QBARS - v20n3 The Annual Meeting Garden Tours

The Annual Meeting Garden Tours

Five buses plus some private cars took visitors to the Annual Meeting on an excursion to some wonderful gardens, and brought them back to the Sherwood Inn just as rain began to fall in earnest.

At "Madera," the home of the Lowell Murrays we saw plantings of rhododendrons established some 40 years ago bordering well-kept lawns sloping down to the lake. Of special interest was the Japanese Garden including a waterfall and stream with mature azaleas and Japanese maples, pines and other appropriate plants.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Hilding Lindberg is Colonial in type in a woodland setting with much rare plant material. In addition to the many choice rhododendrons and azaleas there were beautiful dogwoods, maples, flowering crabs and other interesting things. A rhododendron 'Broughtonii Aureum' trained almost as a vine on a building corner demonstrated what is probably the best use for this beautiful but sprawling variety.

Mr. and Mrs. Corydon Wagner provided not only a beautiful garden for us to see but a delicious lunch as well. Rhododendrons were very tastefully used both in formal and informal plantings. There were, for instance, a magnificent 'Bow Bells', fine standard R. williamsianum in massive jars, a beautiful specimen of R. yakushimanum and a newly constructed rock garden with many rhododendron species used in the planting.

Mr. and Mrs. Fred Robbins showed us a wonderful garden, noteworthy as a rhododendron collection and as a landscaped garden as well. The plants were used around the house and on a slope facing the house in such a way that one knew that the Robbins' were on intimate terms with everyone of them.

The last stop of our particular group was at the nursery of Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Kammer. The Kammers specialize in deciduous azaleas of the Knaphill type, propagating probably the largest selection of varieties in the Northwest. The nursery is laid out on a hillside, rather steep with hairpin curves and cutbacks, to give varied and pleasing pictures to those who wander about.

The visitors were exceedingly well impressed with the gardens and with the hospitality shown them and were very appreciative of the opportunity which was theirs.