03/04/2026
The monthly meeting will be held this Sunday, March 8th at the clubhouse in Colony in the Wood, 4000 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., Port Orange. Don't miss our speaker, Kenneth Stokes. He will speak on the approaches to being a tropical plant collector. Some insight of his talk below.
"Collecting is more than the gathering of a bunch of things that are available into one
group or display. To be successful, it requires that you understand the category and have some
knowledge of it. Expertise will come on the category as you research, study and experiment with
the growing of plants in a plant family or specific genera.
As people join plant societies or have access to new varieties of plants, they often begin
by buying what is pretty, attractive, available and inexpensive. This is not collecting, but rather
accumulating. Regrets come later when you find out the plant cannot live outside a greenhouse,
it is invasive, is a rampant grower, is seasonally dormant, will cover the ground with rotting fruit,
emits a foul smell when it blooms or will rot every summer or freezes in the winter.
Kenneth will share suggestions on how to evaluate your current plant accumulation, goals
in landscaping, symbiotic relationships of plants, collection categories, buying rare plants and
what makes them rare. He will also present some experiences of some plant disasters coming
from not understanding the true nature of the plant.
He will bring rare plants for display as teaching examples and for sale. Sale plants can be
purchased before the presentation, then picked up afterwards. They will include Bromeliads,
Euphorbias, Aroids, Ferns, Sansevieria and other unusual plants."
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