALID UNTIL SEPTEMBER 16, 2025

SPEAKER BIO

Hi to all orchid lovers! To introduce myself — my name is Tomas Bajza and I am an orchid lover and addict. I originally came to the USA from the Czech Republic and settled down in hot tropical Miami. I adored orchids during my teenage years, but at that time there were not many to see in my country. My orchid beginnings were funny and sad, all at the same time. I managed to obtain few orchid plants back in Czech, two Phalaenopsis plants, and one Cymbidium plant. I had neither knowledge nor options to do some research (the Internet was really not present), so I grew as I felt. That approach was of course totally wrong. My poor Phals were over-watered constantly and kept by the window right above the heating, so the humidity was at zero. They must have hated me all these years as they were suffering and barely surviving, but I got at least one spike once, before they both went to orchid heaven. My Cymbidium was even “better”. That sucker did nothing except grow leaves for years. Then I went to college and moved out of the house, completely forgetting about the plant. Once I came back home in the fall, my mother called me outside to our courtyard, when I got there, she pulled out from behind the Oleander bush my forgotten Cymbidium with absolutely amazing long spike carrying some 40+ green waxy blooms. I was shocked, as I was not able to bloom this plant for many years. So, I asked her what did she do with it. She replied, “I just threw it outside behind the Oleander bushes early spring, watered it with the hose when watering oleanders, and fertilized it with chicken poop when fertilizing my oleanders, that’s it!” I was laughing my a** off about my over-caring this plant for so many years with no success while my mother just threw it outside behind the bushes. That’s it, she gets the blooms! Even though I am living in Florida surrounded by orchids, I got into serious orchid growing only over a decade ago, starting with the usual grocery store Phalaenopsis and Dendrobiums, slowly adding Cattleyas and Vandas since these were the orchids that everyone in Florida grew! All of these were large orchids and mostly hybrids. I was constantly searching different online orchid forums and saw post about Lepanthopsis astrophora — that was the very first time I had ever seen a miniature orchid. I had no clue that such a thing even existed! I fell totally in love and immediately ordered a few. When they came, they were even smaller than I ever imagined! That was it, I’ve got bitten by a “huge” miniature orchid bug — and in the past years I was fortunate enough to collect hundreds of micro and miniature orchid species, many of them pretty rare. I am a very stubborn grower — I do not listen to anything, and I do not like the word “impossible”. I like all orchids, but I do love huge amount of cold or intermediate growing species. Many growers in Florida told me that I cannot grow these here, because it is too hot or they are too hard to grow. I do not believe any of this till I try things myself and either succeed or fail! Through extended research, reading and being active on different orchid boards and in orchid groups, I’ve learned tremendously. I do not consider myself in any way orchid expert, but someone once told me that a beginner orchid grower is someone who killed less than 10 plants, advance orchid grower is someone who killed more than 100, and an orchid professional is someone who killed over 1000 and doesn’t count anymore. By this yardstick, I do belong to advance growers. I’ve been very fortunate with meeting and becoming friends with many international orchid growers and nursery owners. At the beginning, I bought only plants sold by US nurseries. Nowadays, nearly all of my orchids come from abroad. Buying orchids from US growers is safe and the majority of the plants come nicely established. Unfortunately, there are no species I am looking for offered by the US vendors anymore. I was really pushed to search and start my own importing because I could not just find any of the plants I wanted to own. There is another "hobby" I do have, love for photography. With a growing miniature orchid collection, there were endless opportunities for taking the pictures of these amazing, sometimes microscopical blooms. Posting my pictures online caused quite a "buzz" leading to first invitations from various orchid societies to provide speeches for their members about growing miniature orchids and cold growing species in hot environment. Here we are today. What used to be a “hobby” slowly grew to a small business that is expanding. We found out there are hundreds of growers, like me, searching for these hard to find, unusual, uncommon and rare micro and miniature orchids. Thankfully we can share our babies with the rest of the orchid world via our website and educate people interested in growing miniature and small orchids through my speech engagements across the USA. Number of my articles about miniature orchids were published in orchid magazines across the globe as well. Doing what you love is the most rewarding thing in life!

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Tampa Bay Orchid Society

Monthly Meeting Minutes

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

501 S. Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa FL 33609 

August 21, 2025 APPROVED BY MEMBERSHIP Minutes for August as published 09/16/2025

Meeting was called to order at 6:30pm by President Frances Roberts.

For Membership – Heather Ferrill stated that the Yearbook needs to get printed and to see her to make sure your e-mail and phone number are current.  She also said we had one Guest in attendance.

Julio Hector discussed the Treasurer report for the month of July indicating Revenue of $396.51 and Expenses of $1590.00.  $1090.00 was paid for our liability insurance.  We now have a negative balance of $1193.49.  All were in favor and the Treasurer report was approved.

A motion was made to approve the July meeting minutes.  Marti Turner made the 1st motion and Laura Settlemeyer seconded the motion.  All were in favor and and the July minutes were approved.

Ruth Ullery told Members that we are doing a display at the Ridge Show September 13th and 14th.  If any Members has plants they would like to put in the display to let her know.

Palmers Orchids is having a tent sale on August 23rd.

Members were told about the AOS Greenhouse chats with the information you can get.  They were advised to check the AOS web-site for the scheduled dates.

Our Guest Speaker Nick Rust from Rusty's Exotics discussed a basic overview of Habenarias.  He talked about what are habenarias, how colorful they can be, a hybrid analysis, culture, lighting, soil/soil alternatives, potting, watering, fertilizer, pests and diseases, dormancy and when to stop watering for the season.

Nancy Losgar with the helpo of Ester Carley discussed the Bloom Table.   Members Choice was a 3-way tie.   Amos Sheffield for his Ren. Mauricette Brin x Ren. Bart Motes.  Corinne Arnold for her Ctsm. Russelianum and Ester Carley for a NOID vanda.

Corinne Arnold and Cristina Miranda pulled the winning raffle tickets.

Meeting was adjoured at 8:50pm.

Minutes submitted by Cheryl Crilly - Secretary