Stephen Moffitt Recounts a Near-Lifelong Adventure with Orchids

In this article, long-time and life member Stephen Moffitt recounts his story about how he became interested in orchids as a young teenager and is now a successful grower and hybridizer with a special love for the Catasetum genus.

I was in my early teens when I saw my first live orchid plant. I had been interested in flowers and plants since I can remember. I was reared on a farm in North Carolina and plants (mostly food crops) were a big part of our daily lives. We moved to Houston when I was nine. I was about 13 years old when my mother worked for a fertilizer company. Her boss was Joe Tennant. As part of my mother’s secretarial duties she had to keep up an inventory listing of Joe’s orchids that he grew at his greenhouse. One day she asked Joe how he grew them and he gave her a Cattleya with three buds on it. She brought it home and gave it to me to take care of. I did some research at the library and that started me on my way. I thought surely the “experts” in the books I read had to be mistaken about the fact that orchids did not grow in dirt. I decided that a good compromise would be to repot the plant in rotten wood instead of bark. I repotted the Cattleya in some rotten pine wood I got out of the woods. Before long it was dead. The plant lived long enough to bloom. The purple blossoms were magnificent and the fragrance was wonderful.

My mother told Joe how much I liked the orchid. He invited me to come to his greenhouse and work with him for a day. I was amazed. I purchased my first orchid in 1971. It was a Renanthera seedling cross. I grew it with my African violets under lights. I obtained a few more from a local grower in Houston. Unfortunately, I did not do any research on the plants before I purchased them. Many of them had no chance of success even surviving in this Houston heat. A prime example was Odontoglossum grande.

Shortly after that I joined the Houston Orchid Society and really began my orchid adventure. I recall that Renee and Marvin Gerber were especially warm and friendly and helped me on my way to a lifetime of orchid camaraderie. I was introduced to May and Craig Orchids at that time. I received a lot of good firsthand information and guidance from Jean May and Donna Craig. I constructed my first greenhouse from a metal building frame and some fiberglass. It was a 10’ x 12’ x 10’. I thought it was huge.

One of the first plants I purchased from May and Craig Orchids was an Oncidium cross. It was a new cross at the time and very nice with a lot of red in the blooms. I had been introduced to Ed Hertel and went to visit him. While I was there he told me he was going to put in a display in the orchid show at Memorial City Mall. I told him about my Oncidium and he advised me to put it in his display. It won a first-place blue ribbon and I was hooked for life.

In 1989 I got a catalog from Jones and Scully out of Florida. They were viewed by most orchid growers as the “crème de la crème” of orchid vendors. They had many beautiful plants but they were priced out of my reach. I think that made me want them even more. By this time, I had subscribed to the AOS Bulletin. There was an ad in the AOS Bulletin from Jones and Scully for four Catasetums at a special package price. The pictures of the blooms were fantastic and I ordered the plants. I knew nothing about them at that time. Not long after I received the Catasetums, one of them put up a bloom spike. I was very excited because the picture of this plant was of a huge yellow with red spots. The bloom spike had three blooms on it but they were completely green, small, and ugly. They did not look like the picture in the catalog at all. It was obvious to me that I had been swindled. I wrote a letter to Jones and Scully informing them that they had shipped me the wrong plant and I wanted the plant I had paid for. Shortly thereafter, I received a very nice letter from Jones and Scully explaining to me that they had shipped the correct plant and the blooms that I observed were female and not male blooms. Male blooms are pictured in the catalog. Of course, I felt like a fool.

Two years passed and my “huge” 10’ x 12’ x 10’ greenhouse was packed with orchids. I had to expand. I contracted my good friend Vernon Wiersema to build a 15’ x 30’ x 12’ greenhouse. It was a structure with a 3” diameter PVC frame construction with fiberglass walls on the outside and a liner on the inside made of fiber and plastic. This created a dead air space between the fiberglass and the inside of the greenhouse which provided good insulation. This construction proved valuable when one winter the temperature fell to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. My orchids did fine. Many of our local growers lost their collection even though their heaters were going full blast. Vernon also designed the heating system using a water heater, a solar pump, a used AC condenser coil, a furnace fan, and several thermostats. It worked efficiently and well.

Around this time my wife and I decided that we wanted to enter an exhibit in the Houston Orchid Society Show at the Galleria. This was going to be a big show with several AOS-affiliated groups participating. This was going to be our first exhibit, and it was very exciting and fun to work on. The theme for the show was “Orchid Round Up.” We had a floor exhibit with about six blooming orchids. Only one of the plants got a ribbon but the exhibit won the trophy for best novice exhibit. I recall one of the experienced exhibitors pointed out some problems with some of the other exhibits that probably kept them from getting a trophy. The most memorable exhibit was the one with real “cow chips” in it. I recall a particular Summer Workshop that I attended in mid-1980. Anita Aldrich presented a workshop demonstration on how to construct a one-plant display for entry in a show. It was very inspiring and I will always remember it. I always think of that presentation when I try to use the excuse: “I don’t have enough orchids blooming to do a display!”

I attended a Houston Orchid Society meeting and the guest speaker was an orchid grower in Florida. He grew his orchids all year in several large greenhouses. A hurricane hit Florida and his greenhouses. The roofs and sides of his greenhouses were destroyed. Right after the storm cleared, he covered the plants with shade cloth to prevent them from sunburn. He was not able to replace the greenhouses that season. He was very certain that he would lose most of his plants because they would be subject to frequent rainstorms that would leave them wet for extended times. He had an extensive Paphiopedilum collection, and everyone “knows” that you can’t leave your plants wet overnight in the greenhouse or they will succumb to fungal and bacterial rot. As time went by and many rainy days and nights passed, he observed that his plants were growing with a vigor he had never seen before. He was not observing the massive rot he had expected. The psudobulbs on his Cattleyas were larger and growth was better on most all his orchids. Even the Paphiopedilums were growing better than when they were in the greenhouse. He concluded that the open-air exposure to the orchids was the key. There was always a breeze to supply plenty of fresh air movement around the orchids. This gave me an idea. I had always grown my orchids exclusively in the greenhouse. I would have difficulty with excessive heat during the hot summer days even with shade cloth and an efficient ventilation system. Vernon built a shade house for me that was 20’ x 30’ x 12’ and ever since I have grown my orchids in this shade house except in the winter. Phalaenopsis are the only orchids that I have had trouble growing outside under shade cloth. At one time I had over a thousand different kinds of orchids.

Sometime in the early 1990s I presented a slideshow presentation on Catasetums at the monthly Galveston Orchid Society meeting. I had brought a good number of Catasetums to sell. The presentation and sale were a big success, according to several who commented after the meeting. A couple years later I was contacted by Sue Bottom who lives in St. Augustine Florida. She had attended the Galveston Orchid Society meeting and purchased some plants from me. She had lost the tag on one of the Catasetums she bought. She was wondering if I could ID it from a photo she sent me. I knew exactly what the ID was. This particular cultivar had a genetic defect and sometimes produces deformed flower spikes. I had already disposed of my clone. I advised her to trash the plant. I picked out several Catasetums from my collection and shipped them to her at no charge. She was very surprised and pleased. She advised me that she had an extra “GoDaddy” account and she was going to set up a website for me. Hence, www.catasetanie.com was born.