Tokyo Dome 2024

Caleb shares what he got to see at the Tokyo Dome show in Japan

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Transcript

Rafa

0:09

You're listening to The Orchid Pod.

James

0:13

Hey, welcome back, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to The Orchid Pod. So Caleb, I heard that you recently got back from a trip to Japan and got to see a pretty amazing show there.

Caleb

0:24

Yeah. So I saw I got to go to Japan and just happened to be lucky enough to go to the orchid festival, which was the 34th annual. I have only heard things about it. And, I'll say it lived up to everything I had been told. And then some. So yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about it. Basically, imagine walking into a room and you're in, you're surrounded by 10 foot tall walls of cymbidiums and nobile dens and Paphs. And you're walking, it's an orchid tunnel. And that's just getting into the end of the show. And then, you're walking around this, white Phalaenopsis Orchid globe, probably five feet across. Perfect. A nobile tower of just color coded Dendrobium nobile stacked 15 feet high. And you're just, as an orchid freak my heart is pounding, right?

James

1:34

Huge visual impact, yeah?

Caleb

1:36

Yeah. Then in everything, the cool thing about it, so you get you walk in through this area, and then you get into the display zone. Everything is perfect, the pots, every single plant has this amazing ceramic pot. The condition of the flowers is immaculate, the plants, all the name tags perfect. I just so much more than I have ever seen in the small amount of orchid shows that I've been to and that I participated in myself. It was a whole nother level.

James

2:12

I've never been to an orchid show in Japan; I heard a lot about Tokyo Dome back in the day. And when I was in Singapore, I had friends who gone to the last few of those, I had, one of the things that they get talked about a lot is what you're saying with, just the attention to the details on, positioning of the flowers and all these things that sometimes fall by the wayside. I feel in US shows or maybe, we pay attention to but aren't maybe our central focus of, the pods, the labeling, but just also the positioning of the flowers. And my understanding is that part of it is cultural, but part of it is also direct manipulation and a very gentle way to get over. 

Caleb

2:57

Yeah,, there was, for example, I've and I've heard of this, I've never had seen it live, but they would the some of the Phals, they were, they'd have them literally manipulated to all be facing down and facing you pendulous style, but not pendulous I only seen pictures of that. And, there was this one Cymbidium season, right, it's wintertime. And so there was this whole row of Cymbidium goeringii. This probably 30 foot long table. And, it wasn't overcrowded. It wasn't just, orchids everywhere once you got into the show. And it was all the different color varieties of the goeringii, all just right there. And you can just walk down and see every different variety, color variation there was, the Complex were blooming too and, being a Complex guy myself, that was probably the highlight for me.

James

3:07

I'm thinking what does goeringii look like again?

Caleb

3:58

it's very small, arching spikes, I wouldn't really call them pendulous so much but arching and more of a more of a miniature Cymbidium, actually one of the smallest Cyms I've actually seen, I didn't know much about that plant,

James

4:15

Sort of ensifolium, if you're familiar?

Caleb

4:18

No, ensifolium Well, I would say, gosh, I have to think about ensifolium but

James

4:26

Oh, no worries, just 

Caleb

4:29

Just more of your miniature Cym I'd say mini Cym, very small, compact plant. And, then it's, oh, here's all the Cattleyas. And yeah, it was a mind blowing, that was just, maybe four or five rows, a couple 100 feet long, fighting through the masses of the people because it was quite busy trying to get my pictures., and for those of you who do follow me on Jungle Mist Orchids I have I posted a bunch of my pictures from the show, but, I want to post everything I took on our Facebook page and talk more about those, on that, but, they are just very, very perfected and gave me a lot of ideas on, doing my future displays and whatnot. 

James

5:21

you mentioned the Cattleyas and one of the things that I was really struck with, again, just from the outside seeing Japanese orchid culture is there's been a ton of line breeding of species. I know, some cymbidiums but I know, it used to be Sophronitis now I guess it's Cattleya coccinea, cernua. I think I want to say pumila or something, too? Was it more that? Or was it some of the larger types?

