HISTORY OF THE VALLEY FORGE CHAPTER, founded in 1967
Charles Herbert and a group of several others founded the Valley Forge
Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society in 1967. Charlie was a member
of the Valley Forge State Park police, and since 1925 he'd had an interest
in the genus rhododendron, having seen them growing in the park. He was,
however, dissatisfied with the ones he saw growing there and started to
collect seeds and raise the plants himself. He raised the seed and
introduced many rhododendrons, including r. Valley Forge, shown on our Home
Page. An early member also of the Philadelphia Chapter, Charlie was the
first recipient of the Bronze Medal from the Philadelphia Chapter in 1971.
He died in 1978. In 1982, a Memorial Garden was established by the Valley
Forge and Philadelphia Chapters and dedicated to his memory at Swiss Pines,
in Phoenixville, PA.
For more details on our Chapter history, visit these pages assembled
by Steve Henning, a member of the Valley Forge Chapter since 1972 and the
creator and proprietor of Henning's Rhododendron and Azalea pages, the
authoritative, non-comerical website in the United States for know-how on
rhododenron and azalea cultivation.
VALLEY FORGE CHAPTER MEMBERS IN THE NEWS: DENNIS MAC MULLAN
Our colleague Dennis MacMullan wrote an article on rhododendron hybrids that
was published in the Summer, 2007 edition of the Journal of the American
Rhododendron Society. Congratulations, Dennis! The author of several
articles that have appeared in the ARS Journal, Dennis focused this time on
his own hybridizing efforts, which started in the late 1960's. One of
Dennis's hybrids is named for his friend and fellow Valley Forge Chapter
member and hybridizer, Howard Kline.
