About the creator of Tomoder.com
Thomas A. "Tom" Oder
Photos in header: Tom Oder by John Glenn; Oderara [Ode.] (syn. Tomoderara or Tod.) Orange Scorpion (Teohara [Thra.] (syn. Engsoonara or Eng.) Taylor x Paraphalaenopsis [Pps.] Boediardjo). The Royal Horticultural Society named the orchid nothogenus Oderara after Tom in 2002. The photo was taken by Larry Watson. Permission to use the photo was granted by Kherwin Cheng Chua. (See Career highlights below.)
Thomas A. 'Tom' Oder spent decades as an award-winning journalist — learning how to recognize, shape and tell stories that matter. When he wasn't in newsrooms, he was in gardens or with garden people — chairing major shows, editing and founding plant society newsletters and an international Phalaenopsis magazine, or working with academics and others to spread knowledge of the remarkable botanical diversity of the Southeast.
Now, he's combined his skills, interests and experiences and fulfilled a long-simmering passion. The result is Tomoder.com, the Southeast gardeners' go-to resource — stories of plants and plantspeople, curated lists of the region's nurseries, botanical gardens, garden suppliers and plant societies, a curated calendar of the area's best workshops, plant sales and other events, and a gallery of stunning photography of flowers and pollinators.
Tom believes that what he has researched and assembled is only available to Southeast gardeners in one place — Tomoder.com — in the area's seven core states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. And the reach of Tomoder.com is not limited to the Southeast.
National gardening media outlets historically maintain editorial hubs in the Northeast or West Coast, resulting in slower recognition of emerging regional trends, native-plant movements and localized horticultural innovations. Even industry wholesalers located elsewhere haven't fully tapped into the region's full garden potential. These are the gaps Tom built Tomoder.com to fill.
Tom's professional writing and editing career spans business journalism, environmental reporting and garden writing — a combination that shapes how he approaches every story and channel on the site: with curiosity for the story behind the story, rigor, a deep respect for the subject and with a businessperson's bottom-line eye, which really goes to the heart of Tomoder.com. When Tom tells a story — your story — his reputation brings instant credibility. That's something no amount of advertising dollars can buy.
Through the years -- in newsrooms and gardens
- Served as the news editor of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution and managing editor of Cox News Service, acting in the latter position as the primary editorial contact between 44 Cox Newspapers and the Cox Washington Bureau and the New York Times News Service. (The parent company of the Atlanta papers and Cox entities is Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, which started as a newspaper business in 1898 in Dayton, Ohio and grew into a massive multi-media conglomerate.)
Wrote the headline It's Atlanta! and produced that day's Atlanta Journal when Atlanta won the 1996 Olympics. It became the most famous headline in the history of Atlanta newspapers, which goes back to a time when Joel Chandler Harris of Br'er Rabbit fame was associate editor and lead editorial writer of The Atlanta Constitution (1876–1900), working alongside Henry W. Grady to promote the vision of a progressive "New South". The announcement was made in Tokyo at 9 p.m. – 9 a.m. in Atlanta, the deadline to start the presses on the morning street edition. We turned three presses with the live story before 9:05 a.m., a remarkable feat for print journalism.Read the story on the Saporta Report →
- Initiated and led a groundbreaking effort to create an online editorial tool adopted across the Cox Newspaper chain that won a Newspaper Association of America innovation award.
- Founded a global contract writing service, Worldwide Editing, that concentrates on business and economic development reporting for periodicals and economic development organizations.
- Led an editorial effort with the Atlanta Metro Chamber to write The Atlanta Metropolitan Export Plan (MEP) as part of the Global Cities Initiative — a joint project by The Brookings Institution and JPMorgan Chase. The project won a major award from the Atlanta chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
- Regular contributor to Georgia Trend magazine, reporting on topics such as fintech and data centers.
- Regular contributor to Georgia Grown magazine, the annual magazine of the Georgia Department of Agriculture (produced by Georgia Trend).
- Founded and edited Phalaenopsis, the journal of the International Phalaenopsis Alliance.
- Served on the boards of two plant societies, the steering committee of a native plant conference, as the president of the Atlanta Orchid Society and on a committee of the American Orchid Society.
- Oderara (abbreviated Ode.) is an intergeneric hybrid orchid nothogenus belonging to the Vandaceous alliance and is named after Tom. It is represented by the striking hybrid Oderara Orange Scorpion. This orchid is a Oderara hybrid registered with the RHS. It is originated by Ron Ciesinski (1940-2015) and combines five genera: Arachnis, Paraphalaenopsis, Renanthera, Vanda and Vandopsis. The key influencing species of this hybrid are Paraphalaenopsis denevei (25.00% ) Paraphalaenopsis laycockii (25.00% ) Arachnis cathcartii (25.00% ). Oderara Orange Scorpion 'Inga' received an Award of Distinction from the American Orchid Sociey on June 16, 1990.
- Awarded the American Orchid Society Affiliated Societies Award for dedication to excellence at the recommendation of the Atlanta Orchid Society.
- Won the Chicago Horticultural Society Medal at a Southeastern Flower Show for organizing a greenhouse exhibit about orchids and their light requirements.
- Initiated and led an effort to name a Phalaenopsis orchid for former Georgia and U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter.
- Invited to Taiwan twice in six months (something unheard of in Taiwan's horticulture marketing) by the government of Taiwan — officially the Republic of China — to write about Taiwan's signature agriculture export, the Phalaenopsis orchid.
Most awkward moment
Found myself in an elevator in the Town Lake Hyatt in Austin, Texas with then-Sen. Barack Obama. I was in Austin to lead a conference of Cox's Hispanic editors and publishers. Sen. Obama was in town for the Texas primary debate with former Arkansas and U.S. first Lady Hillary Clinton at the LBJ Presidential Library that evening.
Most memorable moment
Interviewed Civil Rights icon and Rep. John Lewis at his Atlanta office for a project for MARTA, the Atlanta public transit agency. The interview with Rep. Lewis was memorable for his palpable inner peace. I also interviewed former President Jimmy Carter as part of that project.
A rare journalistic feat -- invited to Taiwan twice
Taiwan's government -- officially the Republic of China -- invited Tom to Taiwan twice to join journalists from around the world in covering the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010–2011 Taipei International Flora Exposition — one of the largest horticultural events ever staged in Asia. Global garden writers -- 36 from countries big and small -- joined Taiwan's leading orchid executives and senior government officials as they converged on the island. The world's journalists also reported on the opening of the 2011 Taiwan International Orchid Show. The journalists were divided into two groups of 18 each. The journalists in our group wished a colleague from Japan well when he was called home mid-trip after an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011.
Available only on this site
The Taiwan Phalaenopsis Orchid Series
A five-part deep dive into Taiwan's cultivated Phalaenopsis orchids — from a greenhouse lab to the volcanic mountains of Yangmingshan National Park to your den, living room or kitchen — drawn from two reporting trips by special invitation of the government of the Republic of China.
Start with Day 1