After college, in the late 1960’s Larry Cox moved to Miami-Dade County from his native North Carolina to begin a teaching career. A few years later he discovered orchids. His first orchid was a Cattleya, his second a Paphiopedilum, Paph. Maudiae ‘Magnificum.’ The Cattleya is long gone and forgotten; he still has a piece of the Paph. When he began with Paphs, he commonly heard, “You can’t grow those here,”
but the first one lived and bloomed. Tentatively he purchased a few more from a well-known grower in California, John Hanes, including a few outside the common Maudiae group. He was particularly awed by pictures of Paph. lowii and purchased two. He still has both of those today.

Like so many orchid growers, Larry was drawn to every new orchid genus he encountered. For a while Dendrobiums were orchid of choice, then more Cattleyas, then Ascocendas and Vandas, but the Paphiopedilum collection continued slowly to grow. In the mid 1980’s most of the other orchids were sold or given away, all for the love of Paphs.

In 1989 he moved from his South Miami residence to a more spacious property in the Redland where he built his dream greenhouse of 3000 square feet. Since then, Larry’s Paph collection has grown into the thousands.

Like any orchid grower, he has experienced his share of failures, as well as Hurricane Andrew that destroyed his greenhouse (All the paphs had been moved into a garage.) and left him to grow his collection under salvaged ragged shade cloth stretched between the trunks of broken pine trees; but with the discovery of new species, and the consequent new hybrids, Larry’s love of Paphs has been renewed over and over again. In 1983 Larry won his first AOS award for Paph. Maudiae coloratum ‘Elektra’ AM/AOS. Since then he has received twenty-six AOS awards, mostly for paphs.

Three years ago, Larry retired from thirty-seven rewarding years as a teacher, the last fifteen teaching Advanced Placement English at Miami Palmetto Senior High School. Retirement is the best time of his life because it allows him to concentrate on those things that he once knew only as pastimes, but now realizes were the peace and fulfillment he needed to carry out his career duties successfully.

Today, he reads all the books he never got around to, travels as much as he wants to, spends relaxing time every few months in the North Carolina mountains, maintains his tropical garden in the Redland, and, of course, grows paphs. He has experimented with other orchid genera and is now finding success with Lycastes and Phragmipediums. He has even rediscovered the wonder of Cattleyas species.

If you grow Paphiopedilums, or would like to, or even if you don’t, you want to see Larry’s presentation. He is one of the foremost hobby growers in the area, and is a world of orchid knowledge!

In addition, Larry will be providing the plants for our raffle table - isn’t that exciting! What a great time to win one of his marvelous Paphs or other orchids!

You don’t want to miss this presentation - it’s one of the best!