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FEATURED RESIDENT: Dave Veach

Back in August of 2010, on a visit to the Big Island of Hawaii, we visited an orchid nursery named
Akatsuka Orchid Gardens. I had never been to an orchid nursery before and was very impressed by
all of the beautiful plants that were available. As we looked through the various orchids and aroids, I
happen to come across what they called ‘flasks’. It said that they were orchids that had been germi-
nated from seeds and that each flask contained approximately 40 orchids. And the price of the flask
was right around $40. Being the frugal type that I am, I figured 40 orchids for $40 seems like a
much better deal than $25 for a single orchid. So, I bought a flask and brought it home.

When I got home, I followed the instruc- Cattleya Persepolis
tions for deflasking the little orchids. I ‘Splendor’
went out and bought some moss, put them in a tray, watered them and waited for them
to grow. I managed to get 45 orchids out of that flask. Little did I realize that there is a
specific type of moss for growing orchids. I had bought decorative moss and used that
to plant my little orchids. Needless to say, over the next month or so, 44 of my 45 little
orchids died. I was a mass orchid murderer on my first orchid growing attempt. But,
that one orchid, which is a Cattleya Persepolis ‘Splendor’, that survived is still with me
today. It took over 7 years until I was able to get it to bloom but bloom it eventually
did. And now it blooms for me a couple of times a year.
But let’s take a step back first. As it turns out, growing orchids is in my blood (or at
least my blood line). Back in the mid-1800s, Harry Veitch (one of the earlier spellings of our family name) created the foremost nursery in the
world in England. He is credited with being the first business to send plant collectors out to various parts of the world and those collectors
brought back plants to his nursery. One of the types of plants that were brought back were orchids. His nursery is credited with creating the first
orchid hybrid in the world. So, as you can see, orchids were my destiny.
OK, back to my story. After my first attempt at growing orchids, most people would have
been pretty discouraged. But, I decided that I needed to learn more to take care of my one
surviving orchid. So, I went to a meeting of the Sacramento Orchid Society. At that meet-
ing I won an orchid, a Dendrobium Green Lantern, from the raffle table. I had doubled my
orchid collection! After that, I visited Exotic Plants in Sacramento and they were having a
sale and I bought an Oncidium from them. Shortly thereafter, my daughter gave me a
Phalaenopsis and now I had quite a collection. These 3 orchids were the extent of my in-
creasing orchid collection in 2011. I still have all of these orchids although sadly, that first
Dendrobium Phalaenopsis died this winter. I said a few words over it before I chucked in the recycle
Green Lantern
bin.

In 2012, I only acquired one new orchid. That was when I went to the Sacramento Dendrobium
Orchid Society Show and Sale for the first time. I purchased a Dendrobium Love nobile Love
Memory ‘Fizz’ there and still have that orchid as well. Needless to say, seeing the Memory ‘Fizz’
variety of orchids that were available at the show was when the seeds of my obses-
sion, I mean hobby, were planted. In 2013 and 2014 I acquired another 6 orchids. I
was now up to 11 orchids so I was almost an orchidist (probably not a real word but
let’s go with it).
Then, in 2015, it really bit me hard. I ac-
quired an additional 34 orchids that year. I
was now getting to a point where I had to do
something. So, I now had to find a way to
grow my orchids somewhere other than all over the house. I purchased a little tiny ‘greenhouse’ which
was about 2 feet deep by 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall. I installed a fogger to increase the humidity and
moved most of my orchids out into my little greenhouse. Many of them started blooming in their new
home so I knew that if I kept getting more orchids, I’d have to get something bigger to put them in.
During this time, as my collection was growing, I was very active in the Sacramento Orchid Society. I
helped out where I could and eventually became a member (director) on the Society’s board. I’m still on
the board today but have moved up in the leadership chain. More on that later.
Dave’s only AOS awarded plant, As I said before, my collection was growing rapidly and over the course of 2016 I managed to acquire
named for his wife Diane another 30 or 50 or so (it was a bunch) more orchids. My tiny greenhouse was not going to cut it anymore
April 2023 Page 31