Rod
Member
I am not entirely new to the forum, but I haven't had time for the last two years to acquire yet another obsession. I am already aquainted with several people on the forum. I am a vendor who operates a very small commercial orchid growing and hybridizing business. I retired from my job as a psychologist, working in a residential psychiatric treatment program for children and adolescents a few years back, and now only provide some private contract services in that area of work part time. I began growing orchids when I was nine years old, and I will be 63 in January. My first orchids were Cattleyas, Phals, and Cymbidiums. I was obsessed with orchids the first time someone gave my grandmother a huge Cattleya corsage for some occasion. I grew up in the southeastern US, and I was very lucky to have the opportunity to visit Rivermont Orchids in Signal Mountain, TN two or three times a year from the time I was nine or ten years old. My uncle owned a restaurant in Chattanooga, and when I visited his family, the Rivermont delivery truck would pick me up at his restaurant early in the morning, as he returned from dropping shipments at the bus station. I would spend all day at Rivermont asking questions and poking into every place they would allow me to explore. Amazing that the McDades were so tolerant of a kid roaming all over their range. I doubt many of us would allow that these days!. My parents built me a small greenhouse that unfortunately burned, but fortunately did not burn down the entire garage that it was attached to. I built a sterile case with a friend when I was fourteen and I sowed my first successful flasks of orchid seed. My friend prepared his mold cultures in the case - amazing i succeeded without contamination in ALL the flasks! I irradiated a few plants for science fair projects until I discovered that irradiating drosophila was more interesting. Although I was obsessed with orchids, music intervened and I entered college on a music scholarship. I was perhaps the youngest member of the Nashville Symphony in 1966 - asst. 1st oboist at age 19. My mother killed all of my orchids except for two or three while I was in Nashville. From there I moved to Kansas and shifted my academic inerests to child development and psychology, built another greenhouse, and began hybridizing Phals around 1969. I operated a photography business part time. I moved to Minnesota in 1975 with about 1500 orchids - mainly Catts and Phals. I built - and rebuilt - a 500 sq. ft. greenhouse that was bulging with plants until I finally built a new polycarbonate and steel frame house in 1998 - about 2000 sq ft. I began hybridizing Paphs and Phrags around that time, and I bought out all the flasks from White River Orchids when Janice retired. Since then, I have continued to hybridize Paphs and Phrags and a few other odds and ends, and over the last couple of years I have been swapping plants, pollen, and seed with Carson Whitlow in an effort to resume some blue Catt breeding. I have too many interests and hobbies to ever live long enough to explore everything as much as I would like..sailing, gemstone faceting, goldsmithing, and casting, and every kind of do-it-yourself related to owning a 130 year old Victorian brick home and a greenhouse. Lately, I have also become a bit obsessed with computers and digital photography, and I am the webmaster for The Slipper Orchid Alliance. I will doubtlessly be pestering some of you for donations of digital images for the SOA! -- Rod Knowles
