QBARS - v16n2 Gladsgay Gardens

Gladsgay Gardens
Thomas Wheeldon, M.D., Richmond, Virginia

"Gladsgay" is the home of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Wheeldon, who extend to you a warm invitation to visit their garden. There may be many of you who are planning a tour of ericaceous gardens in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Rhododendron Society at Winterthur, May sixth and seventh, 1962. "Gladsgay" is about 100 miles south of Washington where there will be much to see from a horticultural point of view. It is about 50 miles west of Williamsburg and 65 miles southeast of Charlottesville.

"Gladsgay" has an area of eight acres and has been designed to entertain persons of varied interest. It has some landscape value, the arrangement of parts of it having been suggested by knowledgeable friends. It serves as a teaching operation where students of various facets of horticulture may carry on their endeavors. It is a place one can visit to make selections of what one desires for his own garden. It is a trial garden with many purposes. Perhaps, one of its most valuable characteristics is that it is visited by many who just like to enjoy flowers.

The garden is designed to give varied effects. There are four quadrants each of which differs from the others and each has summer and winter plantings. This gives in fact eight distinct approaches and with evergreen backgrounds and colorful fruit and winter foliage, there are those who admire the winter effects as much as they do those of summer.

The catalog of the garden includes over two thousand kinds of azaleas, and over three hundred kinds of rhododendron (apart from the azaleas). Camellias, hollies, kalmias, magnolias, box, osmanthus, mahonia, pyracantha, nandena, and other persistent leaf material are used for basic planting as well as both persistent leaf and deciduous trees and shrubs. There is an interesting collection of flowering trees and a collection of several hundred kinds of daffodils is to be found.

Extensive scientific research is being carried on continually.

We feel sure you will find something to interest you. We shall be very happy to have you come to the garden to find this interest in your own fashion and in your own way.