ARS Board Awards Endowment Fund Grants
The ARS Board of Directors approved four Endowment Fund grants at its meeting April 16, 2008 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the recommendation of the ARS Endowment Committee.
The Humboldt Botanical Gardens received a grant of $3,000 for the completion of the planting beds in the Moss Family Temperate Woodland Garden. Needed for this project are large quantities of soil amendments, weed mats and mulches. This garden is designed to emphasize plants from Asia, in particular rhododendrons from subsection Maddenia and other rhododendron species that cannot be grown outdoors in most of North America.
The O. Howard Hinsdale Rhododendron Garden received a grant of $3,000 for the purchase of plants to replace species and hybrid rhododendrons lost from the Hinsdale collection and for a program to raise rhododendrons from cuttings where named varieties in the garden are no longer available.
The Vancouver Island chapters and the Milner Gardens and Woodland received a grant of $1,500 to partially fund a propagation house to aid in the development of a Species Study Program.
The Cowichan Chapter Memorial Rhododendron Garden project received a grant of $1,500 to partially cover hard landscape construction, including upgrading the footbridge for safety and educational signage.