Digital subscriptions provided by the City of Gulfport THE GABBER.COM No. 2797
January 26, 2023- February 1, 2023
Land of Flowers They started off as decorations. When Michael Polen began working at Art Stone Co., the concrete statuary shop his family founded in 1959, he decided to spruce up some of the items on the lot with a few plants. The pretty orchids he and his wife Paula picked up on their regular trips to Keys seemed like just the thing. “I thought it would get people interested in the fountains,” he recalls with a laugh. “But all they wanted was the orchids!” That was 1982. Today, you can still wander past mermaids, gnomes, and other fantastical creatures cast in stone, but if you keep going toward the back of the lot, you’ll find a living, breathing marvel: a veritable jungle of orchids. Cyrtopodium. Maxillaria. Phalaenopsis. With names as varied and as mesmerizing as their bold shapes and colors, orchids represent one of the largest plant families in the world. Endlessly adaptive, diverse species grow in trees, on cliff faces, among prairie grasses, or nestled into fungi communities of the forest floor. With our humid subtropical cli-
AMANDA HAGOOD
By Amanda Hagood
Michael Polen, owner of Art Stone Co., shows off the Epidendrum that recently won him an American Orchid Society Award. He named it after his granddaughter: Mae’s Green Star.
mate, Florida is particularly rich in orchids – and orchid growers. Bill Nunez, a longtime leader of the Florida West Coast Orchid Society
DINE-IN •
(FWCOS), can remember hunting for orchids as a young man in DeSoto County.
Flowers continued on page 9
HOME LOANS
CARRY-OUT •
GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE!
FAST/EXPERIENCED/LOCAL
FRESH FLORIDA STONE CRABS ARE HERE!
CALL OR TEXT TODAY 727-351-2901
7490 GULF BLVD • ST PETE BEACH • 727-367-3309 • PJSOYSTERBAR.COM
ALL WESTERN MORTGAGE INC. NMLS 14210
DAVE TUCKER NMLS 307499