Garden Hall of Famers
Hall of Famers are Canadians who have shaped the garden landscape of Canada. The Canadian Garden Council’s Honour Committee meticulously selects Garden Hall of Famers, which includes gardeners, horticulturalists, designers, educators and advocates, who have significantly influenced Canada’s garden culture and championed the importance of gardens in our society.
The Garden Hall of Famers allows the public to discover the extraordinary contributions they made to horticulture and garden experience sectors and Canada’s garden culture. Each of the listed Garden Hall of Famers’ achievements has set new benchmarks and serves as an inspiration for future generations.
“The innovative spirit of the Canadian horticulture community is recognized around the world. This Hall of Fame highlights the contributions of pioneers who have helped create a vibrant community and establish this reputation,” said the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
“These pioneers have fostered innovation and contributed to the growth of the garden community and horticulture industry in Canada and beyond” says David Galbraith, Head of Science at The Royal Botanical Gardens, representative of the Centre for Canadian Historical Horticultural Studies and Chairman of the Canadian Garden Council’s Honour Committee.
Discover Canada’s Garden Hall of Famers
- Catharine Parr Traill (1802 – 1889)
Catharine Parr Traill
(1802 – 1889)
Author and botanist
Lakefield, ON
While Catharine Parr Traill published her first book at the age of 16, it wasn’t until the age of 66 that she published her book on the botany of Upper Canada, Wild Flowers of Canada. Born in Surrey, England, Traill emigrated to Upper Canada in her early 30s. An accomplished author in England, mostly writing morality books for children, she continued her writing career upon emigrating to Canada. Her most famous book, The Backwoods of Canada (1836), shares her experiences as a settler in Upper Canada.
Those backwoods she described enthralled her with their beauty. Traill became particularly interested in botany, collecting and studying the plants of her new home. She collaborated with her niece, Agnes Dunbar FitzGibbon, who was the daughter of Traill’s sister Susanna Moodie, to create Wild Flowers of Canada. FitzGibbon illustrated the text that Traill had written. Published in 1868 and sold by subscription, this book elicited enough interest that it went through three more editions. Wild Flowers of Canada is considered by some to be one of the earliest field guides in the country. Nearly twenty years later, the two teamed up again to produce a more detailed examination of the plants Traill had observed, Studies of plant life in Canada (1885). Traill died in 1899 at the age of 97.
Traill’s botanical knowledge was well-regarded. She had a keen eye for detail that is essential for the study of botany. While never considered a professional botanist, partly because of her sex, she is considered an instrumental figure in the knowledge building and dissemination of botanical knowledge of Upper Canada.
- Father Léon Provancher (1820 – 1892)
Father Léon Provancher
(1820 – 1892)
Botanist and Naturalist
Montréal, QC
The most famous priest-botanist of the 19th century was Father Léon Provancher.
Born in 1820 in Bécancour, Quebec, his parents soon noticed their son’s interest in the natural sciences. Thanks to a scholarship, he entered the Séminaire de Nicolet, where he frequently won the horticulture prize.
After becoming a parish priest, he continued his research into plants, and in 1858 published a Traité élémentaire de botanique, the first work of its kind in Canada. For several years, this work was used as a textbook in many Quebec schools.
In 1862, AbbéProvancher published Le Verger canadien, which went through three editions. That same year, thanks to a government grant, he published Flore canadienne in two volumes. It was the first work of its kind to be published in French in North America.
In 1868, Provancher felt it was time to provide Quebec with a magazine devoted to natural history. He founded Le Naturaliste canadien, in which he regularly devoted columns to the plants and trees of Quebec.
On his death in 1892, the Canadian Institute of Toronto described Provancher as a devoted and zealous naturalist who brought the benefits of botanical science to the world.
The work of this simple country parish priest was nothing short of prodigious.
- Delos White Beadle (1823 – 1905)
Delos White Beadle
(1823 – 1905)
Nurseryman, horticultural editor and author
St. Catharines, ON
Delos White Beadle was a nurseryman, lawyer, and garden journalist. Beadle was born in St. Catharines, the son of Chauncey Beadle. A few years after Delos was born, Chauncey opened a small but well-placed nursery. By 1840, Chauncey had more than 250,000 fruit trees he was cultivating at St. Catharines nursery.
