# Blast from the past - Orchid growing in 1975



## Sirius (Jun 30, 2011)

I am going to reserve saying anything that may offend members who were alive in 1975. I was not even born yet. Ok, that may offend some of you. 

Check out this article on orchid growing from New York Magazine.

http://books.google.com/books?id=A-kCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## Shiva (Jun 30, 2011)

I was alive and I would start collecting and growing orchids within five years, becoming #25 on the Montreal orchid society roster. Now the numbers allotted to new members are around 2500. Crazy how time flies!


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## Sirius (Jun 30, 2011)

Shiva said:


> I was alive and I would start collecting and growing orchids within five years, becoming #25 on the Montreal orchid society roster. Now the numbers allotted to new members are around 2500. Crazy how time flies!



At any time did you wear plaid pants like the guy in the article? If so... :rollhappy:


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## Shiva (Jun 30, 2011)

No Way! I wore jeans for most of my life with a three pieces suit for big occasions like marriages or looking for a job. I did however wore a hat like Indiana Jones before Indiana Jones. No whip though.


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## NYEric (Jun 30, 2011)

Wow, hard to believe all those articles about plants. GNYOS, that's my society but I haven't been to a meeting in years! OMG! look further down and there's a blurb about a play starting in NYC that week, "the Rocky Horror Picture Show"!!!


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## Heather (Jun 30, 2011)

Interesting! Love how they say Paphs are the easiest orchids to grow.  
Also found it cool that J&L are mentioned.


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## SlipperFan (Jun 30, 2011)

Shiva said:


> I was alive and I would start collecting and growing orchids within five years, becoming #25 on the Montreal orchid society roster. Now the numbers allotted to new members are around 2500. Crazy how time flies!


That's for sure. I wouldn't start collecting orchids for another 20 years!


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## swamprad (Jun 30, 2011)

I was 15 at the time, and had about a hundred orchids in a tiny greenhouse. I still have my AOS Bulletins from those days, not to mention the Jones and Scully and Ilgenfritz catalogs. Funny, but the prices for orchids in 1975 haven't changed much in 2011. I did take a long hiatus from orchid growing, had to work two jobs and raise a bunch of kids. But now my favorite orchids in my greenhouse are the ones I had (or lusted for) back in the seventies. I have no apologies for having five bulbo. echinolabiums and four rhyncho. digbyanas hanging around. Growing orchids is the one passion in my life that never, ever grows old.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Jun 30, 2011)

I was about 20 then......bought my first orchid (an equitant "oncidium", because it was the only cheap one I saw at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden...about $3.50 at the time) around 1981....I had been strictly cactus til then.


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## Heather (Jun 30, 2011)

Wow, that is really so cool that you guys are growing things you wanted to grow then! Amazing! And I thought I was old! Haha, no I'm kidding totally! It is really very neat. I hope I will be able to fulfill my dreams such.


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## Rick (Jun 30, 2011)

The year before I graduated from high school!!

I was working for my stepdad's appliance repair business in Pacific Palisades, CA.

I was always a nature nut (mostly fish, frogs and lizards), but my step-dad and his father were Cymbidium growers, and introduced me to orchids. Many of the business clients were orchid growers too, and we often visited with other growers just to see what was growing. One client was doing his only flasking, which really convinced me that orchids were "beyond" your average plant.

At the time I read a lot more about orchids rather than growing any. What I really wanted was a Paph sukhakulii, but with all my money invested in African cichlids there wasn't any $ or time left for orchids. My iguana was hell on house plants too. I had a few hybrid mini Catts on the window sills. But I didn't get seriously into orchids until 2001 when my wife got me to replace my rocket hobby with a resurrection of the orchids I talked about frequently.


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## Shiva (Jul 1, 2011)

Fall of 1975. I had Decided to quit my job at CBC in Toronto to see the world. This picture taken with Athens, Greece, in the background. I had just come down from the Balkans into Turkey and then Greece on my way to Egypt. I was sitting on top of a hill where you could find an old olive tree. Seems like a dream to me now.


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## chrismende (Jul 1, 2011)

That's a great blast from the past! I certainly remember the plaid pants (and mini-skirts) of that era - I was in college at UC Irvine, where I had a part time job propagating mediterranean native seedlings for the future botanical garden - Harold Koopowitz arrived during that year. The orchid greenhouse was small but jammed with Dr. Arditti's plants at the time, and I used to go back on my breaks to stand eye-to-dorsal with some wonderful maudiae paphs that still are mesmerizing to me. They were my favorite psychedelic.
I was growing everything I could at the time in a south window in married-student housing. Mostly an array of african violets. I didn't get into orchids for many years...


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## bullsie (Jul 1, 2011)

Oh my! I was collecting orchids then. I remember Ilgenfritz, Jones and Scully. Have one of the last issues of the Lager & Hurrell catalogs printed. There was Stewarts, Armcost and Royston. Shaffers, Jungs, Homestead, Finck, Beall. And lots more!

I loved the magazine the AOS published at the time. It was so full of information and growers and advertisers. It was something like 5 x 8 or so but always thick. And really, the color for that time period was very nice. 

I too had to leave the orchid world behind for a time. Miss all the great Catts and Phals I had then. Left in the 80's and returned in the 2000's. What a shock on comming back!


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## Justin (Jul 1, 2011)

i was 2 years old. 

reallly enjoyed all the old advertisements...but i thought the cigarette ad was a little macabre from a 2011 perspective.


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## NYEric (Jul 1, 2011)

I was 15 that year, a couple of years later i'd be dancing at Studio 54.


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## swamprad (Jul 3, 2011)

bullsie said:


> Miss all the great Catts and Phals I had then.



Speaking of that, getting a division of Lc. Stephen Oliver Fouraker from tenman recently was a big coup for me -- It was one of my favorite catts from the 70's, and I'd been searching for it for a very long time!


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## Wendelin (Jul 3, 2011)

I was eight years old and somewhere around that time I saw my first orchid.My mum bought a Paphiopedilum callosum keeping it in a glassbowl. I remember that I liked it very well.


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## tim (Jul 3, 2011)

i was -5...not really so interested in plants...


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