Vale - Vic Pearce
1925 - 2010
It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Vic Pearce. He was one of the founders of OSCOV, a great and knowledgeable orchid grower and a gentleman. He was awarded an FCC for his Paphiopedilum micranthum 'Gowrie' in 2003 which also won Orchid of the Year for 2003. He was a commitee member of and involved in a number of societies and was President of Southern Suburbs Orchid Society. He was fundamental in the setting up of OSCOV. The first meeting that lead to the formation of OSCOV was held in his house and he went on to be a foundation Vice President. It was Vic that organised insurances to give cheap insurance to all OSCOV societies. I personally have attended many meetings in his house. He was respected by all and will be sadly missed.
Stephen Early
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
August 20th - 22nd 2010
International Speakers Day
This year we will be holding a seminar on the Saturday featuring 4 well known International speakers. These are:
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Pepe Portilla (Ecuador)
Equagenera
“The Orchids of Equador”
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Fred Clark (U.S.A.)
Sunset Valley Orchids
“Cycnoches & Catasetums”
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Hendrik Vorster (South Africa)
H.Q. Orchids
“My Favourite Orchids of Africa & Madagascar”
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Bill Thoms (U.S.A.)
Hilltop House Orchids
“Growing Orchids into Magnificent Species”
I would have to go back over 20 years since such a group of international speakers have all talked at the one venue in Melbourne. The cost will be $50 per person which includes entrance to the show and sales. Numbers are limited to 100 and a number of tickets have already been sold. You can book tickets by contacting Frankie Fraser on (03) 9802 9929 or at 44 Grantley Dve. Glen Waverley. This is a one off seminar so don’t miss out.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
August 20th - 22nd 2010
THe planning for this year's Orchid Spectacular is well underway. It will be very similar t last year's event except that the show this year will be an open show. The other major change is that we are holding a Seminar in conjunction with the Orchid Spectacular.
Also on the Saturday night we have the Annual OSCOV dinner and presentation of Orchids of the Year. This will also be held at Springers Leisure Centre and tickets camn be purchased from Frankie Fraser on (03) 9802 9929 or Ron Schliefert on (03) 9728 5028. For those staying on for the dinner after the talks or visiting the show there are changing rooms and showers available.
Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show
This year OSCOV put up a display at this show and it can be found on the RHS stand upstairs in the Exhibition Building. I wish to thank Cory Haugh for all his work in co-ordinating this display and Bill & Jan Miles, Cory Haugh, Michael Coker, Clive & Agie Halls, Dieter Weise, Cheryl Luth, Glenda Coutts and others who supplied plants for the display. It was a great effort at this time of the year when not much is flowering.
Victorian Orchids of the Year - 2009
This competion was judged today (14th February 2010). A full list of all winners with images can be found following this link. Congratulations go to Marita Anderson and Chris Waterman for winning the Victorian Orchid of the Year, Victorian Masdevallia of the Year and Victorian Award of Distinction of the Year with their Masdevallia Veitch's Candy Cane 'Super Striper' AM/OSCOV CC/OSCOV AD/OSCOV. All winners will be presented with a large framed print at the annual OSCOV Dinner held in conjunction with the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
August 20th - 22nd 2010
The planning is well underway for this year's Melbourne Orchid Spectacular. The plans are to build on last years success with a few small changes. It will be held from Friday the 20th August until Sunday 22nd August. More information will be made avaliable as it is finalized.
Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show
OSCOV will be putting up a display at this event to help promote the growing of Orchids. For further information Contact Cory Haugh (our Treasurer).
Gerald McCraith AM (1909-2009)
Gerald McCraith AM, one of Australia’s best known orchid growers, has died just three months after celebrating his one hundredth birthday. We offer our sympathy to his daughters June and Lois, and to his extended family, which includes seven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren.
Born on 24 February 1909, Gerald did not have an easy life at first. He was a clever boy, winning a scholarship to Trinity Grammar School (Melbourne) at age 14. However his parents could not afford the cost of his uniform and books, and so Gerald left school to work as a grocer’s boy. By his early thirties Gerald had a wife (Nell) and two daughters to support. They survived the Great Depression by setting up a travelling library in Essendon, lending detective stories, westerns and romances to borrowers at threepence each per week. At first Gerald carried the books around Essendon in a handcart, then (when he could afford to buy them) on a pushbike, and eventually on a motorcycle.
