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Hi to everyone,
This has to be a very sad blog to all our family and friends.
Andy Easton, who we met in 2021 when we moved to El Retiro here in Colombia, passed away in his sleep on July 3rd. He was a fellow New Zealander and renowned world authority on orchids. He had been growing orchids since he was 11 in 1959 in Hastings, New Zealand.
He had become a great friend and we were in constant contact. Our custom was to have breakfast together most Sunday mornings and these culinary events often lasted 3 to 4 hours wherein we discussed every subject under the sun, including reminiscences of our earlier lives in New Zealand. Andy's passing will leave a huge hole in our lives.
It turned out that Andy had visited Rarotonga, Cook Islands in his youth on more than one occasion, almost coinciding with Jim's first visit in 1967 as part of the crew of HMNZS Endeavour when we took NZ's new decimal currency up there, and then Jim's later 6 month stay there in 1968 working for his family's trading company. The odds of finding 2 New Zealanders living in El Retiro, Colombia in 2021, who had both visited Rarotonga in the late 1960's, and stayed at the ONLY accommodation in those days - the Banana Court - a NZ Govt. owned boarding house full of eccentric expats - must be about a million to one!!
Andy was also a great traveller as part of his orchid business and earlier this year had visited Turkey, Holland, the USA and China. He also visited Santa Barbara, California, USA on a regular basis. From our earlier experience flying Turkish Airlines when we still had our yacht in Malaysia, we had introduced the idea of Turkish to Andy and he became a great fan.
Another connection we discovered was that when Andy was growing up in Hastings, his family were near neighbours of Charlie Slater and his wife. Mr. Slater had been the owner of C.H. Slater Ltd., which was a wholesale fruit and vegetable auctioneering business in Hastings and Napier. Jim's family business in Auckland had bought C.H. Slater Ltd. back in the 50's and never changed the name. Andy told us that Mrs. Slater was an expert concert pianist and it wasn't uncommon on a summer evening to hear the strains of Beethoven and that of many others floating on the breeze.
It should be noted here that Andy was an accomplished singer taking part in many events in his younger days. He even competed several times in the Mobil Song Quest - once in the finals against Kiri te Kanawa. Guess who won!!
And he was asked at one time to stand for election in the Hastings seat for Parliament. Luckily for the orchid world he declined!
As regards the biographical details of Andy's life, we found an excellent article on the Tauranga Orchid Society's website, and so we are taking the liberty of quoting it verbatim here -
"A LIFE IN ORCHIDS: ANDY EASTON, 1948 - 2025
Many thanks to Andy Easton, who has been a very patient interviewee by email, and Nancie Bonham, for permission to quote from 'A History of Orchid Growers in NZ'.
Update: Andy passed peacefully in his sleep in El Retiro, Colombia on July 3rd. 2025 and was discovered by his driver in the morning.
Andy was a man of robust and fearless opinions, but also a leading hybridiser and generous by nature. He is survived by his widow, Patricia, and adult children in North America. Just last month he had travelled to the US to attend a family event, and was posting on his NHO (New Horizon Orchids) forum the day before his death. Patricia lives in Bogota looking after her elderly parents and she and Andy had travelled extensively together earlier this year.
Andy Easton, a well-known name to many older members of the New Zealand orchid world, has lived a life in orchids that few could rival.
Born in Hastings, New Zealand, Andy recalls being given his first orchid in 1958 at the age of 10 - a flowering spike that had been knocked off a plant. He took it home and he and his mother marvelled at the stem's longevity in a vase. He was already growing Cyclamen in a small greenhouse and selling them to local florists, as well as growing chrysanthemums and breeding poultry!
In 1959 Andy obtained some Cattleya flowers for his display at the Hastings Horticultural Society autumn show from local pharmacist, Noel Wilson (foundation president of the Hawkes Bay Orchid Society in 1970) and it was Noel and his wife, who also grew orchids, who introduced Andy to what has become his life's passion.
In 1961, while staying with relatives in Wellington, Andy met Norm Porter, who had the local agency for UK nursery, Mansell and Hatcher (operated 1890's - 2006) and was selling community pots of their Cymbidium seedlings. Andy invested some of his strawberry picking money into the plants.
