The Growth of an Idea

Tyler Arboretum’s new horticultural collection, the Hybridizer Garden, has been a work-in-progress for the last five years. The garden began in the minds of a few dedicated American Rhododendron Society members (the “Founding Task Force”), who envisioned a space that would showcase new rhododendron hybrids that are uniquely suited to the Mid-Atlantic region. These members came to Tyler with their idea, and in 2022, we established a partnership and shared vision for the Hybridizer Garden.

I came to Tyler Arboretum in August of 2024. The drought that year had only just begun, and I quickly realized that the Hybridizer Garden would need a lot of preparation before planting could begin the following year. While the garden is only a half-acre small, I had never worked with such a large space.

I’m not one to be daunted by the unknown, and so I leapt headfirst into garden design.

Creating a Garden

Since I inherited the Hybridizer Garden project, there were already plans in motion for the garden’s design. The previous Rhododendron Gardener, Christian Stoltz, had delineated a winding loop pathway around the beds. Frequent visitors to Tyler might remember the numerous florescent snow stakes scattered around the space — that was the path, as marked by Christian.

In September of 2024, the garden was little more than a flat piece of dirt (after a few heavy rounds of weeding, of course). It needed amending, both to make the soil more hospitable, and to break up the heavy, loamy soil that is endemic to the area. We started by applying a six-inch layer of pure leaf compost across the entire surface of the garden—a whole half-acre!

From there, the next step was putting down grass seed. I was worried, both because of the dry conditions and also because it was so late in the season. My colleagues assured me it would be fine, and with the help of our horticulture volunteers, I ploughed ahead, scattering grass seed over where the path would be.

The grass sprouted a month later, and though it was small and barely enough to green the space, it felt like victory. I could look out and envision the garden. This meant getting serious: I needed a planting plan.

For every gardener, making a planting plan is the fun part. You get to play with the arrangement and think about how the garden will look. Planning requires an equal dose of foresight and imagination. In a space like this one, the garden will have to stand the test of time; how will it look in 10, 30, 60 years? What will be pleasing not only when taking the bird’s eye view (which only the birds can enjoy) but also by the passerby, the wanderer, and the enthusiast?

I had a list of the rhododendrons I knew were coming, and it was up to me to arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing array. They were small plants now, but with time and care, many of them will be of a reasonable size. I settled on a delightful, tried-and-true design: a gradient of colors. I wrote the following blurb when I was thinking about this design, and why it would work in the space:

“My hope is that the visitor sees the rhododendrons from the Scenic Loop and, catching glimpses of vibrant purple and yellow through both the Tulip tree trunks and the more familiar reds and pinks, is enticed to wander through the entire loop of the garden. Similarly, guests wandering up or down from inside the Rhododendron Garden will be able to look across the dampened pine understory and see luscious indigo and bright spots of light yellows and whites. They will be able to enter the Hybridizer Garden through the long shaded pathway.”

With the garden both prepped and designed, it lay dormant for the winter before the spring brought in another flurry of activity. The beds had to be mulched, and thus six inches of wood chips were laid down on top of the compost we had applied the season before.

The grass kept filling in the pathway, and there was nothing to do except keep the beds weeded and wait for fall. We met with the American Rhododendron Society team, who had been maintaining their end of the bargain — raising the rhododendrons — and set a date for planting: October 1, 2025. The countdown was on.

On the morning of October 1, it was a balmy 70 degrees and sunny with a light breeze. The soil was damp but not too dry, perfect for planting. It could not have been a more beautiful day. Myself and four Tyler horticulture volunteers, plus seven volunteers from the local American Rhododendron Society, planted all 87 rhododendrons that morning.

Just like that, the Hybridizer Garden was complete. Of course, the rhododendrons still have to be watered, and in the future accent plantings will be installed, but now — all we have to do is wait for next spring, to see the flowers bloom.

A rendition of the garden I drew in August 2025 (I was joking about being a bad artist) versus the garden post-planting.