Hello from Australia

[Gary S]

Hi all,

I have been watching the forum for a few months now and decided to sign up with the new forum to catch up with all the goings on the west coast of the US. I live inland on the mid north coast of NSW and we have cool to cold winters and hot summers. Spring and Autumn are magical times of the year and the orchids are really growing well at the moment. I grow miniature, pendulous and Int Cyms as well as many Australian Native orchids. Cym suave and madidum grow naturally in the bush around here and the southern form of canaliculatum is about 200kms away. Suave is very prevalent around here with colours from clear lime green to a very muddy brown and flower size from 12mm (1/2") to 25mm (1")

So hello to all members and I look forward to many posts and discussion in the future.

Cheers

Gary..

[Nigel]

Welcome Gary.

[Van Deiman]

So, you are in Nambucca Heads, Gary.

[Gary S]

No ,not Nambucca Heads - Gloucester actually, Den kingianum country to be exact. Actually within a 10 km radius we would have at least 25 naturally occurring epiphyte and terrestrial species in situ.

We have a beautiful view of the Buckett's - old volcanic plugs where a lot of the early good kingi's came from in the early days. Some of them are still used in hybridising today with kingianum crosses to re introduce the old genes.

With a signature like Van Deiman - are you in Tassie by any chance?

Gary..

[Van Deiman]

Yes Gary, currently in Tasmania though originally from Lake Macquarie.

My old man used to collect from Gloucester and surrounding areas. 'Bardo Rose' was one of the best in his kingianums. Some very good stuff up in the Nowendoc, Nundle area (particularly cym canaliculatum around Nundle).

[Gary S]

Just curious, did you take orchids to Tassie with the very onerous quarantine standards.

We were originally from the northern part of the Central Coast on the southern end of Lake Macquarie and were looking at northern Tasmania, but when I looked into what was involved with moving plants down there it all got too involved and way to costly. We are glad we chose here as we have great views either side of the valley, nice breezes of an afternoon even on hot days and of course all of the great local orchids to admire in the bush around here.

I have over 500 man made Den speciosums and over 300 kingianum's, so that keeps me busy along with the mini and cascading cyms, a lot of which have our 3 Aussie native cyms in their genetics.

Hope you are enjoying Tassie - it is a magic place.

Cheers

Gary..

[MrCym]

Gary, you have a huge native collection! I can scarcely visualize having 500 Den speciosum plants. What size containers are they in?

[Van Deiman]

Yes Gary, I took plants over to Tas on my first return trip some 10 years ago, but I lived in Tas in the 80s. It was rather easy then. However, it is only slightly more complicated now. I take plants back every time I come over to the mainland. The process is to spray them in front of a DPI officer, box and seal them, collect paperwork and that is it, present the paperwork to the other side quarantine officers and start the car up and leave. The spray is Success and Malathion at a prescribed rate.

[Gary S]

Interesting as that was not the scenario I was given when I spoke to Tassie quarantine when we were seriously thinking about moving down there - anyway that is not happening now.

A lot of vendors on the mainland will not sell plants to Tassie due to the procedure in place and paperwork to be done.

Cheers

Gary..