On 22 Aug 2005 10:25:34 -0700, "Ted" wrote:
wrote:
On 22 Aug 2005 04:29:31 -0700, "Ted" wrote:
wrote:
On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 08:27:10 +0200, Reka
wrote:
Central Ontario Orchid Society Show and Sale
Date: September 24th, 2005 at 11 am, through the 25th
Location: Hespeler Arena, 640 Ellis Road, Cambridge, ON
[snip]
Although I hate to point out that Guelph is not Cambridge, thank you
very much. g
OK, I stand corrected. I thought COOS had its show at the University of
Guelph. That is where I attended one a few years ago.
I take it Cambridge is a wee village just outside Guelph? :-)
Guelph is a sad cousin to the much grander g Cambridge (population
106,000 vs. over 120,000). Cambridge is part of Waterloo Country,
Guelph is part of Wellington County.
Ah, so they're both wee villages, compared to Toronto which has a
population of how many gazillion people, and only one, me, who would
admit having been born and raised there. I am, I admit, living in an
even smaller village called Orillia, population about 30,000. ;-)
Orillia may be small but it the spot to head once you've come in from
the water and you want to restock the galley in the boat. The town
definitely has its own charms, and besides Rama is probably the best
Casino in the province. That's got to count for something, right? g
You really are the only person who admits to being born and raised in
the big smoke. All the other "natives" refuse to call Toronto home,
and instead insist they're from Etobicoke or North York or Downsview
or Scarborough. I mean seriously, everything from Mississauga to
Pickering is essentially Toronto to anybody who isn't from Toronto.
g
Cambridge (before Free Trade and the American take-over) was once a
leading industrial base specializing in textiles and manufacturing. It
took a major hit when all the jobs were exported south of the border,
but things have bounced back pretty well.
The city still has three distinct downtowns since the city was an
amalgamation of the City of Galt, the Town of Preston and the Village
of Hespeler (and a few other surrounding communities such as Blair and
Beaverdale).
I didn't know that. Thanks.
Guelph made its name as the home of Moo-U (The University became a
leading agricultural and agrarian learning institution and the best
vet school around.) Oh, and everybody knows Guelph has the worst water
in 100 square miles. g
Actually, the University of Guelph is a tempting reason for a guy like
me to go there. They have the best equipped library in all of Canada,
and that is in large measure due to Agriculture Canada doing sending to
them all, or almost all, their research dollars earmarked for research
to be done in a university. It is an outstanding institution. It is
the place to go if you want to study agricultural sciences, without
exception.
But the University of Waterloo has them beat for IT, yet another fine,
outstanding institution!
Both are good universities in their own areas of expertise. It's nice
to have so much depth in what is essentially a small area, especially
when you add WLU into the mix.
I am not surprised at what you say about the water, but given that
Cambridge and Waterloo are so close, is their's much better?
I'm not sure where Guelph pulls its water from, but it's foul nasty
stuff. A friend of mine has been house sitting in Guelph, and she has
been taking Toronto tap water with her because the Guelph stuff is so
bad.
Cambridge used to pull its water from aquifers and springs. Sometime
over the past few years (since the city got pulled further into
regional politics) the decision was made to take water out of the
Grand River and treat the hell out of it with massive doses of
chlorine and whatever other chemicals that supposedly make it safe for
human consumption. Water in Kitchener and Waterloo really depends on
what particular part of the city you happen to be in. It could range
from drinkable to near-Guelph in taste.
I'd attended several in southern Ontario, and the only one I've
attended that was larger was the one a while ago put on by SOOS jointly
with another orchid society, whose name I've forgotten. maybe I need
to get out more. ;-)
Cheers,
Ted
I doubt that's the case Ted. As I said I've been to one show, and that
was the Cambridge show. I had nothing to use as a yardstick, so I had
to make blind observations. I'm just so used to the big, huge (read
full convention centre) trade show environment, I just automatically
assume that anything held in Cambridge, Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo,
etc. is rinky dink and small town. g
As I've posted here before, I wasn't left with an overwhelming
positive impression from the show. If I hadn't already purchased my
orchid I don't know that I would have bought one there. I know I
certainly didn't walk away with a companion for the plant I had at
home (even though I really wanted another one and was tempted by a
few).
