OK, my turn...

*Ray, male
*Southeastern PA, grow in a greenhouse for my own collection, rented space
for most "First Rays" plants.
*I grow catts, vandaceous plants, phals, paphs, bulbos, oncidiine
intergenerics of all sort, stuff from the
bollea/pescatorea/keferstenia/cochleanthes/huntleya group, oncids,
cymbidiums (mostly Chinese species), oddball species galore.
*I'm about two months' shy of 52, and have been growing orchids for over 30
years.

It's almost like I was destined to grow them: At age 6 I moved to Linwood,
NJ and was about 3 blocks from Waldor. I was aware of the greenhouses, but
didn't know what was in them. At age 10 I moved to England, and was about a
mile from a very large paph range, but saw nothing in them. A few years
later I ended up in NW DC, and the Kensington area was one of my high school
stomping grounds...again close to orchids, but didn't know it. As a junior
at Ga Tech, I started volunteering my free time at the public greenhouses in
Piedmont Park (now the Atlanta Botanical Garden). About a year into that I
started watering the orchid house, and ran into a school buddy, Roger
Huntington. I mentioned that I didn't know he was into orchids, and the
folks around me started laughing. Yep, his dad is Merritt, who owned
Kensington Orchids and was some official in the AOS at that time...

I was given a cattleya for helping out, and it only took me two years to
kill it, using the ancient oriental watering torture - alternating root rot
and desiccation - AND I DON'T KILL PLANTS!!!. (People at school called me
the "plant doctor," as I had a little business resurrecting the houseplants
they were killing. If I was successful, they gave me a few bucks, if not, I
kept the pot.) At that point I got determined to learn how to grow the
so-and-so's, and the rest is history.

I have also learned that I'm very good at killing plants...

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Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Books, Artwork, and Lots of Free Info!