October 2025 Meeting

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Hello OSWP Members and Friends,

 

Below is the information regarding our upcoming meeting on Sunday, October 19th, at Spartan Event Center: 134 E. Elizabeth Street, 15207. (Off Second Avenue in Hazelwood)

 

Parking in the lot at the door, street parking, or in the overflow lot across the street.

 

12:30 Spartan Center opens

 

12:45

Tim Culbertson from Sunset Valley Orchids will have orchids for sale. Members may not sell their orchids at this meeting. Come and shop!

PLEASE NOTE: Our agreement with the Spartan Center requires us to cover the tables. Please wait until the tables get covered before putting anything on them.

 

1:00 Mini-Class in upstairs classroom
Topic: A history of orchids, from the early collectors to Phrag kovachii and today’s big business of orchids
Speaker: Nancy Kline

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Learn how our amazing hobby got started and grew thru the work of many people. And how it grows today as well!

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1:45 Refreshments

 

2:00 OSWP Business Meeting, Show and Tell, Raffle

Lots of information about the OSWP to be discussed, see our members beautiful orchids in bloom and learn about them and buy a ticket and win something from our raffle table.

 

2:45 Break

 

3:00 Speakers 

Tim Culbertson* from Sunset Valley Orchids on why Parvisepalum Paphs are the “best group for culture”

 

4:00 Meeting Over and Clean-up

 

4:30 Spartan Center closes

 

We hope to see you there to hear great growing information and learn more about orchid plants and orchid people.  

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Happy Growing and Think Orchids,

Gary and Demetria

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October Speaker: Tim Culbertson

Although he teaches middle school kids for a living, one of his passions has always been plants. He began growing orchids as an offshoot from working at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia just after college. From the very beginning it was all about Paphs, particularly awarded and select clones of historic importance, of which his collection numbers nearly 3,000. While he loves finding old, rare steppingstones in Paph breeding, he also does a little hybridizing of his own and thinks growing up his own babies is a blast. Tim was a generous contributor to Phipp’s Barbara Tisherman Slipper historical collection. He was the youngest accredited judge with the American Orchid Society and has served in various capacities with various orchid societies in California and on the East Coast. He loves meeting other people who like orchids too, and doing so often finds me traveling to shows, vendors, and people’s greenhouses to see the latest and greatest in new hybrids and to get the best orchid gossip. Tim likes to be involved in plants as much as possible: in addition to Longwood,  he has worked at the Smithsonian Institution tending to their orchids, and for years for the United States National Arboretum, collecting rare plants and documenting cultivated species and hybrids for their herbarium. In short, he really likes plants. He originally lived in the Northeast and then relocated to California several years ago. In California he manages the Slipper collection at Sunset Valley Orchids and has presented at the Paph Forum in the Washington DC area.  

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Tim will talk about Parvisepalum Paphs, “the very best group for culture either outdoors in the subtropics or on windowsills due to their ease-of-growth.” He will be bringing plants for sale. If you are interested in preordering the list of his plants were eblasted a few weeks ago. If you need the list again please email me at boltoncs@gmail.com.​​​​​