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Photo by L.T.

Orchids are my hobby and one of my passions. I love helping people and simplifying Orchid care for them. I worked for Rod Mclellan Company "Acres of Orchids" years ago when they were the world's largest leading Orchid Company. They grew over one hundred thousand Orchids at any given time in over 100 acres of greenhouses located between South San Francisco and Watsonville.

Working for them I wore more and more hats over the years as my job responsibilities increased and my job title changed. I was not only the company Orchid expert eventually, but later carried the brand in everything I did for the company as their human face to the public. Rod McLellan Company was a wonderful company and was bought years ago and renamed McLellan Botanicals. I feel very appreciative and lucky to have worked there for so long. The people I worked with were amazing, good people.

The two most informative overall Orchid Books that we recommend are Orchid Grower’s Companion: Cultivation, Propagation, and Varieties and Flora's Orchids.

At Rod McLellan Company at various points in my career some of the things I did for them were, in order what I did in early to later years:

1. managed, trained, oversaw staff who took care of many large greenhouses full of tens of thousands of plants
2. managed my employees in early years to oversee thousands of breeding plants, worth between $25 to $10,000 each plant
3. my staff also cared for sick Orchids of all varieties, nursing them back to health
4. eventually became public speaker giving hundreds of on and offsite talks to groups of 10-200 people
5. staff trainer (did lots of motivation as well)
6. became company photographer with collection of over 2000 final images in full library room for publication usage
7. did R&D for new Orchids and other plants
8. hybridized new varieties of Orchids for the company so became an expert in this
9. traveled extensively visiting other Orchid Growers, identifying new plants to grow, making connections
10. became an Orchid judge
11. eventually did design work
12. later did advertising work
13. wrote ads and articles for publications, was featured in newspapers, books, magazines, including featured article on Colmanara Wildcat in Orchids magazine distributed to roughly 100,000 people
14. photography I did was fetaured in many magazines, books, newspapers
15. designed themed company displays for Pacific Orchid Exposition, selected Orchids, was at POE show for interviews and to help people, was on TV for one themed display - that year had recreated a 1920's ballroom full of Orchids with dancers projected on stage display screen
16. and much more

If you have questions or comments, I'd rather if you could post them as comments to one of our blogs and I will post answers. The most interactive place on this site is the blogs. I will be updating them most evenings, so please tell your friends! I will also be making other enhancements to this site. :-)