The Merritt Symposium was definitely better than last year and I'm glad I went. There was a bit lower attendance, but that made it really low key and easy to talk to people and such. Margueritte Webb from J&L Orchids gave a nice talk on miniatures with lots of photos. I was going to buy some madsies, a pleuro or two, and maybe a Haraella but I got too tired of squinting to see all the flowers! The heck with those teeny tiny things.
Glen Decker gave a talk on general phrag culture and I learned a lot of new stuff, but that's just because I didin't know much about phrag culture to begin with. He wrapped up the talk with kovachii stuff, about the whole endeavor to get seedlings and the poor job Peru is doing about conservatoin and such. Glen is such a friendly guy, it was nice to chat with him. It was nice to see lots of slippers at the symposium because last year it was all Cattleya alliance stuff all around. Glen had tons of stuff for sale too, parvi and parvi primaries all in bud, sanderianum and sand. hybrids, other paph species in bud, and even a couple dozen kovachii seedlings. I think Glen's stuff was real nice, but a bit overpriced, so I didn't purchase anything from him. Other vendors were Waldor, Orchid Enterprise, Seacrest Orchids , and a couple more I don't remember.
I won a door prize (see paph gallery) and took home a Cypripedium hybrid from Orchid Enterprise. Cyp. parviflorum var pub x C. calceolus. I'm hoping it doesn't die on me, and beyond excited to see it bloom in the spring.
There were lots of plants that I photographed, but the lighting in the venue sucked bigtime and the photos are crappy, sorry.
