September 16 Alleyne Cook, Creator of the Ted and Mary Greig Rhododendron Garden in Stanley Park and responsible for moving much of the rhododendron collection into VanDusen Gardens; arguably the most knowledgeable person in Canada on the subject of rhododendrons: The Cinnabarinums.

October 21 Chip Muller is active in the American Rhododendron Society, and is on the Board of Directors of the Rhododendron Species Foundation. He served two terms on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Chapter, chaired the Seattle Chapter's May Rhododendron Show for three years, been editor and publisher of Seattle Rhododendronland, the chapter's newsletter. He has been Chair of the chapter's Species Study Group and Early Rhododendron Show, the first Chair of the Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens Steering committee, and co-convener of the 1999 ARS Annual Convention. On this occasion his title is 'Spring Flowers of the Nepal-Sikkim Himalaya', an account of his trip last spring, which followed almost immediately after the Seattle ARS Convention, of which he was co-convener.

November 18 Peter Wharton, Curator, the David C. Lam Asian Garden, UBC Botanic Gardens; plant explorer in China: Magnolias.

January 20 AGM, elections, members’ slides.

February 17 Kristi O’Donnell is the Garden Manager of Meerkerk Garden, a garden belonging to the Seattle Rhododendron Society on Whidbey Island in Washington. Thus the title of her lecture to the Vancouver Rhododendron Society the evening of February 17th: The Magic of Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens: Whidbey Island’s Peaceful Woodland Garden. She will give some historical background of the garden begun by Ann and Max Meerkerk in 1961, and bequeathed to the Seattle Rhododendron Society in 1980, since which time it has achieved world renown. The garden is ten acres and contains mature specimens of species and heritage hybrids. Notable are ‘fantastic specimens of R. yakushimanum “Exbury Form”, R. williamsianum, and many hybrids from the Rothschilds’ Exbury Gardens.’on Whidbey Island: Garden Design at Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens.

March 16 Jeanine Smith, Seattle area gardener and lecturer. Well known in the American Rhododendron Society, Jeanine and her husband Rex have a 23-year-old three acre woodland garden in Woodinville, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. (The alliteration is entirely coincidental.) She is a close neighbor of us in Vancouver, then, but I first met her a little further away, in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she was a speaker at the New Zealand Rhododendron Society's annual conference in October, 1998. There we became friends, and after hearing her talk I invited her to speak to the VRS. Like most woodland gardens in the Pacific Northwest, and of course like the gardens of most people active in the ARS, her garden is filled with rhododendrons and azaleas. She is, however, like most of us, also interested in all the trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants that go so well with rhododendrons and azaleas. Thus, the story of the making of her garden as she tells it in her lecture, Labour of Love: An Evolving Northwest Garden, involves much that concerns most of us in developing our own gardens.

April 20 Keith Rushforth, British forester and arboriculture consultant; extraordinary plant explorer throughout Asia, and introducer of plants from the wild into cultivation: Vietnam: Hardy but Untried Rhododendron Species. Keith will also include rhododendrons from Bhutan and Sikkim.

May 13 Walk in VanDusen Gardens: guided by Gerry Gibbens, gardener in charge of the Sino-Himalayan Garden at VanDusen.

June 15 Pot-luck picnic--Joe and Joanne Ronsley’s home in Lions Bay.