Hello from Rob at SDO

[TxRobNLa]

Hi everyone,

Just writing a hello/introduction post. I'm Rob Shepherd from Sapphire Dragon Orchids and Orchid Vault. I joined Orchid Board a while back and then life happened. So I never ended up participating and I’ve not been able to be very active with the orchid growing community in general for the last year. But after a pretty crazy move, we’re finally getting settled into our new place and things are starting to return to some level of normalcy. So I’m hoping I can be a little more active in a few communities.

For about 7 years we were in location in Southern California that ended up putting a lot of restrictions on us and caused a lot problems with being able to run even a part-time orchid business. After a pretty long search and bidding on 3 different properties, we finally purchased our new property that is ag zoned up in Canyon Country, Ca earlier this year. I ended up doing a job change at the same time, so we were moving, trying build a new greenhouse, trying to take care of orchids that were an hour away from the new place and I was trying to get settled into my new job. So we are definitely looking forward to 2013 being a year for enjoying the new property, living life and growing orchids.

For those of you that don’t know anything about me or Sapphire Dragon Orchids, I’m a hybridizer that is mostly focused on coerulea Phalaenopsis. I started growing orchids when I was 11 years old in East Texas and basically grew up in the Central East Texas Orchid Society. So I've had passion for orchids for many years and have grown just about every genera under the sun even though the majority of my collection are currently Phals. Professionally I’m a producer in the computer game industry and have moved around a good bit over the years which has always been tough on the orchids. But we’ve been settled in SoCal for some time now and have no plans to move anytime in the distant future. With a full time job, the orchids are basically a weekend activity even with the level of growing that I'm doing.

Looking forward to chatting with everyone here.

:-)

Rob

[tucker85]

Welcome to Orchid Board!

[Leafmite]

Welcome again! Glad all worked out well.

[FairyInTheFlowers]

Glad to see your life is settling back down!!! I have been anxious to see the next steps you've been taking in coerulea breeding!

[zxyqu]

Welcome Rob! That new greenhouse was looking awesome last time I checked. Like Cody, I can't wait to see wait you've been up to. Glad everything has calmed down a bit, so good luck!

[TxRobNLa]

Thanks everyone! I'm pretty far behind on my coerulea breeding program due to the move. But hope to start making progress more quickly now. I've got a couple of new crosses that are just start to spike, which is always fun to see what the outcome is going to be. But there is a lot more in the lab that I need to get going faster on.

[WhiteRabbit]

Wow - sounds like things have been very hectic for you! I look forward to your participation here.

[Stray59]

Hey TxRobNLA;
Welcome to the board - very informative, friendly and orchid obsessed crowd here!

Steve

[RosieC]

Welcome back to Orchid Board Rob