Category Archives: Meetings

Thanh Nguyen is an owner-operator of Springwater Orchids (Melbourne, FL). He is an engineer by trade, but also has been collecting and growing orchids for over 30 years. His orchid business began in 2001, mainly selling on the internet but gradually moved to orchid shows in recent years.

Thanh loves orchid species. And although he grows and sells all orchids genera, his forte has always been the genus of Paphiopedilum. He collects fine plants; grows, sells, breeds, and enjoys sharing his experiences with his customers and colleagues. His passion in paphs is reflected in award winning plants and an on-going paphs breeding program using local lab work, and local growing environment. His goals are to bring the excellence of a paphs breeding program back to America and augment the enthusiasm of paphs growing by way of sharing his growing experience and educational programs via shows and society speeches. You will see this through his breeding program with a well thought out process to target various audiences; from easy growing/flowering plants to state of the art breeding catered to most difficult collectors’ interest, in parallel with the conservation of breeding species, improving color and shape, broadening their growing conditions to make growing paphs a joy, not an aggravation.     Thanh will have orchids for sale.  Give it a try, and buy a paph/orchid seedling!

Speaker: Alan Koch

Topic: Miniature Cattleyas in Warm Climates

Alan Koch owns and operates Gold Country Orchids where he specializes in miniature and compact Cattleya’s. Alan started growing orchids in 1969 with 3 Cymbidiums given to him by an aunt. While in
college, he became interested in other orchids and discovered many would grow outdoors in Southern California. He has moved five times as his orchid obsession has led to the need for more growing space. With the last move, he purchased 10 acres of land in Lincoln, California for his 300,000 orchids. He is recognized as an expert in the Brazilian Cattleya alliance and a trend setter in miniature Cattleya breeding.

Alan has been published in the Orchid Digest, and the American Orchid Society magazines. He has also been published in the proceedings of the World Orchid Conference. He is an internationally known speaker. He is a past member of the AOS Judging Committee, and the Research Committee, as well as an Accredited Judge and is Vice-chair and Training Coordinator for the California Sierra Nevada Judging Center. Alan also served two terms on the Orchid Digest Executive Committee and Board of Directors, and is one of the current directors, as well as a Trustee for the AOS.

Alan will have plants for sale.