Caleb

5:47

There were a few, there was some. There were some coccineas some, walkeriana, nobiliors. But yeah, there were some, some bigger, some of the bigger hybrids, and, Rlc types, showy types, the specimen plants that they had on display, were incredible too. So it wasn't a bunch of fancy orchid displays, maybe how we do it here in Hawaii at the Hilo show. It was just very cut and dry, just the plants and the flowers, everything with white backgrounds everywhere, very, just exhibiting the, just the plant versus the whole display. The display stuff was more on the entrance as you walked in, where it was just I was saying, A tunnel of orchids and flooded with orchids. And then the show itself was just, here's the one plant. Here's one plant, and here's one plant,

James

6:46

nothing to distract from it. Yeah, no Spanish moss or rattann mats

Caleb

6:50

Exactly just in, and it's a different way of doing it. It's not, I'm not gonna say it was better than how we do it. But it was different. And it gave, just, the focus of, of what they were showing, um, because we always have themes with ours, right? And that's really fun and cool to do. And I create really creative, you get the whole art part coming out of it.

James

7:14

Your displays have won quite a few times

Caleb

7:16

Nah, just the one time we and that was my buddy's the one who, who made that happen with the artistry, but yeah, that and then they had the sale zone. I didn't do too much checking out of the sales because I didn't have any permits to bring anything back. But there was, I don't know, probably at least 50 vendors or something I saw just and I checked some of those out, and just to see the differences in prices and whatnot. And some of the multifloral Paphs were up to five 600 bucks for an open, super nice roth sanderianum hybrid or something. Right? But yeah, just, I wish I could have done some more shopping. Let's just say that.

Caleb

7:18

That's always the hard thing with traveling, and especially international shows, I mean, even mainland stuff has its challenges, bringing it back to Hawaii, but internationally, you have that whole other level with it. Were folks selling flasks as well? I don't, I've had mixed success bringing those back, but I've heard they're a little bit easier.

Caleb

8:20

I didn't personally see flasks, I saw a lot of compot a lot of mini lotta just small two inch stuff as well., and then there was also other vending, not just orchids, there were other flowers. I saw some succulent booths there were, I want to say, some jewelry that was cut flowers of non-orchids. But it was quite contrasting. So the funny here's, I'll tell you a little funny story. So just so happened that the weekend of the Orchid Show was at the Tokyo Dome. But not that big Tokyo Dome, it was in the downstairs convention center area. So what was happening at the Tokyo Dome was the Taylor Swift concert. And so I walked up this giant or the show where I got out, took a taxi and got out. And I'm walking around and there was no sign of the Orchid Show at all, nothing, I had no idea where to go. And walking up some stairs and I'm like, ‘Okay, there's the Tokyo Dome let's go check this out.’ And so we're looking around nothing but teenage girls, Taylors'. They are what they call the Swifties. Right? Yeah. Everywhere. And I'm, this is definitely not the Orchid Show. And so then I'm, Okay, I gotta figure this out. So figuring out where to go. We go, go down the stairs. And so funny. The downstairs was nothing but old people. All the orchid people, lots of elders. And then the up top was all teenagers and it was his total opposite mix of

James

9:52

Like oil and water almost. Yeah.

Caleb

9:54

Yeah. Once I got into the show it was great., I definitely recommend anybody to go check it out if you can, if you can, it's in February every year. And just yeah, blew my mind. And I didn't even get to spend as much time as I wanted, maybe next year I get to judge or something at it, if I can plan it out.

James

10:14

I can, it's funny, I heard, I hadn't realized that the JOGA, er, I think that's their judging group there? You have to be a commercial grower in order to be a judge there, which I hadn't realized, too.

Caleb

10:27

Even if you're a judge, you have to be a grower and a judge?

