The South Coast Orchid Society, Long Beach’s premier club for orchid lovers, has returned from a two-year hiatus and will continue to hold meetings on the third Monday of each month.
On Monday, May 23, the society will meet for the third time since its return: a program by American Orchid Society accredited judge Tim Culbertson on slipper orchids. As is typical for meetings, orchids grown by society members will be displayed at the club’s venue: the Whaley Park Community Center located at 5620 E. Atherton St.
The South Coast Orchid Society dates back to 1950 when Long Beach’s population began to grow after World War II.
The return of servicemen to the United States from tropical areas like Hawaii and Bora Bora began the post-war tiki craze. In an effort to recreate the lush tropics where they spent their service, tiki bars popped up across the country and families designed tropical backyards with tiki torches and huts.
In tandem with the popularity of tropical decor, tropical flowers gained popularity—especially orchids.
“Orchids fit right into that […] the whole tropical thing really took Southern California over,” Orchid Society Vice President John McCoy said. “Somehow or another, people got the idea that tropical plants were really neat and stylish.”
Long Beach was a hub for orchids at the time, having hosted both the Fourth Annual Orchid Congress in 1955 and the Fifth World Orchid Conference in 1966. The existence of the South Coast Orchid Society, a place where gardeners could show off their orchids for judging and learn more about the plants, contributed to the craze.
McCoy, a birdwatcher who came from a family of gardeners and who has a background in biology, first became interested in orchids after traveling through the forests of Central and South America.
“I saw not only birds and wildlife, but all kinds of interesting plants and orchids,” McCoy said. “I realized, ‘Hey, these are worth more than a second look.’”
When he planted roots in Long Beach three decades ago, he decided to take up growing the “complicated and strange” flowers. Soon after, he discovered the South Coast Orchid Society, one of many orchid clubs that had sprung into existence up and down the California coastline.
“They were growing just everything. From one month to the next, people would show up with the most incredible orchids that they had growing in their backyard or maybe in a small greenhouse,” McCoy said. “They were fantastic. I was hooked.”
There are about 100,000 species of the alien-looking plant, which springs up from a tall stalk and bursts into a flower that looks like a mutated clamshell bursting open. Many varieties have been selectively bred for hardiness and more frequent blooming—the kind that are often found in grocery stores and floral shops for modest prices.
In the early 20th century however, the flowers were a status symbol. It was believed that the tropical flowers couldn’t survive in California’s climate and it was necessary to grow them in expensive greenhouses, McCoy said.
Thus they were grown by the wealthier class, such as Signal Hill oilmen, doctors and celebrities.
In 1942, late Signal Hill oilman Samuel Barlow Mosher, who founded the Signal Oil and Gas Company, purchased the 4,500-acre Rancho los Dos Pueblos up the coast from Santa Barbara, where he had several acres of cymbidiums (boat orchids). The horticulture enthusiast bred hardy hybrid orchids that flourished in California—all thanks to the wealth produced by Signal Hill oil.
The Dos Pueblos Orchid Company sold millions of orchids per year, according to the farm’s website.
Women attending balls and social clubs in the ‘50s would wear corsages of Cattleya orchids—which look like typical grocery store orchids if they were grown a bit too close to a nuclear plant.
In photos of the society’s first-ever party, members were “dressed to the nines,” McCoy said. “Everyone had an orchid corsage.”
In 1950, a local reporter from The Independent wrote of the soiree: “In her hair she wore a gorgeous brassolaeliocattleya. Decorating her wrist was a dendrobium formosum giganteum … and adorning her bodice was an oncidium zygopetalum. If you don’t know what the gal was wearing just ask her. She will probably say ‘orchids to you.’”
Eventually, it became apparent that certain orchids could grow outdoors in Long Beach. Residents built improvised greenhouses and the club served as a venue to share tips and tricks for growing the tropical flowers.
“Gradually, the demographic changed,” McCoy said. “It became a lot of people with very limited means figuring out how to get in on growing some orchids of their own.”
In 1957, the president of the orchid society was Signal Hill resident Glenn Hamilton, who owned an acre of land on Palm Drive, housing 350 blooming-sized plants, 2,500 seedlings of advanced sizes and 20,000 small seedlings, according to a 1957 Press-Telegram article.
“The orchid industry was a big thing in Southern California from the ‘50s through about the ‘80s,” he said. “[…] Gradually, land became too expensive in the LA area. The people who had founded these operations, they got old and they eventually died. Nobody really had the energy or the vision to keep those operations going.”
But the members of the South Coast Orchid Society have held on, even after two years without meeting in person. Though McCoy doesn’t have a vision for the future, he has the energy to keep the club going.
“It turns out that there is so much lore involved in growing orchids that it’s absolutely inexhaustible,” McCoy said. “The stories, the plants, the methods for dealing with them. People who attend our meetings are just thrilled to have somebody new come in that wants to learn.”
To learn more about the history of orchids and the South Coast Orchid Society, visit www.southcoastorchidsociety.com. Meetings take place on the third Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Whaley Park Community Center.
