Past President Rick Hepler to Speak at April 13 Meeting
Rick will talk about how he grows 500 slipper orchids!
At our April meeting (which has been moved to Thursday, April 13, because of the church’s Easter activities), Rick Hepler will speak to the Houston Orchid Society about how to successfully grows Paphiopedilums. We rarely have a speaker focus 100% on culture, but we couldn’t think of a better topic for Rick than how he grows such wonderful Paphs!
Rick Hepler is a microbiology technologist with Texas Children’s Hospital as well as a longstanding member of our regional orchid community. He has held leadership positions at both the Houston Orchid Society as well as the Galveston Orchid Society, serving as president for both. He has won numerous ribbons and trophies at shows and has received more than 70 flower quality awards from the American Orchid Society.
Rick cultivates more than 700 different varieties of orchids in a greenhouse, but his favorites are Cypripedioideae (the slipper orchids), which includes the genera Paphiopedilum, Phragmipedium, Cypripedium, Mexipedium, and Selenipedium. Rick currently grows about 500 different slipper orchids in his greenhouse!