James

10:29

Yeah, you can't be just a hobbyist or whatever. There was a, I heard a talk about it recently. And so it's, different standards, sort of different, views on it. Did you see, where they're kind of standout, plants in terms of, best of show or something that really grabbed your attention as, your fav, or

Caleb

10:50

Some of the cymbidiums were pretty amazing. I mean, there were some specimen plants that were, pretty incredible, 50-100 spikes, cymbidiums all just... but I used to grow Cyms. And so I do cymbidiums I mean, it's a great flower, but just not commercially for me. But yeah, probably the big Cyms and some of the Dens, there was even a couple of huge Rhyncho, what is it, the Renanthera - 10 foot tall Renanthera? And then, and then some very, some rare stuff to that you'd just random species. This weird blue orchid. I don't know what the name of it was. I have a picture that I'll post. Some stuff. I learned some new stuff I'd never seen. I mean, not that you're gonna always see all the orchids, because there's just never ending amounts, right? I wish I could stay longer and spend more time there, because it lasts for a whole week, it's not just a three day show or something over the weekend, it literally was Wednesday to Wednesday. And I went on a Friday. So it was a little more busy. But the flowers were still nice and fresh. And, you could just tell the care taken in the time spent, that's the props I would give to that show is everything was so well taken care of, from top to bottom, you get your tickets online, with your phone, skip the line, I have to wait in line at all, just walked in.

James

12:21

So, really well integrated

Caleb

12:24

Yeah, they got it down., and then of course, that's just the show, I mean,

James

12:28

One thing I'm curious about is the first orchid place I worked way back in the day Arbec Orchids, which is I think long closed at this point. But the breeder there, Roger Cole, was saying that he noticed such a different aesthetic, color palette wise between Japan and the US. So he was saying he was big into breeding mini-Catts and he would breed for more intense colors, but he got a lot of those art shade types coming out, which wasn't what he was looking for. But he said he found that customers from Japan really liked them. And so he started kind of basically looking at his populations as he was breeding and pulling out the art shade stuff. And setting that aside for his customers, particularly in Japan, I think Taiwan to some degree as well. But then his brighter colored stuff for more of the US hobbyists and the professional grower market. Did you see more of a kind of pastels and art shade kind of focus there? Was it a pretty good range of colors? Or?

Caleb

13:34

Yeah, I mean, what caught my eye with the colors was the uniformitivity.. They would just have everything all pink and then here's all yellow and then here's all. This was for one display in particular. But I think that kind of coloration changes contrasting dark to light. A lot of stuff with any orchid shows what's blooming, right, and I mean and and also the time of year I mean so that's why I think that there were so many amazing nobile Dens, and they weren't super tall and huge. They were compact. And I always heard different things about nobile flowering and how sometimes the plants get too big. I've also seen selected-out nobiles just last week at a farm I was at where he had the most amazing nobiles I've personally seen and they were all on compact plants full of flowers and leaves. They didn't drop all their leaves yet it wasn't the honohono Dens that we think of, it was more of the upright Japanese style I guess Yamamoto Dendrobium types, compact plants, just great color, coloration. But the arrangement was what caught my eye. Not necessarily 'Were they just solid colors or pastels or mixtures' but how they were all arranged, I think. I think they have that industry down. As far as the nobile Dens go,

James

15:07

Not just kind of all flowers in whatever direction but making sure they're really aesthetically, around the, pseudobulb or whatever,

Caleb

15:15

And even facing even to facing the right direction they want, because a lot of times, I'll pull a plant off a bench, and it's flowering in the direction of however the sun tracked it or whatever, and, where it wanted to open. But then it doesn't, it's not necessarily good for a display. I mean, it's hard to explain, I guess. But, if you've been to a show, or you've seen a bunch of orchids, sometimes the plant cannot match with a flower looking at you. Yeah, or judging-wise, you do the arrangement? I mean, it's one of the criteria, right? Is that the arrangement of the flower? It matters compared to the plant. And so, the attention to detail on all that, I guess, it's almost they're not, I don't wanna say they're grown for the show. But I feel that's at the back of the mind.

James

16:07

I think it's something I've heard here too, because I know it comes up, you said, in judging here as well., there's a lot of times where folks will be, oh, that's, that's nice. But oh, it looks so much better if it had been staked, or they should have noticed it. But at the same time, unless you have a decent sized crew, or whatever, the extra effort to sit there and that might look good. So I'm going to stake that several months before the flower actually opens. It's just, not much more. But it sounds there. It's kind of intentional from the beginning. yeah,

Caleb

16:40

I mean, it could be I don't know enough about it. I don't want to say too much, because I don't really know for sure, but all I can say is whatever they're doing, they're doing it right. Nice. And it's it gave me a lot of, ideas and things to think about for myself and, ways to make our shows even better to

James

17:00

one last thing I was curious about, especially when you mentioned the cooler weather is uh, someone had told me that Lycaste even though it's more of a South American, I guess Sophronitis coccinea is too, had really taken off in Japan. And I think that is kind of, sometimes a cooler grower. Did you see any of those at the show?

