Doors open at 6:30pm for Show & Tell setup and conversations
Karen’s Bio: I have grown orchids for 37+ years and have been a member of the Napa Valley Orchid Society longer than anyone and I used to be the youngest member! I grow a variety of genera in my 16 ft. x 6 ft. greenhouse. My current favorites are Masdevallias, Draculas and the Cattleya Alliance. My evaporative cooler keeps them pretty happy in the warm months. I love to travel and include orchid society meetings, botanical gardens or seeing orchids in nature as much as possible. I have even enjoyed orchids in the sands of Ireland.
Paul’s Bio: I started growing orchids 20 years ago after my wife gave me a blooming cymbidium. Knowing nothing about it she saw an ad in the Napa paper for an orchid society meeting so I went to one and haven’t missed many since. I have about 200 cymbidiums in front
of my east facing house front and a small greenhouse with about 200 mostly cattleya family orchids in the backyard. Growing orchids is a great hobby and has led to some very nice friendships, among them members of your club, DVOS.
Karen and Paul will be talking about their recent trip to Africa:
Paul and I decided to join an Orchid Conservation Alliance 2 week tour in South Africa. But you can’t go to Africa and not see the large animals, so we added a 5 day safari to the beginning of our stay. It was thrilling to see the animals sometimes only 10 feet away from our open roofed truck. We will show you photos of animals and birds, the rocky landscape that is South Africa and of course lots of orchids and other interesting plants. South Africa is one of the top areas in the world for plant diversity.
Dinner with the Speakers:
Members of DVOS are invited to a no-host, pre-meeting dinner with our speakers, Paul and Karen Olson. We will meet for dinner at 5 PM on Thursday April 11th at:
Aung Burma, 2151 Salvio St Suite E, Concord, CA 94520
This restaurant is a 5-minute drive from the meeting venue. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to dvosshowandtell@gmail.com by 5PM Wednesday, April 10th so that Henry can make reservations.
