History of the Tualatin Valley Garden Club
by Lloyd Baron
The year was 1959. I had moved to Hillsboro the previous year after having organized and participated in the Newberg Men's Garden Club (now defunct) for ten years. Having had many good experiences in Newberg, I thought Hillsboro was ready for a men's garden club.
After talking the idea up with potential members for a couple of months and armed with copies of bylaws from the Newberg and Salem clubs, a small group of men decided to give it a go. We put an article in the Argus calling for an organizational meeting. Our first president was David Rick and as near as I can remember after 33 years, the following were charter members: Dave Rich, Lloyd Baron, Paul Wolfe, Wilbur Burkhart, Ray Miller, Verle Miller, ____ Loy, Dave Fruiten, Ralph Anderson, Hershel Baaupre, Morrie Arris, Harley Cruse, and Ernie Zimmerman.
As a part of organization, we decided on a mission statement for the club. Our club would meet monthly with a mix of meetings, tours, and demonstrations that would expand our garden "know-how", provide fellowship, and be of service to the community. We would set up a slate of monthly programs for the year no later than February. Our sit-down meetings were to follow a format of roughly (1) a five minute discussion of one or more timely garden chores (2) a brain teaser and (3) a feature program. We would then end the evening with refreshments and visiting. We would hold an inter-club auction once in the spring and once in the fall to help spread our plant materials around and provide operating funds for the club.
Soon after organizing, we became affiliated with the Men's Garden Club of America so we could take advantage of their quarterly publications that was full of news from other clubs throughout the U.S.; providing us with lots of good program ideas and listing many special garden materials available to its members. We maintained membership for about ten years until the dues about tripled in order to build a national center in the Midwest and put on year-around employees. With the increase in dues to about four times our local dues of $3.00 and a decrease in benefits, we dropped out. In the meantime, however, we had one Northwest regional president and one national board member.
In order to keep members advised of activities and meetings, we decided we needed a monthly newsletter. A newsletter naming contest was arranged and all members submitted one or more names. Dave Fruitens’ offering of “Compost Scoop” with its drawing, was selected and has remained in use ever since. I was the editor for the first eight or ten years, followed by some of our great editors like Garden Club Graff, Merrill Ludlam, and others.
In 1961, the club started its first community program. Wil-Chris Nursery donated some 25 flowering cherry trees and other plants and the club made a mass planting near the 28th Street entrance of the County Fairgrounds. Unfortunately, the soil was to wet for cherries, but some have survived through the years.
About 1962, after hearing about cities throughout the country having an official city flower, we decided it was time Hillsboro had one. We met with the Hillsboro Women’s Garden Club and together we decided to propose the Rhododendron as the official flower for Hillsboro. A joint committee drew up a resolution and presented it to the Hillsboro City Council. They thought it a good idea and adopted the resolution in 1963.
Now we were confronted with how to implement it. We knew we needed to build public support for planting Rhodies. Many ideas came to mind, but two ideas soon came to the top of the heap (1) hold a joint Spring flower show and plant sale and (2) make a major planting of Rhododendrons somewhere in downtown Hillsboro that would have a high level of exposure. By now it was getting on into 1963, so the earliest we could possibly hold a show and sale would be in the 1964 season. We again contacted the Women’s Club who agreed to handle the show if the men would handle the sale. The new problem was where would we get plants to sell? We stumbled on to a ready-made situation. A Mrs. Johnson out North Fifth had let a hobby of rooting Rhododendrons get out of hand and she had about 1/3 acre of all sizes and colors of Rhodies, and best of all, she wanted out. With tongue in cheek, we offered her $100.00 for the works just as they stood. She accepted and even agreed to wait until after the sale to get paid. Some of the older members of the club thought we had lost our marbles and the club would be in debt forever. Every club member turned out to dig, ball in burlap, and haul plants to the J.B. Thomas (then Hill-Hi) School grounds ready for the sale on May 2 and 3. Meanwhile, the women were preparing for the show in the school basement. The idea was for the public to view the flowers in the basement and buy the ones they liked out in the sales lot. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. We had priced the plants just enough to get our money back and cover the advertising and supplies. Thus, we had plants waist high with over 100 buds or flowers with no price over $5.00. We must have accomplished our mission as we were almost trampled into the pavement by people eager to get at the plants. We were cleaned out by 2:00 on Saturday. All of a sudden, Fruiten and I, co-chairmen for the sale, realized that we still had Sunday to deal with and no plants. We couldn’t just say “Sorry, folks, you should have been here yesterday.” After some frantic phoning, we located a truckload of Rhodies at the West Oregon Nursery that had been loaded that morning when the Seattle buyer had called and canceled his order. Claus Ellerbrook was just getting ready to unload the plants when we stopped him. To make a long story short, Claus agreed to bring his truckload of 400 Rhodies and 35 Mollis azaleas to Hillsboro on Sunday morning so we could sell as many as we could, then he would take the balance home at 4:00 p.m. We also added 200 one-gallon can of Rhodies from Glenn Walter and were ready to go by opening time on Sunday. We priced these hurriedly and a little more generously, but by 3:00 p.m. we were sold out again. When the smoke blew away and all bills were paid, we still had $700 and our annual plant sale was born. I am not sure if anyone ever did go down in the school basement to look at the flower show.
