March Meeting 2001

by Jim Hofmann

Fred and Jean Minch are commercial growers of plants of the genus Rhododendron. Their careers with these plants span 35 years, they’ve been involved with the hybridizing of them for the last 20 years, and, something rather unusual for commercial growing operations, they’ve developed an extensive seed distribution business… the inventory for which comes from the growing and hybridizing of their plants.

Fred described their growing location. Initially, we heard about their fine natural setting… a hillside such as where one would expect to find these plants growing ‘natively’. Then, as was much more to be the tone of the talk, allowing us all to empathize (knowing the frustrations we all face in our gardening efforts) we heard about nearby Mt. St. Helens and earthquakes and the consequent ‘changeable geography’ that surrounds his home. Later, in the midst of descriptions of wonderful plants, a quick insertion of pest problems (weevils, deer…), how the climate of his area is fine, …just the weather is a problem, … etc. helped to keep his audience ‘feeling at home’.

The focus of this talk was Deciduous Azaleas. Testimony to the Minch’s efforts to select for or retain beautiful colored, unique and durable blooms… along with accompanying plant hardiness, leaf aesthetics (eg. leaf gloss) plus disease resistance, and plant habit…, came from descriptions of various plants they’ve named. Some extraordinary plants were described such as ‘Puyallup Centennial’…one which changes bloom color from green through orange to yellow. This special plant has been sent to tissue culture propagation, we were told. Then, 3 plants were shown which bloom sequentially from bottom to the top of the plant lengthening the bloom cycle. An example from this group was ‘Nancy Peacock’. Then, in ‘Creole Gold’ we saw an example of Fred trying to breed out dullness of foliage and insert leaf gloss. In ‘Pink Persil’, novel flesh colored blooms. In ‘Moonstone’, for me, was an exceptional true orange with bloom color accompanied by large shiny leaves. In ‘Mitsuki’, a bicoloured evergreen azalea of a different sort… each bloom is not bicoloured… instead, entirely separate blooms on the same plant are different colours. In this case some flowers are entirely pink and many are entirely white.

We were given some description of the minutiae of Fred’s hybridizing technique, especially interesting to members who have actually tried to be the ‘bee’ between anther and stigma… Like using a toothpick to gather pollen and using bamboo pieces wrapped in aluminum foil to repel real bees which would, otherwise, thwart his efforts. He summarized his technique as ‘Safe Sex’ as much as he’s capable! Fred collects seeds before the capsules crack… bacteria enter if capsules crack first.

The subjects of Weevils as pests and Weevil control were brought up with excellent reference material presented to the Society in the form of the ‘Proceedings of (the Year) 2000 Rhododendron Growers Meeting’ in Oregon by Robin Rosette and Sven Svenson. A copy was given to be filed in the club Library and made available to club members as a good technical review of the latest information.

Finally, his method of propagating his plants from seed was described. A summary is given on the last page of his handout ‘Seed List 2001’, made available to club members along with the ‘Proceedings’ mentioned above. Fir/hemlock bark compost is used, and watering of germinated plants is done with ‘Alfalfa Tea’ with or without 20-20-20 (6 ‘cubes’ of alfalfa per gallon). The process of germination to blooming plant takes, on average, 4 years.

I, for one, was very impressed with the Minch’s output, commitment and endurance… and would like a recipe for ‘Deer Sausage’!