Hideo Suzuki, an internationally known authority on Japanese rhododendrons and maples, will be our speaker the evening of October 17th. Hideo is an Associate Member of the VRS (he is one of ours!), an Honorary Life Member of the Seattle Rhododendron Society, and a recipient of the Gold Medal of the American Rhododendron Society. He has received the Veitch Memorial Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society. He is the Immediate Past President of the Japanese Rhododendron Society, and, having recently resigned from the Executive of the Japan Branch of the Royal Horticultural Society, is now in the honoured position of Advisor to that Society, a position specially created for him. The Japanese branch is the only RHS chapter outside Britain. Hideo is, in fact, a co-founder of RHSJ, which is also the largest horticultural society in Japan.

Hideo has been much sought after as a speaker. Not only did he speak at our own ARS national convention in Vancouver in 1997, but he has spoken in Seattle twice, in addition to the Rhododendron Species Foundation, in Portland, and in Washington, D.C. As well as in Vancouver, he has spoken in Toronto, to the Rhododendron Society of Canada, at an international rhododendron conference in Wallongong, Australia, and at the annual convention of the Australian Rhododendron Society in Melbourne. In May, 2003, he has been invited to speak at a conference in Bergen, Norway.

Hideo wrote a foreword to Vertrees’ book Japanese Maples, a standard authoritative work on the subject, and contributed photographs for Cox’s famous The Encyclopedia of Rhododendron Species, especially of some of the azaleas which will comprise part of his lecture here. He is one of the principal writers in two recent important rhododendron publications in Japan, Rhododendrons and Azaleas, published in 1996, and Rhododendrons, published in 2001. Most important! He has written an article for the VRS newsletter, Indumentum, on ‘My Favorite “Yashio” Azaleas’, an article reprinted with enthusiasm in the ARS Journal and elsewhere.

 The Akagi Nature Park, a 300-acre conservation area at an elevation of 2300 feet on the west side of Mount Akagi, about 100 miles north of Tokyo, has also been an important concern for Hideo. He has been an advisor to it to since its inception. Part of the purpose of the park was to open up nature to residents of the Tokyo area, particularly children, who thought the beetles they bought in department stores as playthings originated there. It is like urban children here being taken to the farm to see where their food comes from. Native rhododendrons, Hideo says, are the primary planting at Akagi, and are planted on a scale larger than anywhere else in Japan. Joanne and I were privileged to be taken by him on a tour of this park several years ago. It was Hideo, too, who introduced us to the beautiful Japanese three-leaf azaleas. The VRS was honoured by Hideo’s short talk ‘My Unforgettable Encounter with a Rhododendron’ at our September meeting when he visited Vancouver a couple years ago, and we now welcome him for a full lecture this October. Hideo Suzuki will speak on the ‘Akagi Nature Park and its Collection of Three-Leaf Azaleas’.