His relatives also took him to the races at Trentham and - aged 13 - Andy won 1,000 pounds! The following week he went to a flower show in Lower Hutt seeing plants that were new to him, and was introduced to Herbie Poole, who had a nursery accessible by public transport. Andy visited Herbie and spent some of his winnings on Laelias, Masdevallias, Cattleyas, Cymbidiums and Paphiopedilums. Andy's father was aghast when the boy arrived home by the railcar with boxes of what he knew to be expensive orchids, fearing his son had stolen them! It took a phone call to Wellington to clear up the matter.
Andy now needed somewhere to house his precious cargo and later that year two friends of the family - florists - announced their retirement and that Andy could have their greenhouse. The balance of his winnings was spent on moving the greenhouse - 28 x 15 feet (8.6M x 5M) - which was full in a year! The florists, May Hopcroft and Elsie Mitchell, have both had Andy Easton - bred Cymbidiums named for them.
By 1970 Hawkes Bay was quite an orchid growing centre, thanks to South Pacific Orchids, started by Bruce Lindeman and where Russell Hutton began his commercial orchid career. The business imported flasks from Santa Barbara Orchid Estate (US) and Armstrong and Brown (UK) and also grew Cymbidiums for the cut flower market.
Andy graduated with a BSc. in Botany from Victoria University in 1969 and decided to do postgraduate work in the United States. The Colorado Flower Growers Association covered his tuition fees and made a living expenses grant of about USD 270 a month in return for study at Colorado State University on carnation diseases (he found time for some orchid research too).
In 1972 Andy graduated with an MS in Botany and Plant Pathology and returned to NZ with his American wife Carol, but lasted only 6 months at Lincoln before returning to the US and joining Chase Gardens in Eugene, Oregon where he managed 80 staff and 60 greenhouses. The business primarily grew roses, but also had about 4 acres (1.6ha) of Cattleya and Cymbidium orchids.
Andy attended his first Santa Barbara Orchid Show in 1973 (and hasn't missed one since, although the 2020 show was cancelled at the last minute, he was there) and took the opportunity to visit and buy from the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate, which at the time offered the world's most complete collection of awarded and breeding Cymbidiums.
During the 5 years at Chase, Andy completed the American Orchid Society judging course, which included compulsory attendance at monthly meetings in Seattle - a round trip of 885 kms!!
In 1978 he leased 1,486 sq. metres of greenhouse in Santa Barbara to establish his own business (Featherhill Exotic Plants) but the next year moved to California where he worked as general manager for Dos Pueblos and ran his own business at the weekends.
In 1985 Andy and Carol returned to New Zealand, this time to Rotorua, and by 1986 all his collection was at Tikitere on the outskirts of Rotorua - 17,000 plants quarantined on site and hundreds of flasks sent to Norm Porter for growing on, ready for the opening of Geyserland Orchids.
Andy helped organise the World Orchid Conference in Auckland in 1990, served as president of the Orchid Council of New Zealand (OCNZ) and funded both the Ken Blackman Award and the John Easton Award, named for his father and given to an outstanding contribution to the culture of orchids in New Zealand.
In 1993 he received a Plant Raisers Award (and a silver medal) from the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture with the two plants selected being Cymbidium Tracey Reddaway "Geyserland" and Cymbidium Geysergold.
Sadly Carol passed away soon after their move to Rotorua and Andy's second marriage ended in a divorce which saw him leave these shores permanently in 2000, heading back to the US. He met his third wife, Patricia in Medellin, Colombia and they have now been married for almost 20 years.
Andy was the education director of the American Orchid Society from mid 2000 until late 2004 when he returned to commercial orchid growing - plus finding time to complete an MBA in California, graduating in 2015. His company, New Horizon Orchids, was until 2018 based in Salinas, California where he says the climate approximated more closely to European, Australian and upland Japanese orchid growing regions than anywhere else.
However, being married to Patricia exposed Andy to Colombia and Colombian orchids and he began to seriously consider a permanent move there.
The greenhouse where he rented space in Salinas sold to (legal) cannabis growers in 2016 "so I saw some urgency in making the decision" he says. "I had plants at a friend's nursery in Santa Barbara while we were still living in Salinas so it was a weekly long day trip to attend my plants with extended stays for summer potting and also to attend the Santa Barbara show.
But from 2016 the die was cast and we gradually moved essential stock to Colombia shipment by shipment with many flasks also travelling from the laboratory we use in Thailand".
Andy now lives in El Retiro near Medellin in Colombia, where he's still busy growing, hybridising and attempting to learn Spanish. He is now officially a Colombian resident but also retains his US citizenship.