Caleb

17:18

There were a couple Lycastes., I can't remember which ones. But I did see a couple. I'm trying to think what else I saw that was kind of, 'Oh, I wasn't surprised to see', . I mean, well, the multi floral Paphs aren't really in season right now necessarily. And there were a couple of really nice, five, six flowered roth hybrids on display. And then, but it was mostly complex, there was some, there was some, some Parvi hybrids,

James

17:50

Those are your jam, though.

Caleb

17:52

I mean, I love all the Paphs, but yeah, those Parvis especially/ I spent more time in the Paphs than the row of Phals. I was, Okay, I, we see so much Phals here, too. I mean, they're great, great orchids, but I spent more time with the ones I personally liked better and whatnot, and so, yeah, I just needed more time. I mean, I would say, if I could do it again, my takeaways would be: go for more than one day. I mean, I was only in Japan for five days, I didn't have the time to. I didn't go for the show. I just got lucky that the show is there. And that might sound kind of odd. But that's how that worked out., I'd say go longer - transportation so easy. You can stay anywhere you want and Tokyo and still get there no problem. Oh, yeah. Take your time and soak it in., and because there's so much to see. I'm sure I still miss things. Maybe don't go on the weekend. Oh, yeah., because Friday was kind of the weekend and it was still probably extra busy. But, I mean, whatever crowds are on up here I can wait to take my pictures.

James

18:55

We'll, you said, if you get in for judging in the future, then you get to beat the crowds.

Caleb

19:01

Yeah, that might be something to do next year, is, try to pre-plan it for the show. Now that I know what's going on in that place. But yeah, it was a great experience. And heck, I want to go to them all and I, I said it definitely lived up to the hype that I had heard about from other judges and orchid growers we know who have gone in the past who are 'Oh, you gotta go. You gotta go.' And I mean, I guess I've heard it used to be a lot larger to that. I don't know if this is how true this is. But I haven't even heard that there used to be more international people doing displays, and whatnot. And now it's more just Japanese. So I'd have to look into that. But that's something I'd heard. So that might be why it might be smaller than maybe in years past, but it's still going strong. There were still, I'm sure there were 1000s of people who went this year. It's super affordable., I said, easy to get your tickets., and if you're into orchids, this isn't for you. And I mean, Japan in general is an amazing country too.

James

19:58

Yeah, I remember someone saying back in the day, I'm not sure if it was exactly the same show, but that the winner of the Grand Champion plant would get a car and they had the car on display, at the show too. But I think you said, that was back when it was bigger, back when they had international participation more so it's I've heard so much about it over the years, I'm so glad to finally have a first hand account of someone to go from.

Caleb

20:27

Yeah, just happy to be there and share, share what I saw. And I said, check our pictures, I took so many pictures. I didn't have it posted yet and stuff. And so I'll dump all those onto our Facebook page and videos. And yeah, just, good times. And yeah, I think, Well, you had a trip you just got back from too that we're going to probably check out next episode. And so stay tuned for that, too. I'm sure that's going to be probably good of experiences I had with mine. So yeah, James is going to share his stories about the World Orchid Conference in the next episode. So stay tuned for that. Thanks.

James

21:13

Yeah, I'm psyched to be able to chat about it. But, I just always get so inspired hearing and seeing all these different shows. Thanks so much.

