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Who We Are revisited
Welcome, Tony. Do you grow any of the WA terrestrials? Several members of our
society went over for the conference recently past. Were you there? Given your interests, it's a shame the WA climate precludes native epiphytes. That must also be a bit of a trial for growing the hardcane Dens you have! On 16 Dec 2005 20:24:29 -0800, "emntee" wrote: As I have only recently joined this group, I figured it would be as good a time as any to follow up on the 'who am I, where do I grow, what do I grow, Who did that!,' and questions of that nature. Who am I and What Is My Gender? I am Tony Watkinson and I am definitely a male. Retired to grow orchids with my wife of 43 years. (that must be some achievement in itself these days) Where am I and where do I grow. We live in Perth, Western Australia where the weather is mild during the winter with only a very rare frost, but the summers are long and dry (as in no rain from November to April) and hot. Sometimes we get a heatwave of over 100F for a week or two. Tricky conditions for orchids. I have a hothouse 6m x 4m attached to the back of the house facing north, (Southern hemisphere) and a 'bush house' covered in a form of shadecloth that is sandwiched inside layers of plastic, (I don't know what you would call that stuff where you are) and open at the ends. Both are equipped with swamp coolers which help to keep the heat down and add to the humidity as well. What do I grow? Well I started with Hardcane Dendrobiums an Phalaenopsis, then added bits and pieces along the way. A friend tried to persuade me to join a species orchid society but I explained that I really didn't have many of those. I went home and counted the species. 48! So I joined the Species Orchid Society of WA and am currently getting toward the end of my second, two year term as President. I have substantially more than 48 species orchids now but I am not game to try to count them. I still have many Dens & Phals both species and hybrids. The decade of my age? the 6th unfortunately How long have I been growing orchids? Since 1989 My biggest orchid accomplishment Isn't it funny how you look at a question like that and think 'well, nothing much I suppose' and then the penny drops and you see that you may well have achieved much more than you realise. I guess my biggest accomplishment is the web site that I put together using the pictures of Western Australian native terrestrial orchids that had been taken by the late Ron Heberle. It is quite huge and uses the best part of 70 mb. The ongoing costs are met by the Species Orchid Society of WA as meeting those costs would be quite beyond Mavis and I. Ron Heberle lived long enough to see the finished product and was over the moon, as he had expected his lifes work to disappear when he died. If you want to take a look, feel free but be aware that there are over 1000 pictures there. http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eemntee/page18.html Miscellaneous Info... Both Mavis and I were born in Britain and came to Australia with our families when we were teenagers. We have one daughter and two grandson and an Airdale called Poppet. Happy growing Tony Dave Gillingham ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To email me remove the .private from my email address. |
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