50 Years as a Member
50 Years as a Member
Walter Crawford celebrates 50 years as a member of the Wisconsin Orchid Society this year. His golden anniversary with the club was commemorated at our July meeting with a lovely ice cream cake created by our club secretary Mary Meyer.
Walter joined the WOS and the American Orchid Society in 1976. His journey with orchids began when his sister gave him a catalog from Orchids by Hausermann. Walter was amazed by the variety and beauty of the flowers and soon made a visit there himself.
Hausermann’s, located in the Chicago area, is a large orchid nursery with several greenhouses filled with many different types of orchids. Walter bought six orchids on his first visit. In his 50 years as an orchid enthusiast, he has bought and grown thousands more.
At the time his hobby started, Walter was living in what turned out to be a perfect apartment for growing orchids. One of the rooms had 12-foot ceilings and floor to ceiling west-facing windows. Not only did this provide ideal light, but it left him lots of room for more orchids.
When Walter joined the WOS, meetings were held in the Boat House at Mitchell Park in Milwaukee. The meetings then moved to a mental health facility and finally to Mt. Carmel Lutheran Church where the club still meets. Annual shows for the club were held at Mayfair Mall and Brookfield Square Mall before moving to Mitchell Park Domes.
Walter loves to grow species of orchids as opposed to hybrids. He likes the fact that you know what to expect from species and that they are true to the natural evolution of each plant. The flowers of hybrids are usually created by people crossing two orchids, harvesting the seeds, and growing the seedlings. Seed grown hybrids are often named but the flowers will not be uniform in color, shape, and other characteristics.
When Walter attended the first Chicagoland Orchid Festival in 1994, he was exposed to several growers who specialized in or sold miniature orchids, including: Andy’s Orchids, Oak Hill Gardens, Hoosier Orchids, Klehm’s, and Ecuagenera. He developed a fascination for miniatures and focuses mostly on miniature orchids to this day.
Walter has 104 awards from the American Orchid Society as well as countless blue ribbons from meetings and shows. His advice to beginning orchid growers – do your research and learn about how to correctly care for your plants. He uses reputable sources such as the American Orchid Society site (https://www.aos.org/ ), Jay’s Internet Orchid Photo Encyclopedia (https://www.orchidspecies.com/indexde.htm ), and Orchid Wiz, an online orchid encyclopedia (https://www.orchidwiz.com/ ).
Walter is a valuable and very knowledgeable member of our club and we are grateful for his many services to the WOS. We look forward to many more years of Walter’s contributions to the success of the Wisconsin Orchid Society.
