THURSDAY, April 11
Meeting at the Bellevue Botanical Garden
While lots of flowers have started to bloom, I lost many of my flower buds to the wild rabbits infesting our neighborhood. We had never had this problem till the last several years but it seems like it's getting worse and worse. Rabbits are not cute any more!
Our April talk is "Compilation and Description of the Best Alpines of My Life" by Ger van den Beuken from the Netherlands. He is part of the national NARGS speakers tour and it will be interesting to hear his presentation.
Sort bio of Ger by Ger:
"Ger runs a small nursery, specializing in rare alpines in the Netherlands. His interest in alpines started about 35 years ago, during his first treks in the mountains. He particularly focused on high alpine vegetation. He was getting fascinated by the beauty of all those wonderful genera like Saxifraga, Androsace, Dionysia and Daphne.
His first impulse and challenge was to start growing the most extreme cushion plants. But as he found out, it was not always easy to realize in his low land conditions in the Netherlands. Both his wife Mariet and he have traveled extensively with trips to many European countries and different parts of the European Alps, Sierra Nevada, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Central and N. Chile, USA, China, New Zealand and Turkey. During several years he organized 9 expeditions to Patagonia. And as a result, he got more and more interested in the fascinating vegetation of Argentina and Chile.
As a lecturer he was featured on speakers tours in the US with NARGS and in Scotland with the SRGC, and in New Zealand with NZAGS. There were as well many other lectures in the US, England, Germany, Scotland, Czech Republic, Belgium as well as for his own Dutch Society. Topics included the different cultivation aspects of alpines or presenting travel reports of his expeditions.
He was recently president of the Dutch alpine garden Society (NRV) as well as having served before. Additionally he is the vice-president of the Saxifraga Society in England for about 20 years. As time permits in his nursery, he spends as much time as possible in the winter writing articles for the different societies all to the baroque music of his favorite Johann Sebastian Bach." (all photos by Ger van den Beuken)
Join us at the Bellevue Botanical Garden at 7:00 pm for social time, 7:30 pm for the meeting and program. Our meetings are free and open to the public.
See you all soon!