Our number two activity, the Courthouse planting, came a little slower. We selected the Courthouse area because the planting there was badly overgrown and needed attention. Also, a planting there would be seen by many people throughout the year. By putting names on all the plant material it would be educational as well as improve the looks of our public grounds. The first big job was to convince the County court and judge that the planting needed re-doing and that our club was capable of doing it. There were also some “holy cows” (memorial trees and plants) that we had to work around. We solved the problem by having Thys DeHahn, a licensed landscape architect and member of the garden club, develop and blueprint a planting design. By showing this official looking plan and assuring the County judge that the club would secure the plants and bark dust as well as do all the work at no cost to the County, we won their consent to do the Northwest corner of the Courthouse grounds. (They didn’t want to risk ruining too much without a chance to stop us.) We started in February 1967, and finished in April with everyone who saw it being immensely pleased. This project established us as a club of doers and a credit to the community. We had good support from most nurseries in Washington County, as well as some local businesses and individuals in supplying plant materials as evidenced by the reader board on the East side of the planting along the Second Street sidewalk. The other half was landscaped the following year.
The next big project came with the building of the new campus type Hill-Hi School in 1969. The club was asked to help in the landscaping. The first thing we noted was that the eastern architect had planned the whole landscape around Ohio Buckeye (Horse Chestnuts) at a cost of $8000 (a real slap in the face for Oregon plant materials). We asked to redesign the plantings using all Oregon materials and the School Board gladly turned the job over to us. Again, most of the local nurseries were very cooperative. Consequently, we were able to complete the job at a cost to the School Board of less than $4000. They appreciated it enough that they gave the club $500 for use on future projects.
Our major problem with that planting was very compacted soil filled with gravel to hold up the trucks during construction. The problem was compounded by the fact that there were numerous underground lines running hither and yon, making it next to impossible to till the soil in preparation for planting. On several occasions Arnold Gros and I went to the school in the evening after everyone had gone home and used dynamite to open up holes large enough to plant trees. Some blasts were within ten feet of windows so we had to cover the blast area with a heavy sheet of plywood and stand on the corner next to the school so the blast would go in the opposite direction. Naturally, we didn’t ask permission to do this, so no one complained.
The club has been involved in quite an impressive list of projects over the years besides learning a lot about plant materials and gardening. In addition to projects covered in detail previously, we worked on the following:
1967 – We landscaped the berms around the County Courthouse parking area in the block north of the current Restitution Center.
1970 – We started a library book program. We put $1000 in a bank account with the interest to be used each year to add horticulture books, and more recently videocassettes, to the Hillsboro library. To date, around 100 books, some costing as much as $60, and a few “how-to” cassettes, have been placed there. A periodic check of the checkout cards shows the materials appear to be widely used.
1974 – We landscaped the newly built administrative building at the Courthouse.
1976 – We tackled the Hillsboro Library planting. Since this was on the edge of a wooded area, we used native plant materials as much as possible. Again, we ran into an impossible soil situation. All we had to work with was packed down with blue clay. Consequently, some plants died and were either replanted several times or substitutions were made with hardier materials.
1978 – This was the year construction of the Hillsboro entrance signs. The landscape architect class at OSU was challenged to prepare a design that would be appropriate for Hillsboro. Students submitted several plans and the one with the wheel currently situated at three entrances to Hillsboro were selected as most suitable. The garden club did the plantings.
1983 – The landscaping at the old Senior Center at Washington and Eighth Street was done in cooperation with the T.V. Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society. The trade off was use of the hall without charge for our meeting place.