He spent the latter part of World War 2 as a Australian Infantry Forces signals instructor in Darwin, fortunately having been transferred there whilst en route to Singapore – otherwise he would have spent the war in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore. When demobilised in 1944, Gerald joined his brother Jack in the rabbit export business that eventually led to their well-earned prosperity. They set up a chain of portable freezing chambers throughout much of outback Australia, to which their shooters and trappers made daily deliveries. From the late 1940s to the mid 1950s the McCraith Brothers exported an average of 32,000 rabbits each week to England, most of them to the Sainsbury food-store chain.
Gerald began growing orchids in 1927, when he was only 18 years old. He bought Australian native dendrobiums and sarcochilus from a Victoria Market trader, and other orchids from Basil Hodgins’ nursery in Essendon. In 1931 Basil invited Gerald to attend a meeting of the Victorian Orchid Club, which met every second month in those times. About 30-40 members attended the meetings, which were mostly held in an office building in the city. However, on one occasion the usual venue was unavailable, so the meeting was transferred to a garden shed in the Fitzroy Gardens. Gerald recently recalled that he had to spend the evening seated on a very cold iron garden roller because there were insufficient seats available!
Gerald fondly remembered the sugarbag full of Sarcochilus fitzgeraldii that he purchased for 15 shillings in 1934 – many divisions could still be found in his glasshouses seventy years later! About the same time Basil Hodgins proposed that he, Gerald and two others contribute £10 each and order a shipment of orchids from the Bhamo district in Burma. Gerald had misgivings about the venture (£10 was a considerable sum in those hard times) but he agreed to contribute, and in due course received a telephone call to say that a shipment of orchids was waiting to be collected from the wharf at Victoria Docks (there were no quarantine restrictions in those days!). When he arrived in his small van, Gerald found that the shipment comprised a piano case and three tea chests filled with orchids, and that it was therefore necessary to hire a lorry to move them! There were many thunias, paphiopedilums and dendrobiums in the shipment, some of them very large plants. Gerald’s share included 80 plants of Paphiopedilum charlesworthii and many dendrobium species, including a large plant of Dendrobium thyrsiflorum – he still grew a division of that plant 75 years later!
In 1950 Gerald and his wife Nell built their house at 107 Roberts Street in Essendon, where Gerald lived until his death. The first of his two large glasshouses was built at the same time as the residence. Gerald served as President of the Victorian Orchid Club from 1959-1962 and assisted Sir John Hall-Best to form the Australian Orchid Council in 1960. He succeeded Sir John as President of that body in 1963 and played a large part in the organisation of the World Orchid Conference held in Sydney in 1969. At that stage he had already attended two previous world conferences, which are held every three years, and eventually attended every World Orchid Conference between 1963 and 2003, more than any other person.
In 1974 Hermon Slade, Gerald and several other orchid enthusiasts founded the Australian Orchid Foundation with the major aim of raising money to support orchid research in Australia. Hermon Slade set the ball rolling with a donation of $10,000, while Gerald decided to raise funds by breeding odontoglossum hybrids and selling flasks of the resultant seedlings. Over the following 25 years he raised over $70,000 for the Foundation in this way! He registered 200 new crosses and sold 20 seedling flasks of each for the Foundation. The first of these hybrids, registered in April 1976, was Odontioda June Geraldine (Odm. Ostro x Oda. Actrix), named after his elder daughter.
In 1993 Gerald was made a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM) for his services to orchids. He made numerous trips abroad to see orchids in the wild – six trips to Central and South America, four to China and several to Papua New Guinea. Most of these strenuous expeditions were undertaken after he was 80 years old, several of them after he was fitted with a heart pacemaker at age 87. Incidentally, Gerald wore that pacemaker out, and had another fitted in July 2006!
Species orchids were Gerald’s great favourites. He had a large and diverse collection, which he regularly showed at the Orchid Species Society of Victoria’s meetings until shortly before his death. All those who knew Gerald will fondly remember him.
Brian Milligan
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