After a brief career as a lawyer in New York State, Delos became involved in the family business. His career in horticulture moved beyond nursery ownership. He was a founding member of the Fruit Growers Association of New York State, secretary and treasurer of the Fruit Growers Association of Ontario, and he became active in horticulture writing and editing in Ontario. He was the editor of the first long-running horticulture journal in Canada, Canadian Horticulturist. First published in 1878, it was the publication of the Fruit Growers Association of Ontario. He stayed at the helm of that publication, both editing and writing for it, until 1886.
He is also the author of the book widely considered to be the first english book on gardening from a Canadian perspective: Canadian fruit, flower, and kitchen gardener: a guide in all matters relating to the cultivation of fruits, flowers and vegetables, and their value for cultivation in this climate. Published in 1872 by James Campbell and Sons, this was the first book that provided guidance on fruit, vegetables, and ornamental flowers from a Canadian perspective. With over 370 pages worth of guidance, Beadle’s book was designed for both amateur and professional gardeners. At least 180 articles are credited to Beadle, published in a wide range of horticultural, pomological, and other naturalist publications. Beadle’s last article on native carnivorous plants was published in 1903. He died in Toronto in 1905.
- Auguste Dupuis (1839 – 1922)
Auguste Dupuis
(1839 – 1922)First french canadian to open a garden centre in 1860
Auguste Dupuis was the first Francophone to set up a nursery. It was in 1860, on a ten-acre plot of land in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies, a village renowned for its bucolic landscapes.
It was during his studies in Worcester, Massachusetts, that his interest in horticulture began. There was a nursery near his college, and young Dupuis liked to work there on his days off.
Back home, it was no surprise to see him realize his dream. Rigorous in his approach, he experimented with various fruit trees from the United States and Europe. Before long, Mr. Dupuis was offering his customers various varieties of apple, plum, cherry and vine trees. The nursery also offered its customers specialized books and reference works.
In addition to his daily work at the nursery, in 1880 Dupuis founded one of the first horticultural societies in Quebec, and certainly the very first in the French language.
During the same period, the man from Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies published a book on the state of fruit growing in Canada, in collaboration with Dr. William Saunders, director of the country’s experimental farms.
In short, Auguste Dupuis was not only a forerunner in horticulture in Quebec, but also an outstanding educator, constantly on the lookout for the best growing methods.
- William Tyrrell Macoun (1869 – 1933)
William Tyrrell Macoun
(1869 – 1933)Canada’s first Dominion Horticulturist and architect of the Central Experimental Farm
Ottawa, ON
William Tyrrell Macoun was a pioneering leader and promotor of horticulture in Canada at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th. Most notably he served as Dominion Horticulturist at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa from 1910 to 1933. He had first joined the Central Experimental Farm in 1888, just two years after it was founded, as Assistant to the Director, William Saunders. The Central Experimental Farm was a major factor in nation-building and had a strong role in the development of agriculture across Canada. In turn horticulture was viewed as essential to the creation of beautiful landscapes, both on the farm and in cities.
Macoun approached horticulture and engagement with the public to promote it with a zealous attitude of promotion, coupled with the attention to detail of a scientist. He had several goals in promoting horticulture, ranging from civic beautification and the fulfilment of the dream of the City Beautiful Movement to education and economic development. He was described by prominent Canadian garden historian Edwinna von Baeyer as “our Renaissance man of horticulture, […] determined to give Canadians the means to create what he called “a new Garden of Eden,†our own Garden of Canada.â€1
Macoun was a prolific author, writing many technical reports and government publications to help improve horticulture and agriculture across Canada such as Plum culture and district lists of plums suitable for Ontario and Quebec, with descriptions of varieties (1903), Bulb culture for the amateur (1904), Strawberry culture, with descriptions and lists of varieties (1909), Hardy roses, their culture in Canada (1912), and Vegetable gardening at home and on vacant lots (1918).
Notes
1. Pg 51, von Baeyer, E. 2003. Creating the Garden of Canada: W. T. Macoun and the Gospel of Horticulture. Pg. 51-88 In. Day, B. J., Lovett-Doust, J., Weltman-Aron, B., Ruggles, D. F., von Baeyer, E., and Laird, M. 2003. “The garden : myth, meaning and metaphor” (2003). Working Papers in the Humanities. 12. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/hrg-working-papers/12 - Brother Marie-Victorin (1885 – 1944)
Brother Marie-Victorin
(1885 – 1944)
Founder of Montreal Botanical Garden
Montreal, QC
Conrad Kirouac was born in Kingsey Falls, central Quebec, in 1885 and grew up in the Saint-Sauveur district of Quebec City. In 1901, he entered the Mont-de-La-Salle novitiate of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in the Ville de Maisonneuve, where he took the name of Brother Marie-Victorin.
