President's Letter

June & July 2025

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Gosh, summer is here!  Lots to do, especially if you move all your orchids outside.  No matter, it’s a great time for growing here in western Pennsylvania as our days are longer and the sun shines with more effect.

 

A short recap:  our May meeting was special with so many new members joining us to get to know each other and learn more about orchids.  Plus we had so much wonderful food.  Thank you, Kathy Collins for making it all happen so beautifully.  And it was great to be able to purchase orchids from Russ Vernon.  We enjoyed his talk on Orchid Sex, aka, orchid hybridizing.

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We want to thank Cindy Zimmerman and new member, Sarah Quinn, for volunteering to be our historians and read thru all the things saved over the many years to sort and record them, so there will be one place where we can learn about the history of the OSWP. 

 

At our June 8th meeting, the last meeting of our fiscal year, the members present approved a budget and voted on officers presented by the Nominating Committee (Don Ammon, Katie Schuller and Brandon Williams) for the next fiscal year. All the current officers and board members agreed to stay on for another year.

 

At a board meeting early in June, the board approved buying kiwi bark for Phipps to help grow their orchid collection.  Big thanks to Sheila Nathanson for coming up with the idea, doing the research, presenting it to the board and then buying it for the OSWP.  The bark is now at Phipps for better orchid growing.  Phipps is very appreciative.

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The June meeting went well and our speaker, Jim France of Oakwood Orchids, sold many orchids and gave his talk on Growing Orchids Under Lights. 

 

For your summer planning, remember our OSWP picnic will be the afternoon (2-6PM) of Sunday, August 3rd, at Ohio Township Nature Center, 325 Nicholson Road (15143) off 279N, 79N and 910. It’s a pot luck meal with our members bringing all kinds of food for us to enjoy.  Members will sell orchids and bring show and tell plants.  There’s lots of parking, too.  More good news: several members (including new member, Susan Kovach) volunteered to help with the picnic planning.  We could still use a few more people to help out!  Let us know if you’d like to get involved.  (demetria117@gmail.com) Keep an eye open for our Sign Up Genius info to let your Picnic Pals know you are attending (and how many people will be with you) and what food you are bringing.

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Happy Summer and hope to see you on August 3rd at our picnic!

 

Think orchids,

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Gary VanGelder and Demetria Marsh