I just returned from my stay in Miami, and here is two plants that welcomed me with flowers, 'Emerald Isle' and Mary Jo McNerney.
Because I only had one day to spend "Orchid-hopping", I had to pass up the visit to Fairchild. Fairchild is so huge and travel so difficult (traffic was just horrible!), I knew if we chose to go there we would be unable to go anywhere else. Instead we opted to visit a much smaller Botanical Garden in South Beach and then traveled down to Homestead and visited three nurseries. One nursery specialized in Phal. (beautiful plants but of little interest), one specialized in Vanda and rare Staghorn Ferns (interested but no room to bring any back), and then a nursery that specialized in Cattleya Alliance plants, and did their own hybridizing and cloning. The first place was owned by a Mexican-American family, the next by a Thailand-American family, and the third by a Cuban-American family. Though none of the three of us bought anything, I did make two good contacts for future buying (no Phal.).
Many of the orchids and staghorns growing on trees at the Botanical Garden was unlabeled. I asked one of the (office) workers if there was anyone who could name some of the plants, and she said: "Wait right here and I will go get our senior horticulturist. He just loves to talk about his plants". When he came, and found out I wanted names of both staghorns and orchids, he called his #2-man, a fella that was his "orchid" expert. The two of them showed and talked about all the plants we had interest in, and then I noticed that there was a shade-house in one corner of the property that was not available to the public. I asked what was behind the fence, under the shading, and was told that was where they had hundreds of unlabeled orchids and was in the process of re-potting and naming as many as they could. They just said: "Come on, we'll open it all up for you", and we proceeded to that closed-off area. There were some beautiful,though neglected orchids/staghorns there. I almost begged to be allowed to purchase a few plants (I WILL beg for orchids!), and even promised to tell them what the plants were when they bloomed, but they declined. The orchid horticulturist took my card and promised to send me a list in the spring of what they would/could sell. Time will tell if that happens. You could tell they both loved to talk about (their) plants, especially to people who had knowledge of what they were growing.
