Past convention banquets: Sidney, Williamsburg, Eureka (x2), Bremen (x2), Philadelphia.
During the convention week, you’ll have the opportunity to witness presentations from some of the world’s foremost experts on woodland plants and the genus Rhododendron, including the most up-to-date DNA research. Among them:
Jens Nielsen
Jens Nielsen is a world rhododendron authority. He started traveling to Northwest Yunnan at age 20 to seek out the superior forms of rhododendron species discovered by the famous plant hunters in the early part of the twentieth century. After more than 25 trips to that rhododendron rich area of the world, he started focusing on seeking out the less known rhododendron species more recently published by Chinese botanists that are found only in small populations well away from the species-rich areas of Southwest China.
Jens has worked as a propagator at the famous Brodick Castle, which is part of the National Trust for Scotland. He also was an interim Garden Manager for the National Trust for Scotland, followed by several years at the renowned Glendoick Gardens. Jens was recently the head gardener for the Hutts Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park, a new and amazing garden of 45 acres and some 20,000 plants. He currently runs his own business designing and establishing gardens for the best garden connoisseurs. He is a true plantsman and rhododendron. authority.
To quote Steve Hootman, “Jens Nielsen is one of the most knowledgeable and intrepid of the new generation of plant hunters. He is the now rare true field botanist with expertise in rhododendrons, Primula, Meconopsis and pretty much every other plant in the world-wide temperate flora. Jens is without a doubt the leading world expert on the genus Rhododendron.”
Lionel de Rothschild
Exbury Gardens was the inspiration of Lionel Nathan de Rothschild. It was his vision, his dedication and his resources which have created one of the finest woodland gardens in Great Britain. Lionel was born in 1882 into the famous banking family. By the mid-19th century, the Rothschilds were at the peak of their financial power and prestige throughout Europe. He bought the Exbury Estate in the New Forest in 1919. It was an isolated hamlet on the northern edge of the Solent which had a unique micro-climate ideally suited for growing rhododendrons. Lionel made his garden during the era when plant hunters and explorers such as Frank Kingdom-Ward, George Forrest and Joseph Rock were bringing back seeds of hitherto unseen plants from the remoter areas of the Himalayas and South-East Asia. Lionel de Rothschild continues the family’s management of the estate as Exbury Gardens celebrates 100 years.
Daniel J. Hinkley
Dan Hinkley is a modern-day plant explorer, collector, garden writer, horticulturist and nurseryman. He is best known for establishing Heronswood Nursery, in Kingston, Washington, and Windcliff, on the Kitsap Peninsula near Indianola, WA, and for collecting, propagating, and naming many varieties of plants new to the North American nursery trade. His plant collection for Monrovia features unique shrubs, grasses, and herbaceous perennials discovered over his 25+ years of botanizing.
Dan Hinkley earned his Bachelor of Science in Ornamental Horticulture, and Horticulture Education, from Michigan State University in 1976 and went on to graduate school at the University of Washington, where he achieved a Master of Science degree in Urban Horticulture in 1985. In 1987 he began gardening on the land that would become Heronswood with his partner, the architect Robert L. Jones. By the mid-1990s Heronswood Nursery was doing a thriving mail-order business, and the display garden tours gained international acclaim. In 2000, Hinkley and Jones sold the business and display gardens to Burpee Seeds and continued to run the nursery. By 2001 the Heronswood catalog included over 2,400 plants, and the gardens at Heronswood had 10,000 species. Many had been raised from seed collected by Hinckley during expeditions in Asia, and other remote exploratory travels. Within the Heronswood catalog, Hinkley would often write detailed essays about the people and places where he first encountered the plants, his adventures abroad, and also the desirable benefits the plants offered to the plant enthusiast.
In May 2006, Burpee closed the Kingston location. In 2012 the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe bought Heronswood at auction and brought Hinkley back as a consultant to oversee its restoration, eventually appointing him Director of the garden he had founded. Many important collections were recovered, and many new plants collected during Hinkley’s explorations of China, Vietnam, Chile, Myanmar, New Zealand and Tasmania have been given new homes in the garden. Mr. Hinkley also continues his work at the estate he and his partner share—Windcliff—on an aptly named 6.5 acre bluff above Puget Sound on the Kitsap Peninsula overlooking the Salish Sea. He has recently published his fourth book, Windcliff, recounting the creation of the garden with compelling narrative and photography. Among his many honors, Dan was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal, Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, 2007, “for outstanding contribution to advancing the science and practice of horticulture”.
