Back to the Calendar - Fall 2002

16th Annual Steele Lectures

Jack Looye: "New Rhododendrons"

Tuesday, 1 October 2002, 7:30 p.m., Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History

Jack Looye is a District Director Alternate and a member of the RSC Niagara Region Chapter as well as the Toronto and Atlantic Chapters and the Great Lakes Chapter. He is a past president of the Great Lakes Chapter. He has also served in the RSC Niagara Region Chapter Board and as a Regional Director for the RSC. He has received the Hybridizer's Award from the RSC and is a frequent panelist at the ARS Breeder's Roundtables. In a word, his life is rhododendrons.

Jack has had a long involvement with rhododendrons. He and his wife Jackie run Rhodoland Nurseries in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario. From the Niagara Chapter website: "A staggering amount of new material goes through this nursery. Jack Looye is Niagara's most active breeder of rhododendrons. Jack makes some 100 crosses each year and his goal is to develop hardy yellows, oranges and reds. He and his wife Jackie are currently evaluating 5000 hybrid seedlings. In 1995 they started their nursery on 14 acres of prime soil. They currently have 7 polyhouses filled with 15,000 cultivars of hardy rhododendrons."

One person seems to have influenced Jack more so than others -- the late Weldon Delp. Weldon did a dizzying number of crosses and Jack knew them all. Delp took Jack under his wing and shared his plants with him as a trusted confidant and equal. Jack's hybridizing is based on many of Delp's crosses but he has also gone off in his own direction. Or is it directions? His talk will cover many of the new plants from his work. In a recent conversation he said he has some very good dwarf dark purples based on Rhododendron aureum -- dwarf compact elepidote plants. Hopefully we'll see some of them during his lecture. Whatever we see, it will be riveting. Jack also has a secret passion for daylilies.

John Grimshaw: "Wanderings of a Bulb Lover"

Wednesday, 9 October 2002, 7:30 p.m., Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History

John Grimshaw has served on the Main Committee of the Alpine Garden Society, for which he has led botanical and horticultural tours to the Altai Mountains of Russia and to California. He has also trekked the Khumbu district of Nepal, Kenya, the Philippines, Socotra, mainland Yemen and the Peloponnese. He is author of the Gardener's Atlas (1998) and co-author of two additional publications: Checklist of the Vascular Flora of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Snowdrops: A Survey of the Galanthus Cultivars in Cultivation. His plant hunting has taken him to Tanzania, including the montane forests of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where he has collected some 2,000 herbarium specimens and identified new plant species on Kili's northern slope. In 1990 he headed the Kilimanjaro Elephant Project: a survey and census of the elephant population inhabiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, sponsored by Friends of Conservation.

He was employed by the University Botanic Garden, Oxford, to maintain the collections of the late Primrose Warburg at South Hayes, Yarnells Hill, Oxford, a garden rich in snowdrops and hellebores. Now he is employed by K. Sahin, Zaden B.V., Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands, as botanical and horticultural advisor, with responsibility for the development of perennial seed crops. He also is responsible for development of new products for the seed trade.

In February 2001 he established the Griffin Press for the publication of horticultural literature.

Mr. Grimshaw participated in the North American Rock Garden Society's foreign speakers tour programme during the winter of 1999 and in March 2001 was a keynote speaker for the North American Rock Garden Society winter study weekend in Victoria, B.C. He gardens in Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK.

18th Annual RSCAR
Christmas Wine & Cheese Party

Tuesday, 3 December 2002, 7:30 p.m., Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History

Come out and enjoy an evening of good food, wine and conversation.

There will not be a speaker. Members are encouraged to bring a few slides or photos of their gardens and favourite plants.

Members are requested to bring finger foods and sweets. RSCAR will provide the wine due to Liquor License Board regulations.

(These events are open to Members and the Public)