"Angelic Nguyen's orchid obsession ... "Orchid Design" banner... downtown San Jose bungalow...
hobby... memories of her homeland, Vietnam. It's expanded now into what Nguyen, 47, describes as "a four-person business... Nguyen's Orchid Design will, for the first time, be among 50 vendors selling, competing and advising for the 56th annual Pacific Orchid Exposition at Fort Mason Center... She loves... things others don't grow as much here: the large cattleyas, large vandas, really spectacular things. "I like them beautiful, showy and fragrant," agrees Nguyen, who, truth be told, has a hard time parting with her favorites in the interest of business. ... in Vietnam, she had an uncle who owned an orchid nursery, where she'd spend her after-school hours painting images of the flowers on silk in watercolors. Often the silk would be used to make beautiful dresses, but it was also coveted for display as art. .. Angelic had brought some of her silk work... "I would come out here, and suddenly all the stress is gone," she says. And suddenly the few hundred orchids in the greenhouse multiplied into several thousand, nestled on the front porch, behind the greenhouse or under four large canopies in the yard. ... She'd won medals as an amateur in several shows and had penetrated the inner workings of seven or eight orchid societies by contributing design work to programs and newsletters, and her artistic eye to judging panels. ... Nguyen comes back from every show with a carful of perhaps as many orchids as she left with - just different ones. Her rarest plant is a c[C]ymbidium Pia Borg 'Flash.' "One bulb can cost a couple of hundred dollars," she says. ... orchids; I think I only have a few thousand." son Nikita... He's shown an interest in hybridizing... she's still just a small grower excited about showing at the Pacific Orchid Exposition for the first time. ... Angelic Nguyen's work at www.orchidesign.com " URL : http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/22/HOCAUVPFC.DTL ***************** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