At the age of 19, when he had just begun teaching at the “Collège de Saint-Jérômeâ€, tuberculosis forced him to slow down his teaching activities. It was during his convalescence that he developed an interest in botany and undertook his first herborizations, which he continued when assigned to the “Collège de Longueuilâ€.
In addition to being a teacher, writer and playwright, Marie-Victorin was also interested in Laurentian flora, publishing some thirty articles on the subject. Without having studied the field, in 1920 he became associate professor of botany at the Université de de Montréal, where he set up the “Laboratoire de botanique†(forerunner of the “Institut botaniqueâ€) in a university building on rue Saint-Denis, and obtained his doctorate as first graduate in 1922.
In addition to his contribution to the founding of the Montréal Botanical Garden and Institute, Marie-Victorin participated in the establishment of several other institutions significant to the advancement of science and knowledge among the French-Canadian population.
In particular, he contributed to the creation of the « Société canadienne d’histoire naturelle », the « Cercles des jeunes naturalistes » and the « Association canadienne-française pour l’avancement des sciences » (ACFAS).
The Montreal Botanical Garden remains, however, in the words of “Le Devoir†editorialist Louis Dupire, Brother Marie-Victorin’s most personal work.
He died suddenly in 1944 following an automobile accident, leaving behind a major body of work that extends beyond Quebec’s borders.
- Lorrie and Howard Dunington-Grubb (1877 - 1945) – (1881 - 1965)
Lorrie and Howard Dunington-Grubb
(1877 - 1945) – (1881 - 1965)Landscape architects, garden designers, and creators of Sheridan Nurseries
Toronto, ON
Lorrie and Howard Dunington-Grubb were landscape architects who grew up and trained in England, moving to Toronto shortly after marrying in 1911. They remained in practice together but Lorrie’s contributions were slowed after she became ill in 1928. After she passed away in 1945, Howard continued to practice on his own. Because they could not find the plants they wanted for their designed gardens, the Dunington-Grubbs created their own nursery in the town of Sheridan, ON in 1914. This became Sheridan nurseries, and Howard remained its president until his death in 1965.
The Dunington-Grubbs’ practice included designs for a wide range of private residential gardens, businesses, and government projects, mostly in southern Ontario. They were also prominent early members of the town planning profession in Canada, which grew out of landscape architecture. Some of their landscape projects included Gage Park in western Hamilton, the landscaping and grounds of McMaster University’s 1930 Hamilton campus, the Oaks Garden Theatre and the gardens at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, and a grand landscape design for University Avenue in Toronto. They developed a strong association with T. B. McQuesten, which led to many of their projects in Hamilton including the grounds of his family home, Whitehern.
Later in life Howard undertook creation of his own botanical garden in Mississauga, along the Credit River. Unfinished at his death, most of the land was sold to Peel Region and became the headquarters for the Credit Valley Conservation Authority. His estate endowed scholarships for landscape architects at University of Guelph, supported construction of a large hall at Toronto Botanical Garden, and created the Centre for Canadian Historical Horticultural Studies at Royal Botanical Gardens.
- The Hon. Thomas Baker McQuesten (1882 – 1948)
The Hon. Thomas Baker McQuesten
(1882 – 1948)
Founder of Royal Botanical Gardens, Niagara Parks Botanical Garden and School of Horticulture
Hamilton, ON
Lawyer and Politician; founder of Royal Botanical Gardens and Niagara Parks Botanical Garden and School of Horticulture.
Thomas Baker McQuesten was a Hamilton- based lawyer and politician. Inspired by the City Beautiful Movement of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, McQuesten pursued ambitious projects to build large city gardens and parks throughout his career. As a City of Hamilton Alderman he joined the town planning committee and the board of park management, and through these bodies helped to launch Gage Park, a 35 ha park in West Hamilton that today includes a tropical plant conservatory and a rose garden. In the mid-1920s McQuesten visited Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and was inspired to create a significant botanical garden in Canada. For the next 24 years, his project to bring Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton and Burlington into existence was the single longest project of his career.
