Azaleas: an endangered species in DC?
Any of us from the Mid-Atlantic who have made the spring pilgrimage to the U.S. Arboretum outside Washington to see the astonishing azalea collection will be dismayed to learn that there are plans to destroy it.
Don Hyatt, recognized as a national authority on azaleas, reports in Washington Gardener magazine that the azaleas will be cut back and the stumps painted with an herbicide.
The reasons given by Scott Aker, garden unit leader of the Arboretum, include the fact that the display on Mount Hamilton is too popular with the public, and the Arboretum doesn't have the parking or the restroom facilities to handle the crowds.
Aker sites other reasons, including the fact that the origins of these enormous azaleas are not documented, but Hyatt, in his article, refutes each point.
For gardeners, the Arboretum azalea display is right up there with the cherry blossoms on the Tidal Basin. Perhaps more so.
The azaleas occupy between three and six acres of the 446-acre Arboretum. Thanks to the work of volunteers, they are not overgrown or in decline. Some are more than 60 years old.
Historically, Hyatt writes, the azaleas are from the collection developed by the first director of the Arboretum in a breeding program that prodeced the first large flower azaleas hardy in the Mid-Atlantic.
Hyatt concludes his piece in Washington Gardener with the names, addresses and phone numbers of USDA officials who might be influenced to halt this irrevocable decision.
Azaleas part of Washington, D.C.'s spring signature. It would be a crime for them to be destroyed because they are too beautiful.
Comments
...the display on Mount Hamilton is too popular with the public...
Really??? Too popular??? I just love government employees!
On the other hand - and I wonder if there is a correlation, here - this past Spring, the WaPo Garden columnist did a lengthy essay (paid by the word, was my suspicion) exclaiming that Washington's signature brick houses and azaleas are trite and boring and should be ripped out en masse to be replaced with...I don't remember what, but I know it was unacceptable!
Posted by: Eve | November 23, 2010 11:04 AM
Possibly the most rediculous thing I've heard in a long while. With that justification we should chop everything down in the arboretum so nobody ever visits and then nobody has a job!!!
Posted by: andrew | November 23, 2010 12:48 PM