Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
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 September until Sunday 22nd September. 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).
Victorian Orchids of the Year
These will be judged on Sunday the 14th Feburary and results will be posted on this site as soon as possible after that date.
Australian Orchid Conference
If you have not seen this show and it is still before the 13th September I would recommend you go and see it. It is third of 3 great shows. The OSCOV display won Best Large Society Display as well as many other prizes. It is a credit to Colin and Karen Gillespie who helped us put up such a wonderful display. Colin and Karen Gillespie also won Champion Large Cymbidium with Cymbidium Valley Splash 'Awesome' (which also won the Australian Cymbidium Show) and had Cymbidium Lumines awarded a HCC. Vinny Dinh won Champion Miniature Cymbidium, Champion Cymbidium Specimen and Champion Cymbidium with Cymbidium Fairy Rouge 'Lavender Falls' which was also awarded a cultural certificate. Dieter Weise won Champion American Species with Lycaste. lasioglossa and Champion Paphiopedilum Species with Paphiopedilim venustum which was also granted an AM and a cultural certificate. Andy Tran was awarded an AD for his Cymbidium Hazel Tyres x Maggie Fay. Appart form this many other firsts and seconds were won by the stand. On Clive and Aggie Halls stand they won Champion Masdevallia and Champion Hybrid of the show with Masdevallia Rubicon which was also awarded an AM. Castle Creek Orchids won Champion Paphiopedilium Hybrid and I think this plant was also awarded. I must take this chance to thank all those who helped with plants and congratulate all. I hope to post some pics later today when I get a chance.
And a word from the Society pages editor:
On behalf of the OSCOV societies and members I would like to thank our current President, Stephen and his wife Meryl Early for transporting our plants, setting up the display, writing our labels, etc. etc. Without your dedicated work on behalf of OSCOV I don't believe we would have achieved anywhere near this result. Thanks again.
Barry Larkin, (Past Pres. 1998-2003)
Australian Cymbidium Show
Another superb show with the greatest display of Cymbidiums I have seen in Melbourne. The growers deserve to be congratulated. I will post some pics of this show shortly when I get a chance.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular
From everyone I have talked to this show was a great success. I will post photos shortly but have been very busy with both the National Cymbidium Show and the Australian Orchid Conference. Victoria has been blessed to have 3 such great shows. The executive is now looking forward to what has to be done for next years show to make it bigger and better.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular & Victorian International Orchid Fair
The judging of the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular has now been completed and congratulations go to Colin and Karen Gillespie for winning the Champion Orchid Non Commercial with Cym Khan Flame 'Tuscanny' and Orchid Species Plus for winning the Champion Orchid Commercial with Epidendrum parkinsonianum 'Fitzy'. The full list of champions can be found with this link I will add pictures shortly when I get them. The individual class winners can be found following this link. The show looks great and should not be missed. The first day for the public is tomorrow (Friday 21st August) and no one should miss it.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular & Victorian International Orchid Fair - Update
The organisation of the show is progressing well thanks to the work of a large number of people. We are pleased to announce the support of the City of Greater Dandenong. The schedule for the show can be obtained from our show page As you can see from this schedule we have had a lot of support from sponsors and now all Champions are sponsored. This is a big plus in enabling this show to avoid making a loss as the costs are large. A number of others are also sponsoring the first and second places and again we are most thankfull. Dont forget to organise tickets to the dinner. We will have to inform our caterer of numbersbefore the start of the show so we need to know soon who is coming.
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular & Victorian International Orchid Fair - Update
We are pleased to announce the support of Magic1278 for the show. This along with Biogrow and Neutrog will be a great help in putting on a successful show. We also have a large list of smaller sponsors and wish to thank all those. A full list of sponsors can be pound on our show page. We are opening the show on Friday night and to help celebrate this unique event we are holding a free door prize raffle for all those who enter between 6pm and 8pm. The major prize is a glasshouse humidifier valued at $450 along with a number of other prizes. The show schedule is near completion with all but a few of the major prizes now sponsored. When complete this will be published but it is very similar to last years schedule which is still avaliable from our show page. Anyone who wishes to sponsor a section please contact us. We will be holding our annual dinner on saturday night and tickets can be obtained from Frankie Fraser.
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
Melbourne Orchid Spectacular Update
The work has been continuing for the Melbourne Orchid Spectacular (OSCOV Show) to be held from August 21st to 23rd. I am pleased to announce that Bio-Gro has agreed to be the major sponsor for the show and Neutrog will also be a sponsor of the show. Many other smaller sponsorships are being organised and anyone who would like to sponsor please let us know. In other news the Victorian International Orchid Fair who is organising all the commercial sellers tells that they have commitments from 26 sellers including one from overseas with flasks and another who sells the latest seedlings from George Hatfield who is the leading Cymbidium grower in the USA. The show will be the major orchid event in Victoria this year and we are working hard to make it as good as it can be. More details will be given later when they are finalised.
Orchids of the Year - 2008
The results for Orchids of the Year - 2008 aree avaliable on this link. Congradulations go to Castle Creek Orchids for winning the main prize with Paphiopedilum Dark Arrow 'Castle Creek' AM/OSCOV.
Bushfires in Victoria
The thoughts of the OSCOV Executive, all member societies and all orchid growers are with those who have suffered losses in the bushfires. Fortunately as of yet I know of no orchid growwer who has suffered loss. So far I have only heard that people I know are safe but I am fearfull that this may not remain the case. There are still a large number of fires burning and I am fearful that this may not remain the case. Any donationations can be sent to the Red Cross at www.redcross.org.au
Award Details
I have just uploaded updated lists of awards. These can be found under the OSCOV pages menu.
Photograph Gallery - Major Update
A major update of our photogallery has just been completed. It now contains over 1000 images (more will be added slowly), mostly of awarded orchids. The photographs are in alphabetic order and in most cases using the name they went under when awarded. When the naming of some of the major genera settles down they will be resorted according to their current name. If you have any problems just let me know on web@oscov.asn.au
OSCOV Show (The Melbourne Orchid Spectacular) - 2009
Friday 21st August - Sunday 23rd August
As many people are already aware Collectors Corner has decided to no longer host this show. The OSCOV executive decided to hold the show itself and the news just gets better. It will be held on the 21st - 23rd August 2009 (1 week later). The new venue will be the Springers Leisure Center which is less than 2 km away in Cheltenham Rd Keysborough. The main hall is 3 times the size of the tent we used last year and should look fantastic. We plan to have many more Commercial Sellers at this show and the event should be bigger than past years. More details will follow. Put this date in your diary as I am confident people will not want to miss the largest annual show held in Australia.