Although McQuesten was not trained as a horticulturist, he had a classical education and took an active interest in the horticultural details of the large public gardens and parks he was creating. In the early 1930s he formed an association with landscape architect Carl Borgstrom and Matt Broman, initially around the design and construction and of the Rock Garden on the Burlington Heights in Hamilton, which would later become part of RBG. Working with Borgstrom, Broman, and other prominent landscape designers like the Dunington-Grubbs, McQuesten’s projects always had a sense of grandiose beauty with attention to horticultural detail. In the 1930s McQuesten was elected to the provincial legislature and became Minister of Public Works and Transportation and appointed to the Niagara parks Commission. While on the Commission he oversaw the creation of the Niagara Parks School for Apprentice Gardeners, which evolved into today’s Niagara Parks Botanical Garden and School of Horticulture.
- Jennie Butchart (1866 – 1950)
Jennie Butchart
(1866 – 1950)
Creator of The Butchart Gardens
Brentwood Bay, BC
Jennie Butchart was born Jennie Foster Kennedy, marrying Robert Pim Butchart, a member of a large family who owned and operated a hardware business in Owen Sound, Ontario. Robert was interested in the manufacture of cement, and later was the first Canadian to manufacture Portland Cement. In 1902 the Butcharts came to Vancouver Island to survey a deposit of limestone, necessary in the production of Portland Cement by the newly formed Vancouver Portland Cement Company at Tod Inlet.
The Butcharts moved to Victoria with their two daughters in 1903. In 1906 the family moved to Tod Inlet, where Jennie named the estate ‘Benvenuto’, the Italian word for welcome. In the same year Jennie began developing her Japanese Garden with the help of Isaburo Kishida, a landscape architect from Japan.
By 1908 the quarry was abandoned once commercial extraction had ceased. Jennie began beautifying the site by planting trees, including Persian plums and Lombard poplars. This in turn led to the idea of a sunken garden on the site, and Jennie arranged for massive amounts of topsoil to be brought in to construct garden beds. She directed, and participated in, a variety of actions to transform the quarry into an attractive garden, including hanging over the edge of the cliff faces in a boatswain’s chair to plant Ivy in any available crevice. By 1921 the garden project was complete, and it immediately became of immense local interest. Word of the garden spread and the Butchart family started welcoming visitors to this new horticultural destination, The Butchart Gardens.
Early on the Butchart’s also offered various services to visitors to the gardens, including serving tea. The popularity of the gardens quickly grew, and in 1931 Jennie was named “Victoria’s Best Citizen.†In 1939 Mr. and Mrs. Butchart moved to Victoria, and gifted the gardens to their grandson, Robert Ian Ross, who shortly afterwards served in the Canadian Navy in World War II. During his absence, his mother and grandmother cared for Benvenuto.
Robert Pim passed away in 1943 and Jennie in 1950. Directing the growth and business of the garden remains a family priority. The Butchart Gardens was recognized as a National Historic Site of Canada in 2004, designated because it represents a combination of three significant aspects of Canadian garden history. It is a country estate garden that integrates different kinds of garden elements, such as Japanese, Italian, and Rose Garden traditions; the gardens evoke early 20th century landscape and city beautification movements to achieve their floral displays. The Butchart Gardens is recognized by Parks Canada as an exceptional creative achievement in Canadian gardening history.
- Faith Fyles (1875 – 1961)
Faith Fyles
(1875 – 1961)Botanical Researcher, Naturalist, and Artist
Ottawa, ON
Faith Fyles was born in Cowansville, Quebec, the daughter of an English clergyman and amateur entomologist. After studying at McGill University, she studied the flora of Quebec on her own for a year, and then became a teacher. She taught school in Toronto for six nears, and then took another year to travel and study in Europe. After her family moved to Ottawa in 1909, Faith started to work at the Department of Agriculture as an assistant seed analyst. This work was considered too detail-oriented and requiring too much patience for men. After two years she was transferred to the Central Experimental Farm to work as an assistant botanist, and was also put in charge of the CEF Arboretum, a rare appointment of a woman to a professional position at the time. Her duties at the Arboretum including identification of plant specimens and large amounts of seed sent to the CEF, and labelling living specimens in the collections. She also started to draw botanical specimens on her own time.
