Speaker for the VRS meeting the evening of March 18th is Don Martyn, whose subject it not rhododendrons at all, but magnolias. We have decided to take the risk, on the grounds that most people who like rhododendrons also like magnolias. So Don’s title is ‘Magnolias, the Latest and the Greatest’. Despite this title, the lecture promises to be an interesting and engaging one.
I do not, certainly, offer this optimistic anticipation on the basis of the horticulture cv which Don has sent me, and which reads in its entirety as follows: ‘Member of the International Dendrology Society, amateur hybridizer of Magnolias and Rhodos, currently cultivating a small garden in the valley emphasizing maples, flowering trees and shrubs’. Rather, I offer it because Don is a very old friend who I know to be extremely knowledgeable not only on magnolias, but on rhododendrons and other woody plants as well—as his membership in the International Dendrology Society suggests. I also know him to have an engaging personality and considerable charm. He has been an important element in the horticultural scene throughout this part of British Columbia for many years, and will certainly have many good friends attending his lecture.
One word of caution, not concerning Don Martyn himself, but concerning the magnolias about which he will speak. Any gardener who sees magnolias as mature plants in their flowering season in a nursery, say Paul Reimer’s magnolia nursery especially, will find them absolutely irresistible. Beware. They usually become large trees that require considerable sunshine to flower, while blocking out that sunshine for everything growing under or near them. But they’re absolutely gorgeous. What’s one to do? Attending Don Martyn’s lecture may be a serious hazard, then, but there is always a thrill in living dangerously.