Tom Clarke
Head Gardener at Exbury, Tom Clarke will focus on the continued conservation of the garden, some of the more recent developments and projects along with more recent interesting plant introduction, enhanced by Lionel de Rothschild’s history of the garden. Tom says he has been lucky enough to be a professional horticulturalist for 28 years. He completed a 3 year apprenticeship with the National Trust and worked in some fabulous woodland gardens in the west of Cornwall including Glendurgan, Tregothnan and most recently Trelissick where he developed his love of temperate woody plants including, of course, Rhododendrons.
Steve Hootman
Steve Hootman, Executive Director and Curator of the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden and intrepid plant explorer, makes an always welcome return. The RSBG maintains one of the largest collection of species rhododendrons in the world and is committed to disseminating information about them, as well as plants and seeds. Steve has become a foremost international authority on Rhododendron taxonomy and distribution. Steve regularly visits the more remote parts of China, Vietnam, India, Tibet, and Papua New Guinea to discover, identify, and acquire new species. He is an active collector, authority and promoter of related Ericaceae including genera such as Vaccinium, Agapetes and Gaultheria. Steve was awarded the ARS’s highest honor, the Gold Medal, in 2007 for his internationally significant work with genus Rhododendron.
Steve Krebs
Steve Krebs is one of the most prominent and accessible, currently active investigators of rhododendrons. Steve joined the Holden Arboretum (Holden Forests and Gardens) after completing his Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics/Horticulture at Michigan State University. Well into his third decade at the Leach Station, his research currently focuses on stress adaptations, both to continue David Leach’s commitment to breeding rhododendrons for continental climates, and because of anticipated environmental changes. The Leach Station is staffed and equipped to support extensive and diverse display gardens, in addition to large breeding populations and research plots. The Station continues its founder’s commitment to breeding superior rhododendrons and azaleas for continental climates (i.e. cold winters and hot summers).
Steve is using the Taiwanese species R. hyperythrum to transfer both disease resistance and heat tolerance into a new breed of rhododendrons. The first commercial introduction, trade named Splendor™, was completed in 2018. As part of the Southgate™ collection, Splendor™ and its companion rhododendrons have a unique ability to grow in Gulf South climates as well as the more traditional northern regions of cultivation. In addition, Steve has been trialing a German proprietary rootstock called INKARHO™ that was developed for higher pH tolerance. In the course of the Ohio field evaluations, it was discovered that INKARHO™ is also resistant to root rot disease. This trait will increase the adaptability of INKARHO™ to a range of challenging soil conditions. The overall goal: to produce commercial rhododendrons that are more vigorous as well as more resistant to root rot, extreme temps, and alkaline pH.
Valerie Soza
Valerie Soza completed her undergraduate studies in Environmental Studies and Anthropology at Pitzer College, Claremont, California, in 1997. Subsequently, she served as Botanical Field Studies Coordinator and Herbarium Curatorial Assistant at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont from 1997 to 2003. Dr. Soza received her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, completed her postdoctoral research at the UW, and now is a Research Scientist at UW. Valerie’s research attempts to understand the evolutionary history of species and the potential roles that flower morphology and biogeography play in speciation of angiosperms. Currently in the (Ben) Hall lab, she is using molecular data to understand the tropical diversification of Rhododendron (Ericaceae) in Southeast Asia and to identify genes involved in flower symmetry changes in this group.
Juliana S. Medeiros, PhD
Dr. Medeiros leads the plant ecophysiology lab at the Holden Arboretum and holds adjunct appointments in the Biology Departments at Case Western Reserve University and Kent State University. Her work investigates the impact of spatial and temporal variation in climate on plant physiology and anatomy, primarily focused on Rhododendron, but also including other woody plants.
In addition to her research activities, as a founding Co-Chair of the Rhododendron Research Network through the American Rhododendron Society Dr. Medeiros is also active in developing scientific programs for public audiences and building collaborative infrastructure that brings researchers together to foster new partnerships. She is committed to advancing and promoting research in the genus and is also actively involved in outreach programs for adults and K-12 students. Juliana is a member of the Great Lakes Chapter of the ARS.
Dr. Medeiros holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a Master of Science in Biology and a Doctorate in Biology from the University of New Mexico.
For those of you who experienced the presentation by Dr. Medeiros in Parksville, BC, at the ARS Fall Western Regional Conference in September 2019 (“Drinking the Ocean Through A Straw: Rhododendron Strategies For Rapid Growth Under Water Limitation”), it’s obvious that she has a talent for communicating plant science in a very approachable way.