In 1914 she undertook a trip to Western Canada, collecting approximately 800 specimens of weeds. In the same year her first scientific report was published. She illustrated and wrote “Principal Poisonous Plants of Canada,†published in 1914, to aid farmers in the identification of weed species. In the following years she undertook more original research and published additional scientific papers, often accompanied by her own illustrations. In 1920 Faith became the first botanical gardens employed by the Horticulture Division of the Department of Agriculture, working for W. T. Macoun. Her technically accurate watercolour paintings were used to illustrate publications on fruit cultivation in Canada.
In the early 1930s Faith retired because of poor health, but she continued painting in a variety of media, entering works in exhibitions of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and painting nature scenes and gardens, including for Lady Bing, the wife of the Governor General of Canada. Faith Fyles died in Ottawa in 1961.
- Isabella Preston (1881 – 1965)
Isabella Preston
(1881 – 1965)
First professional woman plant hybridizer in Canada
Ottawa, ON
The “Grand Lady of Canadian Horticultureâ€, Isabella Preston was born in Lancaster, England in 1881. Interested in gardening at a young age, Preston studied at Swanley Agricultural College in Kent, England.
After emigrating to Canada with her sister in 1912, she enrolled at the Ontario Agricultural College but quickly withdrew from courses. More interested in hands-on learning, she assisted OAC’s Horticulture Professor J. Crow in plant breeding. She is Canada’s first female professional plant breeder.
In 1919, she crossed two lilies, L. regale and L. sargentiae, to produce one of Canada’s most celebrated plants, the Creelman Lily (Lilium × princeps ’George C. Creelman’). The Creelman Lily is a six foot tall, white lily so stunning it made Howard L. Hutt, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture at OAC exclaim: “When I happened to be at the College a week later and saw two or three of the original plants at least five feet high and bearing fifteen blooms I felt like taking off my hat, even if I did not throw it up in the air.”
In 1920, Preston made the move to Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. Preston continued her passion there, breeding ornamental plants specifically for Canadian conditions and harsh winter. Isabella bred novel cultivars of roses, columbines, Siberian iris, crabapples, lilies, and lilacs, introducing nearly 200 different cultivars to the market. She wrote many well-received books on lilies, lilacs, and irises and was widely regarded as a horticultural rock star.
After retiring in 1946, she moved to Georgetown, Ontario where she lived and gardened until her death in 1965.
Her work with the lilies and lilacs has proven to be the most enduring. In 2018, nearly 100 years after the Creelman Lily was first introduced, it was re-discovered at Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario from donated bulb stock.
- Elsie Reford (1872 – 1967)
Elsie Reford
(1872 – 1967)
Creator of Reford Gardens
Métis, QC
Elsie Reford was one of the many nieces and nephews of George Stephen, the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In Montreal and later in England, she saw her uncle often and shared his interest in politics, the British Empire and salmon fishing. Stephen gifted Estevan Lodge and his fishing rights on the Metis River to her in 1918. A frequent guest since 1903, she had come to love the river, the landscape and people of Grand-Métis. In 1926, she began to improve the fishing camp, adding a wing to Estevan Lodge to accommodate her guests and staff. She also began the transformation of the fields and forest into a garden.
Over more than thirty years, Elsie Reford created one of the great ornamental gardens of Canada. She gave her fishing guides shovels and wheelbarrows. Together they built a garden. It took a decade. By the 1940s her garden covered more than 10 acres and had more than 3,000 species and cultivars. With her annual trips to England and her network of contacts and friends, she obtained plants and seeds and began to trial ever more difficult and rare species. The forbidding climate of Metis, thought by many to be too harsh for most plants, proved to be ideal for perennial gardening, particularly for primula, lilies and Himalayan blue poppies.
Her gardens were opened to the public very rarely during her lifetime and remained a private paradise. Acquired by the government of Québec from her son Bruce Reford in 1961, the gardens first welcomed visitors in June, 1962. Since then Les Jardins de Métis have been seen by more than 5 million visitors. Recognized as a national historic site and designated by the government of Québec, the gardens are now owned and operated by Les Amis des Jardins de Métis. They remain a remarkable legacy of one of Canada’s garden pioneers.
