Letter to the Editor
Bill Dale
Sidney, British Columbia
Canada
EDITOR:
In 1987, I made a tape of a conversation with Peggy Abkhazi which is deposited in the BC Provincial Archives in Victoria. She mentioned one of her favorite rhododendrons was R. auriculatum, which is late flowering with blooms of white with a greenish tinge and fragrant. In 1947 when Peggy and Nicholas Abkhazi were building their garden, they visited the Richard Layritz Nursery. Mr. Layritz was in his 80's. He had had a plant of
R. auriculatum
for about fifty years and it had never bloomed. He wanted Peggy to have it as he knew she would give it a good home and hopefully see it bloom. Peggy planted it in her garden and twelve years later it first bloomed - in 1959. Each year thereafter until her death in 1994, Peggy always enjoyed the sight and fragrance of this gift from her old friend Richard Layritz.