Special Guest Tom Mirenda - Humboldt Orchid Society
Schedule
Tue Apr 30 2024 at 05:30 pm
Location
Redwood Art Association, 603 F St, Eureka, CA | Eureka, CA
Date: Tues, April 30, 2024Time: 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Place: Redwood Art Association, 603 F St, Eureka, CA
Speaker: Tom Mirenda
Topic: Mysteries of Orchid Pollination
HOS has a very special speaker on Tuesday April 30th -- Tom Mirenda! Join us to hear about the Mysteries of Orchid Pollination. Flowers are all about beauty. But to the plants, flowers are all about sex, i.e. pollination.
Many of you may have heard of Tom Mirenda. Tom has been cultivating plants since his early childhood. Originally trained as a Marine Biologist, Tom moved to Hawaii in his early 20s and there he realized he enjoyed horticulture and took positions at New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanical Garden and at the Incredible Greentree Estate in Long Island where he cared for a first class Orchid collection. Eventually Tom accepted the Orchid Collection Specialist Position at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC where he cultivated and curated a huge diverse orchid collection for 17 years. The collection was used to create educational orchid exhibits displayed to literally millions of visitors each year.
Recently, Tom decided to take a leadership position at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, an exceptionally beautiful jewel on the lush Hamakua coast just north of Hilo on the Big Island. What Tom found there was an orchid paradise where myriad spectacular orchids of all types, both lowland and montane species and hybrids seem to thrive, simply planted in the trees.