Monthly Meeting - Techniques for Growing Miniatures Indoors with Alex Shepack

Monthly Meeting - There is always more room!: Techniques for growing miniatures indoors

Miniature orchids are endearing and exciting to grow, and their small size makes them wonderful for indoor growing setups. Indoor growing presents great opportunities for the culture of cool and intermediate species in a variety of climates. This talk will cover a variety of indoor growing setups from terraria to clay pipes, grow tents to wine coolers. We'll cover ways to create adaptable growing spaces that can meet even the most challenging orchids' needs with minimal effort. We'll also discuss a number of species that work well in these setups, and how to easily create your own indoor growing spaces. 

Guest speaker Alex Shepack is a biologist specializing in tropical ecology. A long-time poison dart frog keeper, Alex's passion for miniature orchids began with terraria. Now, Alex maintains over 600 species of orchids in a variety of growing setups including wine coolers and grow tents. His collection is largely focused on Pleurothallids, especially Lepanthes and cold-growing species. Alex has grown orchids in southern Illinois, Miami, northern Indiana, and now Colorado. He focuses on moveable, replicable setups like grow tents and wine coolers that can maintain a variety of species in tightly controlled conditions. Alex continues to work on projects in Costa Rica and Panama while caring for his orchids at home. 

Please have your plants on the show table by 11 a.m.

Lunch is pot luck so please consider bringing a dish to share.