Tuesday, September 17, 2019
OSMT Meeting at Cheekwood

7 pm Presentation: Brandon Tam on “Growing Paphs The Huntington Way”

Location: Cheekwood Botanical Gardens – directions, 1200 Forrest Park Drive, Nashville Tennessee 37205

Brandon Tam is the orchid curator at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, part of metro Los Angeles.

The current director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens, Jim Folsom, got his PhD studying orchids. In 2000 he began rebuilding the orchid collection. Eight years ago he hired then-16-year-old Brandon Tam to become curator of a new orchid collection. In 2010 the Paphiopedilum collection of Robert Weltz of Montecito, CA was donated after his death. Weltz was a master grower; among his achievements was a 100-point FCC for Paphiopedilum dollgoldi ‘Laurie Susan Weltz’. Mr. Weltz kept extensive and detailed hand-written records on file cards on each plant, including people who had come to see the plant, and where he had sent pollen, and the judging history of each plant.

One of the 3 orchid greenhouses at The Huntington Library

The Huntington collection now consists of 10,000+ orchids species and hybrid orchids, acquired through donation and purchase. Brandon’s plants have earned more than 100 AOS awards in the last three years, including 5 FCC and three CCE. The Huntington received the 2015 AOS Merritt Huntington award for the Most Outstanding Orchid.

Video Link – Slipper Orchids at the Huntington • Los Angeles Highlights include finding a Cattleya rex in bloom.