QBARS - v32n3 Connecticut Chapter Members Win Scott Garden and Horticulture Award

Connecticut Chapter Members
Win Scott Garden and Horticulture Award

The 1978 Arthur Hoyt Scott Garden and Horticulture Award was presented recently to Lincoln and Laura Louise Foster, of Falls Village, Connecticut by President Theodore Friend of Swarthmore College at Swarthmore.

The Scott Award is presented annually to individuals or an organization which has pioneered in public horticulture on an international level. Given in memory of Arthur Hoyt Scott, a Swarthmore alumnus in the class of 1895 and former president of Scott Paper Company, the award itself consists of a medal and a check for $1,000.

The first Scott Medal was presented to ARS Member Dr. John C. Wister, who recently celebrated his ninety-first birthday, and who directed the affairs of the Scott Foundation of Swarthmore College for more than forty years. Last year's Scott award winner was Ernesta Ballard, president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and member of the Philadelphia Chapter.

The Fosters are plantsmen who have met the stringent requirements for the Scott Medal Award in many ways: through the beauty and excellence of their own garden; through their creation of other beautiful gardens, and through their writing, art, lecturing and hybridizing, according to Joseph Oppe, director of the Scott Foundation.

One of Lincoln Foster's accomplishments was to bring about the rebirth of the American Rock Garden Society while he served as its president. This group grew from four hundred members located in two places in the U.S., to a vigorous organization with a membership of more than three thousand, located in all fifty states and with branches in thirty-two other countries.

Out of his own wide experience and observations over many years Mr. Foster authored a book, Rock Gardening, a Guide to Growing A/pines and Other Wildflowers in the American Garden. Mrs. Foster did the illustrations for this volume. Both Fosters have lectured widely, always going out on their assignments together, taking turns speaking and running the projector and each prompting the other when there is suddenly a loss for a plant name.

Lincoln Foster is a hybridizer, working with phlox, rhododendron and saxifrage. Some of his hybrids are sold commercially, and many are growing in gardens in this country and abroad. The two have explored together for plants in the mountains of North America, Great Britain, France, Switzerland and Lebanon. They have generously supplied many friends with the fruits of their growth and exploration.

Together they built and maintain a beautiful seven-acre rock and woodland garden at their Connecticut home, which is open by appointment to the public, at no charge.

They have also built many other fine rock gardens, for friends and acquaintances.

He has received awards from the American Rock Garden Society, the American Rhododendron Society, the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut, the Garden Club of America, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and, in honor of his work in conservation, the Housatonic Valley Society.

Laura Louise Foster, in addition to illustrating her husband's book, also illustrated Boughton Cobb's A Field Guide to Ferns and herself wrote and illustrated a children's book, Keeping the Plants You Pick , which explains techniques for pressing and drying plants.

The drawings for these three books have been collected by the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Drawings from this collection are on display in the Scott Horticultural Foundation Center in Cunningham House.

Mrs. Foster's delicate and accurate drawings have appeared often in the Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society, usually as illustrations for articles by her husband. She has served on the editorial board of this publication for many years, and this year was named editor.

Mrs. Foster invented a kind of planter which can be used for alpines and miniature gardens, composed of a mixture of cement, peat, and perlite, very light and frost proof.

Said Mr. Oppe, in discussing the award, "Lincoln and Laura Louise Foster, without the backing of a well-known arboretum, botanical garden or horticultural society, make a notable contribution to American horticulture. The quality of all that they do is of the highest, and their enthusiasm and ability to share with others has gained them a very special place in the hearts of all those fortunate enough to hear them lecture, to read their books, and to visit their garden."