Actually I doubt I would have even gone to the show in the first place
if I didn't already own my Home Depot special. The advertising and
marketing was pretty much non-existent, and there were certainly
nothing done to draw in complete newbies or to open up the hobby to
people who had never thought about orchids. I just knew that I needed
some fertilizer and some advice, so I figured I'd take my chances and
attend. I got lots of brush-offs ("I don't raise phals," said with
very snooty tones of voice) and tons of contradictory advice. Even
buying the fertilizer was a complete leap of faith because every
vendor told me a completely different story.
--Vic
This surprises me. The folk I have met have at these shows have all
been very nice and helpful. I don't think I have met a barbarian who
would dismiss a query with a snooty tone of voice. When I asked a
question of someone who didn't grow the orchid in question, the
response would be a polite "I don't know, but that guy over there is
one of the best here for that particular orchid." There is only one
who comes to mind as being a high risk vendor, but that is because I
bought a plant from him and it died in a flash because it had no roots.
It looked like it hadn't been repotted in many years; the medium was
so degraded you couldn't tell what it was originally. And I noticed
that most of the southern Ontario vendors attend almost all of the
shows held in southern Ontario.
The snooty responses were mainly from people with displays for
judging. After the "not phals" bit, they'd wave a hand and say those
are my "phrags/catts/whatever" over there." Now maybe that's because
the people didn't know each other (now I'm working on the assumption
that they travelled from the general Southern Ontario area, but I had
no way of knowing that then). Still, despite a good number of phals in
the displays, I never found anybody who said they grew them.
And the plants I have seen displayed by vendors have been spectacular,
at least those of blooming size. There are several that sell very good
plants, though, but they're not so spectacular since they're no-where
near blooming size yet.
I was pretty upfront with all the vendors I spoke with. I described my
growing conditions, and said I was new to orchids. Pretty much all of
them told me, "well I won't sell you a plant because it won't grow
there." Now that's fine up to a point. You don't want to pass a hard
to grow plant off on a newbie, but I was hoping somebody would say,
"well how about one of these xyzs" They're good for beginners. About
the only one who wanted to sell me a plant was really, really pushy,
so much so that I really got a bad feeling about the seller.
In my experience, when you get contradictory advice, it is because
people are growing in different situations and what works in one place
doesn't work so well in another. The trick is to consider it all, and
then pick a strategy that may work well for you and see what happens.
If you have been thorough in picking the brains of these guys, you'll
khave a good idea regarding what to expect and how to improve the
results you're seeing. If I were to maintain phalaenopsis in both my
bedroom and my office, I would have to treat, and locate, them somewhat
differently because of major differences in the amount of light
available, but I CAN grow them in both locations. If I were to
describe what I'd do in both locations, it would appear that I am
contradicting myself, at least until the differences between the two
environments are understood.
I realize that every plant is unique and every environment presents
its own challenges. I was just hoping to get a few, general
rules-of-thumb -- a basic consensus or beginner's guidelines -- and I
didn't get that. In the end, I followed the instructions that the
sales woman at Home Depot gave me, and I tempered that with my own
judgement, and a bit of input from r.g.o.
As for your fertilizer, once you understand plant nutrition, and issues
surrounding macronutrients and micronutrients, understanding the
rationale for different fertilizer compositions because easier. What
may help is if you visit your nearest library and ask for help finding
a book dealing with plant growth and development as affected by
nutrition. And, of course, there is a wealth of related information on
the web. It is hard to know what to do with the advice some of the
growers give without first doing that background research. And this
forum is a priceless resource for making sense of all this!
I really don't want to have to study enough to write a thesis on
fertilizer. Honestly the whole subject matter just gets my head
spinning. g At the time I just wanted something that was going to
get me started. I think I had every number combination and type
(blooming, general growing, dormant, song and dance, you name it) of
fertilizer suggested to me under the sun. In the end I picked one that
was supposed to be geared toward what I wanted to plant to do. After
reading the newsgroup, I've come to the conclusion that I bought the
"wrong" one, but I don't really care. The plant is healthy and growing
and blooming, and that's all I was after, and I'm not about to change
what works.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Ted
Of course every little bit of advice helps. So just in case I decide
to go this year, what are you doing there? Displaying? Selling?
Judging?
R.E. (Ted) Byers, Ph.D., Ed.D.
R & D Decision Support Solutions
http://www.randddecisionsupportsolutions.com/
Healthy Living Through Informed Decision Making
I hope this helps.