Caleb

21:21

Yeah, so I think we had a couple of mailbag questions, right? Do we want to run through those? And, talk a little bit about that. I love, love hearing questions from you guys. Comments on how to make the show better., because we're just growing at this. This is our seventh episode. We seem to have been getting a good response, we're stoked about all the people who have checked us out. And, yeah, we just want to make the show better. And if you guys have topics you want to know about, questions on culture, on certain species, we'd love to get into that and have a good discussion - anything orchids

James

22:08

Yeah, so we had first of all, appreciate everyone's patience, as I try to stay on top of the questions and I will say the comment we got the most was hoping that we would put out more episodes. And it's taken us a little bit, both of super busy schedules and Rafa, our producer, also has tons going on, but it's been, it's really fun to do. And I think one of the things folks had asked us about was how to, some tips on Cattleya growing culture, and, what are some ways to kind of optimize what are some particulars that you think of for Cattleyas versus some of the other orchids? I think this was someone on the mainland US, but I'm thinking, what are some? I mean, we get to see some pretty neat Cattleyas here. I know you've grown a handful. I'm curious, what are your go-to tips?

Caleb

23:06

Well, first of all, don't overwater. Um, the biggest mistake people make with Cattleyas is they try to grow them like an Oncidium or a slipper or a Den, you gotta let these things dry out between waterings dry - the roots need to be dry. So I always say, if you pick up the pot, and it's crunchy, and feels it's dry water the water the heck out of that thing. If you're growing indoors, just run it in the sink but saturate the roots completely., I don't know a whole lot about foliar feeding per se regarding misting your plants because we have all the humidity here and with my watering regime it's all misters so the plants the leaves and the roots always get water but the roots are where are sucking up most of the nutrients and so when you do water and water hard, let the water go couple at least a couple minutes - get it nice and wet and then let them sit and then other than that bright light super bright light don't grow them dark but not no direct sun obviously. And then crowd them and then repot frequently. One mistake I think can be made easily is you get a big plant and, we talked a little bit about this before the show, that it's easy to want to over-pot an orchid and if the plants are big, you just think 'Oh it needs a bigger pot.’ And depending on the species of Catt because some are have longer rhizomes, a walkeriana versus, Laelia Maybe have more narrow

James

24:53

Like Rupiculous, yeah, tight?

Caleb

24:55

Yeah, tight clumping. That maybe the plant wants to hang out of the pot but um crowded, crowded, I always say make the pot fit the roots like a hat. And also when you report it, get rid of any dead roots, cut those dead roots off. And then also every couple of years repot that thing regardless because the media will always break down and also use chunky media bigger bark, bigger cinders perlite, if you use perlite. But, nothing, no fines, that's the biggest death for these - the roots want to breathe. And you need that drainage and the airflow. The roots need the airflow because they grow their epiphytes, right, so they grow on trees, I always say the pot is just there to keep the plant from falling over. And so if you have healthy roots, the plants are not going to fall over, and it's going to grow great, and eventually it's going to want to grow out of the pot. But um, and then, trying to find a humid place I know it can be hard the mainland for humidity, and I mean, if you're not going to if you're not, super hobbyist where you're getting all terrarium style or you have your special little room, but if you're just a lana'i grower or something, just Yeah. And then, fertilize lightly all the time. Yeah, you can light fertilizer consistently is better than just a lot of fruit once a month., you want to keep that plant consistently going.

James

26:22

The way it was told to me is ‘weakly, weekly’,: a weak concentration every week. And I think one of the places I read that might have brought it up in a previous episode is Courtney Hackney. Courtney Hackney wrote a book called American Cattleyas. And it's a really great book, I don't know if it's still in print, but about his interviews with Cattleya growers across the US mostly about the history of breeding in the US. But he also has a whole section on Cattleya culture, which is really worth checking out, if you have the chance. And he pretty much point-by-point echoes exactly what you're saying. I think he talks a lot about thinking of them as epiphytes, and that they're not going to be sitting in water, right? These are up in the trees, any water they're getting is going to be running off pretty well. So that's why you have that big media that it can, it's not going to stay wet for too long. And I'll say, one thing I've noticed commercially is a lot of commercial growers when they're potting up plants, they get them small, and they want to keep them moist, because it's so easy for smaller plants to dry out. And so they'll use a mix of something sphagnum, maybe sphagnum and perlite or bark, but then not everyone is great about removing that when they up-pot it, and so many times, not just with Cattleyas but especially with Catts, where you you said, they don't to stay wet. I'll see them kind of rot out from the center, because there's still this plug of sphagnum that no one bothered to strip out when they're repotting it. And boy, it's just this core that just rots the whole plant out. But if you pull that out, and you said, repot, I think every two years is what I generally tell folks, when I'm doing a workshop or something, done, that gives the plant enough time that, the media is not breaking down, you still have things running through, getting rid of the dead roots. And it's, there's enough nutrients but still, room to grow with it.