New Horizon provides hobbyist and commercial Cymbidiums to Guest Orchids in South Australia and Leaf and Limb Orchids in Queensland. Flasks are also supplied to Plantae Orchids in South Africa, Sorella Orchids in the US and Ruiter Orchids in The Netherlands. "Floricultura, the largest orchid company in the world, continues as our largest and longest - term commercial customer".
Andy has developed a new line of temperature tolerant Cymbidiums, "road testing" them in Florida. "These plants will fill a huge gap in the Cymbidium varietal selection", he says. "These plants will perform in lowland Japan, China, Central America and other subtropical regions".
New Horizon also produces Odontoglossum Alliance pot plants and they are becoming more popular again after two decades of inertia. "Colombia is home to many Odont species so the hybrids grow exceptionally well here and we have the finest forms of this species to work with too. We are even developing warmth tolerant types of these".
Andy says the orchid world has changed dramatically since he left New Zealand in 2000, particularly at the hobby level. "in 2000 the American Orchid Society had 30,000 members. Today it struggles to hold at 10,000. Millenials seem to have little interest in orchid growing as a hobby. I sell a few flasks to a friend in New Zealand as a courtesy but it's not commercially viable. The hobby situation in Australia is similar, except that they do have a buoyant blooming orchid market.
New Zealand's commercial orchid export sector never recovered from the 2009 Oberon spray disaster and what had been a lucrative business, shrank to a trickle. At the same time commercial growers in the southern hemisphere lost their "off-season" advantage to growers in The Netherlands improving their culture and breeding plants that now see Cymbidiums in flower from mid-August until the end of June.
Andy works with a large Colombian Cymbidium operation that exports to the US 12 months of the year. "There are no seasons here on the Equator so Cymbidiums will bloom any time they make a growth".
New Horizon is, he says "by far" leading the field in producing warmth tolerant Cymbidiums. "it's maybe 60% of what we hybridise and some of these warmth tolerant varieties are making the grade as cut flowers. Almost 100% are sold under trade names (no RHS registration). Because we are unable to have any practicable worldwide protection for our intellectual property, we resort to trade names, specific variety sales to individual clients, etc. Let me say we work much harder for every dollar now than in 2000!"
As an example, Andy says that although potted blooming orchids are increasing steadily in sales, a grower's return is between 10c. and 25c. (US) per plant. "It takes hundreds of thousands of units to make any decent money. Fortunately, it's not work to me. I bounce out of here Monday wondering what has opened on Sunday and leave the greenhouse Saturday afternoon reluctantly".
"My hope is that I can be working in a greenhouse until the day I die. My funeral is already arranged and paid for which, upon reflection, is a strangely liberating thought. The longer I live the poorer the deal is for the service provider, so if I should make it to 85, I will be getting a deal anyone with Scottish ancestry should be proud of!"
The on-line New Horizons Orchid Forum is a site for erudite (and robust) conversation about all things orchids. "As you have likely figured out, I try to always be truthful and I'm quite fearless about saying what I believe to be accurate".
Andy Easton-bred orchids include Cymbidiums: Last Tango "Geyserland"; Cali Night "Geyserland" HCC/AOS; Majeed Khadaroo; John McCormack; Devon Elf "New Horizon" 4n; Kirby Lesh; Magic Devon; Candy King; Phar Lap; Mem. Amelia Earhart; Falling Passion; George Formby and Gateway to Gold. Plus Odcdm Tiger Brew and Cattleya Ned Nash."
At this point we should make mention of Daniela Bonett who runs 2 businesses in town and who originally introduced us to Andy back in 2021. Daniela is Venezuelan and speaks excellent English. She recognised our Kiwi accents and immediately made the connection. Daniela had also done office and translation work for Andy and is a good friend of us all.
And there is Larry, another Venezuelan who is a tech wizz kid, and who had done work for Andy (and us) from time to time.
Andy was an unforgettable personality and we will never forget the wonderful and entertaining times we spent with him.
Of late however, we had been becoming increasingly concerned at a walking disability he unfortunately had suffered as a result of a fall he had had at the greenhouse. This made simply getting around a much greater effort than it should normally be, but he always had a cheerful face and made light of his disability.
Although you were with us for only a short time in our lives, we will never forget you, Andy. Rest in Peace.
From your forever friends - Jim and Jean in El Retiro, Colombia
Phone: +57 310 3069697
Email: tiare.taporo3@gmail.com
Website: tiaretaporo3@blogspot.com
