QBARS - v21n2 An Active Season for the Vancouver B.C. Chapter

An Active Season for the Vancouver B.C. Chapter
Clive L. Justice, Vancouver, B.C.

This year the Vancouver Chapter is going rather big time for our annual show. The show dates are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the 11th, 12th and 13th of May at the Burnaby Ice Rink.

Burnaby is a large urban Municipality adjoining the City of Vancouver and has just recently adopted the Rhododendron as its official flower. Since this is also Canada's Centennial year, the Burnaby Centennial Committee is underwriting a spring garden show as a joint effort with the Vancouver Chapter A.R.S., to be the first of a series of annual spring garden shows at which the Rhododendron will be the feature plant.

This year the show will feature Rhododendron exhibits by the Parks Board of Vancouver and Burnaby as well as nursery organizations in the Lower Mainland.

The Chapter show will include both cut trusses and blooming plants. This will be the first year that we will have judged classes at which awards in the form of perpetual trophies will be given. There will be the Eric Langton Memorial trophy for the best deciduous Azalea hybrid; the Ted Greig Memorial trophy for the best species truss; the Horticultural Trades Association trophy for the best hybrid truss; the Burnaby trophy for the best new unnamed hybrid truss; the Ed Trayling trophy for the best plant in the show. Burnaby has even gone so far as to declare the week of the 7th of May as Rhododendron week.

They have also staged a competition to extend over five to ten years to choose a Rhododendron hybrid to be named 'Burnaby'. This is only open to breeders in Canada.