1985 – The club landscaped the Tenth and Main Streets intersection and used nut shells as a mulch for the first time since it cost only half that of bark dust and would last twice as long.
1986 – This year the club changed the plantings along Main Street on the south side of the County Courthouse.
1987 – In conjunction with the Sunset Chapter of the Oregon Nursery Association, we redesigned the area and made plantings south of the Floral building at the Fairgrounds.
1987 – We also started participating in the Saturday Farmer’s Market. From six to ten club members supply produce regularly. The Market supplies one space free as long as we handle all consignments from non-members and when we need a second booth the charge is $12 our internal agreement has been 90% of the proceeds to the grower and 10% to the club, and for non-members the split has been 85% and 15%. Besides providing an outlet for members’ produce, it also brings $800 to $900 into the club treasury. Another first was special prizes for County Fair exhibits in Horticulture to help bolster entries. The first two years we contributed $50 annually and since it has been $100.
1988 – A landmark change was made in our club structure. We voted to admit women to membership with single memberships going at $3.50 annual dues and $6.00 for couples. This necessitated a name change from T.V. Men’s Garden Club to T.V. Garden Club. The club also cooperated with the Rose Society of Oregon in the construction of the Harold Eastman Rose Garden at Fifth and Grant Streets in honor of Harold, a former T.V. Garden Club member and real rose enthusiast.
1989 – The club landscaped the new Senior Center in the corner of Shute Park.
Still looking for more worlds to conquer, the club bought a greenhouse and set it upon the Fair Grounds for use of club members not having a greenhouse at home. Along with the Master Gardeners we also built a number of raised beds to grow flowers and veggies in. In the greenhouse a 4ft section on 3 levels was available for $4.00 per season on a first come first serve basis. With regard to the raised beds, one or two members signed up for a bed for the season to plant something that would be educational as well as useful to them (within limits). The fair supplied the space, water, and electricity in return for our having a presentable display at fair time and assistance with planting and helping with maintenance of other areas around the grounds.
Since our annual plant sale is our major fund raiser for the year, grossing $20,000 or so each year, perhaps a little more detail on it is in order. For the first ten years or so the Men’s Club operated the sale alone. The usual procedure was to get a truckload of Rhodies from Berryhills at Scholls and fill in around that with club member plant materials. The sales were usually held in parking lots around town. Members set their own prices with 80% going to the member and 20% to the club. About 1975, we began to hear that the Rhody Society was thinking about a similar sale for their club. After discussing the possibilities, we concluded that it would be much better to have one big sale each year than two smaller ones with each trying to entice customers away from the other. With this in mind, the T.V. Men’s Garden Club invited the T.V. Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society to join us in the sale on a share and share alike basis. This they did and the marriage has worked well for both clubs with the sales getting larger each year. The last two years our sales have been held at the Washington County Fairplex, which provides a rather nice setting for the sale.
1990 – Assisted with planting the Harold Eastman memorial park at the Fifth and Grant Street intersection. Harold was a garden club member and an ardent rose enthusiast. Many of the plants in the garden were donated by Harold.
1991 – Completed another landscape project. This time at the new Senior Center at the corner of South Eighth and Maple Street. This was done in payment for using their facility as a meeting place until their program grew so large it crowded us out. This year we turned our attention internally and developed a program designed to draw new members and just have some fun. The club was divided into 2 teams (the Blooming Idiots) and the (Bad Acres). Points were awarded for almost everything one did and at the end of the year the losers had to put on a dinner for the club – lots of fun.
1992 – Moved meeting place to 1st Baptist Church. Started planting annuals around office, gazebo, and totem pole at Fair Grounds. We also started our March seed and plant exchange program.
1993 – It is time again to reach out and this time to take on the “adopt a road program”. Simply stated it was to clean up the Glencoe Road side from Evergreen North to the stop light at Scotch Church Road intersection. We also assist with the planting around the “burger family” you see installed on the west side on Tenth Street near the City Parks office. This year we donated $6000 to build a warehouse and apple-processing center in Honduras in the area Mr. Baron had helped establish orchards on some 500 farms over the past 6 years. (Mercy Corps funds had dried up before the project had become self-sustaining so the club helped them over the last hurdle.)
1994 – Club joined the Oregon Federation of Garden Clubs.
Again several new projects caught our eye.
Started the 5-5-3 program for the purchase of “Noble Woods” as a city park, which in 5 years would amount to a $2000 club donation.
Planted the west side triangle in conjunction with city parks to enhance the west end entrance into Hillsboro.