Caleb

28:25

Yeah, and then you'll see the nice new roots growing, once they start growing out of the pot, yeah, that's when you might want to repot it to if you're doing everything, right, I mean, and, it varies where you live, I mean, growing in the Pacific Northwest is going to be different than growing in even Southern California, or Texas., I want to say people in the South probably have an easier time growing orchids than, than anybody in the, from New York, Washington, Oregon, Midwest, colder climates where it's less humid.

James

29:01

One humidity hack that I was taught when I started out in that worked decently well until I ended up building a small orchid growing area in my bedroom back in the Mid Atlantic was to have one of those saucers, and to put rocks in the bottom of it, and then put the plant on top of those rocks and water, put water, essentially, in the rocks. So it's not the plant that is sitting in it, but there's water below it that can then sort of slowly evaporate. And it's not perfect, it's not going to always reach enough of the plant. But in terms of,

Caleb

29:39

Microclimate almost?

James

29:40

Exactly. Yeah, it's and it's not something where you have to be running a humidifier or trapping it. It's a little bit of a thing I guess if it's outside during the summer and you're in a dry area, maybe you have to worry about mosquitoes or something but it works decently well for me when I was starting out and as I was kind of finding my feet for growing. So if that's something that's an issue. Like you said, humidity is so critical, especially for Catts that, I think, playing around with it to figure out the best way you can hang on to that without saturating the plant.

Caleb

30:15

Yeah, and the last thing I'd say about, Cattleya culture is, and this is gonna be true with any orchids you grow, you want to try to get your plants from, from a good source, meaning good genetics, good genes, proven plants, yeah, if you can find awarded crosses, great., because not just nice flowers, but the reason that these plants get awards is because they're well-grown plants. Yeah, you don't get good flowers without good healthy plants. So where you get your plants matters, and the condition of the plant is well, and, on the internet, it's got so much other good research, I always direct people to orchidspecies.com, because, in a way, we're just trying to mimic nature, right in our home or in our backyard. And, read up on your species, research what they are, that the OrchidRoots website that you turned me on to, it's got the progeny, you can see the family tree., if you really into it, yeah. And you want to really get better at what you're doing.. There's a lot of free information out there that we all have access to. So I would say, yeah, do your research as well, and hopefully, this helps people who struggle are struggling or didn't know or are doing well, but want to take it to another level.,

James

31:38

I'll say, to that point, if you like Cattleyas, but have struggled or have trouble with them, here are three kinds of Cattleya relative types that I think tend to be a little bit easier to grow. One are Brassavolas and their hybrids. Cattleytonia, or now I guess, it's Guaritonia hybrids, and then Caularthron, or used to be Diacrium, all three of those are related to Cattleyas you get, you tend to have smaller flowers than some of the big corsage type ones, but they tend to flower more frequently a little bit easier to grow a little more forgiving. So if that's something folks need to, get their feet wet, or not not wet, because it's a Cattleyas, that. Maybe that's a good way to start out. But yeah, I think doing the research and finding out what's in the background can give you a lot of ideas about how to really grow them well. And tackle new challenges.

Caleb

32:35

Yeah. Hopefully that helps. And yeah, we're excited just to get back out this, we're gonna try to keep episodes coming., we really enjoy it. We hope you guys do, and stay tuned.

Rafa

32:57

Become a part of The Orchid Pod by sharing your questions, comments and feedback. Send us an email at theorchidpod@gmail.com and you may inspire the next orchid pod episode. If you enjoyed this episode, chances are you know someone else who would. Help us spread the word and share this episode with a friend. The views expressed in this episode are our own and don't represent any institutions or organizations we are affiliated with. Thanks to Caleb and James for hosting and to you for listening. I'm Rafael and we'll see you next time on The Orchid Pod