Only the very newest members of the VRS will not know Alleyne Cook, a founding VRS member and premier authority on rhododendrons in our area. Alleyne has kindly agreed to act as a substitute for Hank Helm, originally scheduled to speak on March 17th, but who has had to cancel.

Alleyne was born in New Zealand, where he did his first apprenticeship with the famous nursery Duncan and Davies. He then went on for an advanced apprenticeship at another, even more famous, nursery, Sunningdale, in England. The experience at Sunningdale was evidently a determining one in Alleyne’s career, which led him first to the Royston Nursery on Vancouver Island, which was something of a pioneer in the area in raising species rhododendrons, and owned by Ted and Mary Grieg, and then to Stanley Park, where an unusually enlightened Parks Director, Bill Livingston, recognized his extraordinary capabilities. As a result Alleyne created the Ted and Mary Grieg Rhododendron Garden, which we all know and value highly. In addition to this fine garden and collection, he is also known particularly for moving entire collections of large rhododendrons, to VanDusen Gardens, to the University of Victoria, and elsewhere. He is a kind of doyen of rhododendron culture, not only in this area, but in Canada and beyond.

But it was his work at Sunningdale, with its spillover to Towercourt, Ray Wood at Castle Howard, and Windsor Great Park, that still has major historical implications for international horticulture, and this will be the subject of his talk, entitled ‘My Years at Sunningdale’. Alleyne has contributed slides to the archives at Windsor Great Park at the request of its present Keeper, Mark Flanagan (who will speak to us next October), and people are still talking about his superb lecture at the 1999 ARS Annual Convention in Bellevue, Washington, which also dealt with this important period in horticultural history. It was at this convention, too, that he received the ARS Gold Medal, to a standing ovation. But he has spoken widely, and we are most grateful to him for ‘stepping briefly out of retirement’ and into the breach in the VRS speakers’ programme this March. British Columbia gardeners are fortunate to have him as one of us, and nobody should miss his lecture the evening of March 17th.

Alleyne Cook