Jerry Anderson started the tool-lending program.
Club donated $1000 to Hillsboro Boys and Girls Club to get it started.
1995 – Helped landscape the Baptist Church in appreciation of room rental. Purchased pull down screen for the Floral Building at the Fairplex. Supported “Friends of Extension” publication.
1996 – Participated in the development of a rooftop garden on the sixth floor of the Hospital. Established a Rhody and azalea garden at the Main Street entrance to Noble Woods Park.
1997 – 1999 – Actually no earth shaking new projects were undertaken during this period. It should be noted however that over the years the club has completed a great number of worthwhile projects and in fact a large number of them have been on-going requiring annual attention. Enough so that no one should have an excuse that the club isn’t doing anything that interests them. In fact as we go into the next millennium we may be at a point where we will need more members before we can tackle new projects.
Mainly because we seem to have no other place to list them I will list the names of those members who have served as president over the years as I know them. Prior to 1983 we have no official record of them but in comparing notes with a couple of charter members we came up with the following that we know served: Dave Rich, Dave Fruiten, Lloyd Baron, Paul Wolfe, Melvin Lee, Ray Miller, Ken pollen, Wilbur Burkhart, Robert Platt, and Bill Sawyer.
Then starting in 1983 it has been as follows: 1983 A. Sheets; 1984 L. Baron; 1985 M. Ludlam; 1986-1987 J. Anderson; 1988 ?; 1989-1990 D. Russell; 1991 K. King; 1992-1993 A. Sheets; 1994 J. Darr; 1995-1997 N. Stober; 1998-1999 B. Ganger.
It should also be pointed out that the TV Garden Club is one of the best financial if not the best financial and most active club in Oregon. This has only been made possible by excellent ideas and cooperation of the total club membership.
2005 –Update to club history by Lloyd Baron
In the year 2000 a new and exciting development occurred. We finally found a site in the Rood Bridge Park for a Rhododendron Garden in Hillsboro – just 40 years after we asked for one the first time. Lloyd Baron would ask each year and it was always the same, “We have no suitable site.” However, in 2000 Russ Sternberg, Parks Director, said “Yes, I think we finally have a place for some rhodies.” On examination of the site Baron agreed and a deal was made. When the TVGC membership was asked to vote on the project it was unanimous and Baron was asked to chair the development committee.
A committee was quickly formed composed of Lloyd Baron, Bill Ganger, and Bob Dow of the TVGC, and Paul Brown and Ron Mapes representing the TV Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, who agreed to help develop the garden, even though they already had one at the Jenkins Estate. We would work with Mary Ordahl and Sadafumi Uchiyama, project leaders of the City Parks Department. In 2003 the City Parks Commission passed a resolution naming the rhododendron garden “The Lloyd Baron Rhododendron Garden” because of the many years he has worked on this project.
Since that time planting beds “A” through “V” have been laid out, prepared, and planted on about 1 ½ acres of open and wooded land partially surrounded by a man-made stream. Plantings were made in the spring and fall of 2002, fall of 2003 and 2004. Some 500 plants in all comprising about 250 varieties about equally divided between species and hybrids. In 2004 we had bloom from January 1 through August 10, but they were a little more erratic in 2005. In 2005 we concentrated on companion plants and now have some 1100 representing 42 varieties of mostly native plants in the ground and labeled.
Permanent markers, which cost more than most plants, mark the plants, giving the bloom time, color of bloom, hardiness, size of plant, year planted, the country of origin of a species or the hybridizer, and year introduced into the trade if a hybrid.
Funds were raised for the project as follows: Baron agreed to put up $1000 if each club would match it and then members of the club put together another $1000 for a total kitty of $4000. Then the Beautification Committee of the Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce kicked in their share of the Air Show funds ($4400+) bringing the total of the working fund to $8400. Later TVGC made $5000 available and three or four club members contributed $1000 each so we have had about $18000 to work with.
Plants have been purchased all the way from Waldport on the south, to Arlington, Wa on the north, mostly at discounted prices with one nursery, Berryhill Nursery, never accepting any money for the varieties they were able to supply.
The next phase of our project will be the expensive one but we are already collecting funds for that through the Hillsboro Community Foundation so donations will be tax deductible. At this time the account stands at $16000+ and foundations and wealthy individuals are being contacted. Since the beginning of the project Ginny Mapes has been developing a scrapbook and we are currently in the process of deciding where and when to stop it, and how best to make it available to those interested. She has done an excellent job.
