Sobralia Orchids will be the topic of this month’s meeting.
The monthly meeting of the Malibu Orchid Society will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom on Tuesdday, March 17. This month’s speaker is Tim Culbertson who will speak on Sobralias, a delightful genus with stunning beautiful flowers that can be easily grown outdoors.
There are about 100 Sobralia species found throughout Central and South America. The plants are usually medium to tall terrestrials, rarely ephiphytes, with reedlike stems and plicate leaves.
Culbertson will discuss various varieties of Sobralias and how to achieved great growing results. He will provide an overview of these recent modern hybridization developments that seek to breed new and different plants that have larger and longer-lasting flowers.
His day job is teaching middle school kids, but his passion for orchids began after college when he worked at Longwood Gardens in Philadelphia.
Additionally, he tended the orchids at the Smithsonian Institution and for years at the United States National Arboretum, collecting rare plants and documenting cultivated species and hybrids for their herbarium.
Culbertson said he began with Paphiopedilum, particularly awarded and select clones of historic importance, of which his own collection now numbers nearly 3,000. While he loves finding old, rare stepping stones in Paph breeding, he also does a little hybridizing of his own. “Growing up my own babies is a blast!”
To receive the zoom link, click here.
(Editor’s note: The Malibu Orchid Society is an award-winning, volunteer-run, 501(c) (3) non-profit organization formed in the spring of 1963 to develop interest in orchids; to aid and assist members with orchid growing and culture; and to provide educational information, which shall benefit its members and the community. Although the Society lost a meeting place as a result of the Palisades Fire in 2025, the group continues to meet on Zoom. At each meeting members benefit from expert speakers who present illustrated talks on various orchid genera and their culture.)
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