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By Richard Brown
Born out of controversy, nurtured by shared visions and ample ambition,
and matured through the grace of time and unswerving efforts of dedicated
gardeners, Northwest Horticultural Society has become a horticultural
tour-de-force in the Seattle region – an area long-recognized for its
gardening potential.
In 1965, at a time when the University of Washington
Arboretum was experiencing some significant financial difficulties,
Elisabeth “Betty” Miller and fifteen of her influential gardening friends
met to find ways of helping the arboretum get through its fiscal
struggles. All were members of the Arboretum Foundation – a non-profit
supporting organization that, to some, appeared more dedicated to building
its own new facilities than to helping the arboretum. After much
discussion and brainstorming, this “Gang of Sixteen” decided to take
matters into their own hands and establish a new horticultural
organization to serve Seattle and the other communities in the Puget Sound
area. Betty agreed to serve as its first president.
In view of their primary objective, it should not be
surprising to learn that they decided to call their new organization the
Friends of the Arboretum. For several years, using plant sales, garden
tours, and other volunteer-driven fundraising tools, they contributed
significant quantities of money directly to the Arboretum coffers.
As the organization grew in numbers and in
operational experience, the vision of its future role and influence on
public horticulture in the Pacific Northwest blossomed. To play a broader
regional role, the group decided in 1973 to re-organize and to
re-incorporate under a new name, the Northwest Ornamental Horticultural
Society (NOHS). Their focus was to facilitate the creation of a new Center
for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington. The University had
decided, not in small part due to the lobbying efforts of the “Gang of
Sixteen,” to convert some out-dated graduate student housing property into
a new research arboretum facility. To show their sincerity, the group put
up a surprising $55,000 towards the drafting of a conceptual master plan
for this new “Union Bay Arboretum.” This new on-campus complex was
envisioned to better serve graduate students and faculty, specifically in
the newly emerging science called “urban horticulture,” leaving the older
arboretum property and its mature plant collection resources to serve the
needs of the general gardening public.
Under its new banner, NOHS, the organization began
publishing Ornamentals Northwest – a large format, multi-page
newsletter/journal using the volunteer editorial services of Sallie D.
Allen, one of the “Gang of Sixteen” and the second president of NOHS.
Harnessing the enthusiasm and talents of its board and most dedicated
members, NOHS assembled extensive educational exhibits extolling the
virtues of the Northwest climate for the cultivation of a wide variety of
ornamental plants, but particularly members of the heath family (Ericaceae).
The reputation of NOHS, for providing quality services and programs,
spread wide and fast. Honors and commendations were received from many
parts of the country and from many nationally respected horticulturists
and organizations.
Never willing to rest on its laurels or to consider
anything sacred, the board of NOHS took a third look at its own name. Some
felt the world “ornamental” was restrictive and perhaps misleading; others
felt it was merely redundant. The decision was made in the mid-1970s to
drop the word from the banner, and Northwest Horticultural Society came
into its own.
About this time, George Waters, at the editorial helm of the Pacific
Horticultural Foundation, began mailing the first issues of Pacific
Horticulture magazine. Betty Miller contacted him to report how much
she enjoyed this new publication. Soon discussions were held on now NHS
could become a sponsoring organization of the Pacific Horticultural
Foundation.
The cost to produce the botanically technical
Ornamentals Northwest, given its limited distribution, may have been a
major factor driving NHS to opt to terminate their publication and to
adopt Pacific Horticulture as the publication benefit for its
members.
The Center for Urban Horticulture became more than
just a concept with the adoption of a plan to engage its first director in
late 1979. Having harnessed considerable campus and community support for
the new center, it was disappointing to learn that State of Washington
funding for the project would not be forthcoming. Undaunted by this news,
the board of NHS joined with the supporting boards of the Arboretum
Foundation and the Bloedel Reserve (a former private residential estate
gifted to the University of Washington in 1970, but located outside
Seattle) in a commitment to provide the funding for the center’s director,
at least for the first five years. Dr. Harold J. Tukey, Jr., at the time
professor of horticulture at Cornell University, became the center’s first
director in the spring of 1980.
Under Dr. Tukey’s masterful leadership and with the
help of many horticultural organizations (Seattle Garden Club, Tacoma
Garden Club, the Arboretum Foundation and especially NHS) and substantial
financial gifts from individuals, families and businesses, the Center for
Urban Horticulture became a reality and it was dedicated in 1984.
In more recent years, with the Center for Urban
Horticulture a reality, NHS has focused its energy and resources on
supporting the Elisabeth C. Miller Horticultural Library at the center,
and on providing grants and scholarships, lectures, tours, workshops,
exhibits, and plant sales. In a community now widely recognized for its
horticultural facilities, private and public gardens, and specialty
nurseries, NHS continues to be an educational centerpiece for the
gardeners of the “Emerald City.”
Richard Brown is the director of The Bloedel
Reserve on Bainbridge Island, and is a past president of NHS. This article has been reprinted
with the author’s permission and with the permission of Pacific
Horticulture, in which it originally appeared (Vol. 62, No. 4). For
more information on Pacific Horticulture, see
www.pacifichorticulture.org. |