Steve Hawkins “Oncidiums”
Steve’s career started with a couple of Cattleya orchids on a windowsill in a Kansas farmhouse at the age of 15. After graduating college with a degree in horticulture, Steve started work at Rod McLellan Co., “Acres of Orchids”, in South San Francisco, first as a grower and later as hybridizer and sales manager over a 13 year period. Shortly after moving to Florida in 1988, he began his own nursery, Orchid Specialists, in Apopka, and grows a wide variety of orchids and some unusual tropicals in a 6000 square foot greenhouse.
His focus is on serving individuals and small businesses and educating the public with presentations to garden clubs and other organizations. He is a well-known speaker at numerous area and regional orchid societies and is a member of both the Central Florida Orchid Society and American Orchid Society. He does most of the work himself, but is helped by his hobbyist sister, Linda, at the many orchid shows and other venues where he exhibits.
He always saves time at the end of his presentations for questions and answers and will have a great selection of orchids for sale.
n, Marie Selby Gardens in Sarasota. Born in Brazil, he received his PhD from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, through the University of Reading and has completed several expeditions to the Amazon in search of Pleurothallids. The Pleurothallid alliance of New World orchids includes popular genera such as Masdevallia and Dracula and Dr. Toscano is the world’s leading expert on the more than 4000 species of these amazing orchids.