JARS v64n4 - The World in Your Garden, Rhododendrons 2011

The World in Your Garden, Rhododendrons 2011
Peter Kendall
Portland, Oregon

Meetings and Gardens to Pique the Imagination, ARS Annual Convention, May 11–15, 2011

The Oregon Chapters (District 4) of the American Rhododendron Society are eagerly looking forward to hosting next spring's Annual Convention. A host of exceptional speakers from around the world are being invited for your education and listening pleasure. Along with the programs an array of outstanding public and private gardens and nurseries are on tap for visitation, and most should be at the height of their allure.

The gardens we have selected, whether public or private, embrace a number of internationally acclaimed designs with temperate plants to match their settings. The pruning, general maintenance and any structural shift is, in each case, of the highest standard. Two of the gardens hail from Asia - Portland's Japanese Garden and Portland's Classical Chinese Garden. Each shows features that represent the highest aesthetic in each culture.

In the case of the Chinese Garden, the forces of Confucianism and Taoism have come together to exalt architecture and attention to detail amidst a vast selection of exotic plants that play off one another, their intervening spaces and supporting structural foil. Water, in the form of ponds and falls, provides a further foil and unifying element.

Portland's Japanese Garden draws from its Chinese roots but its Shinto ancestry together with Taoism and Zen Buddhism have resulted in a product where stone, water and plants have morphed into a cunningly natural appearing yet highly articulated garden form.

The Bishop's Close Garden at Elk Rock (the former Peter Kerr Garden) was designed by John Charles Olmstead, son of the renowned Frederick Law Olmstead, who had, after a tumultuous battle, conceived and brought into existence the tour de force of New York's Central Park. The Garden at Bishop's Close represents a magnificence of plants with towering conifers, Oregon white oaks and notably large magnolias. This high canopy surrounds and surmounts undulating acres of lawn with a magnificent view of Mt. Hood to the east. A supporting cast of rhododendrons and meticulously selected companion plants fulfills a woodland garden's highest aspirations.

The Jane Kerr Platt Garden is a private garden and, at approximately two acres, one of the most beautifully designed and horticulturally endowed premises of its kind in the world. Jane was the daughter of Peter Kerr and inherited her father's love of plants which she brought to a new level.

Nurseries which we will be visiting include the famed Dover Nursery with its acres of unusual species and hybrids. These nurseries represent the pinnacle of rhododendron growers across the country.

Noted hybridizers will be on hand to discuss their best efforts. Our meetings and banquets in the Portland-Vancouver area will be staged in the much touted Heathman Lodge. Although newly built, this impressive structure echoes an historical past. Within its confines, are art and artifacts of eye-catching dimension.