- Frank L. Skinner (1882 – 1967)
Frank L. Skinner
(1882 – 1967)
Manitoba plant breeder who also introduced over 300 plants to western Canada
In 1895, Frank Skinner’s family left Scotland and settled in Dropmore, Manitoba, between the Assiniboine and Shell Rivers, 20 miles north of Russell. This marked the end of his formal education at age 13. He was the youngest of a family of nine. As most of the farmers in the area were bachelors at the time, and he had six sisters, it was not long before he was related by marriage to most of the families in the district.
“The boys grew up in the saddle, herding cattle from early morning until dark, there were no fences then and the cows roamed far and wide.†This gave him a splendid opportunity to study native vegetation…†I learned to observe what I saw.†He used native plants to impart hardiness in his breeding program.
Skinner began the Manitoba Hardy Plant Nursery in 1925. “This provided the mechanism to bring his plant material to gardeners in Canada and the United States.†“As he developed his interest and knowledge of hardy plants, he began to correspond and exchange plant material with collectors around the world.†By 1928, he had begun correspondence with A. E. Woeikoff, a Russian horticulturist who was director of the experimental stations at Echo and Harbin, Manchuria. They corresponded and exchanged plant material until the beginning of WW II in 1939. From the Arnold Arboretum, he returned home “with a number of plants which had been collected in Asia by E. H. Wilson, including the Manchurian pear, Pyrus ussuriensis, which has become an important rootstock and the source of plant hardiness in the breeding of pears, both for fruit and ornamental purposes.â€
In all, Frank Leith Skinner developed or introduced almost 400 hardy plants during his lifetime.
- Wilfrid-Henri and Louis Perron (1897 - 1977) – (1907 - 1990)
Wilfrid-Henri and Louis Perron
(1897 - 1977) – (1907 - 1990)
W. H. was a leading agronomist and founder of horticultural businesses; Louis was the first French-Canadian-trained landscape architect, QC
For several decades, the Perron name was well known in the Quebec horticultural world.
Indeed, who hasn’t heard of W.H. Perron, the elder of the two brothers? As the dean of Université Laval’s Faculty of Agronomy pointed out, Mr. Perron made a major contribution to laying the technical and scientific foundations of horticulture in Quebec.
Fascinated by his studies in horticulture, both in Canada and abroad, Mr. Perron opened a garden centre on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal in 1928. As early as 1930, the businessman published his first seed catalog, a tool that greatly contributed to the credibility of his company. With a print run of 100,000 copies, the catalog was sent mainly to Quebec, but also to Ontario, New Brunswick and even some American states. Through his advice, he became “the horticultural doctor”.
In addition to Wilfrid-Henri, his younger brother Louis also distinguished himself in the horticultural sector. He was the first Quebecer to earn a degree in landscape architecture from Cornell University in New York. His work includes the Rose Garden and Sculpture Garden at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal, and the creation of the Joan of Arc Garden in Quebec City’s Battlefields Park.
The Perron brothers, people with a vision of the Quebec horticultural scene.
- Henry Marshall (1916 – 1994)
Henry Marshall
(1916 – 1994)
Manitoba plant breeder who introduced hardy roses, chrysanthemums and many other plants.
Henry Marshall, the oldest of five sons, was born in 1916, near Miami, Manitoba, and except for the war years, never strayed far from that area. His formative years were during the drought and Depression. His formal education ended with grade nine. He later taught himself botany, genetics and statistics and hybridized an amazing number of plants by crossing hardy prairie plants with tender ones from other parts of the world.
In an era in which boys were expected to “work on the farmâ€, he instead began work at the Morden Research Station.
From 1943 to 1946, Henry served in the Canadian Army in Holland and Germany. He seldom talked about this period, saying that the only “good†to come of it was greenhouse experience and a horticulture course at the John Innes Institute while he was waiting to be shipped home from England.
After the war, he became a “gardener†on the grounds of the Brandon Research Centre. As well as keeping the grounds, he began plant breeding, at Brandon, an activity with which his “superiors†were not always happy.
Transferred to the Morden Research Station in 1970, he continued breeding work until his retirement in 1981. Marshall was also a prodigious writer who freely shared his knowledge with both the scientific community and home gardeners. He knew and loved the Pembina Hills where he had grown up and from which he collected, identified and catalogued more than 570 species of plants. He wrote the Pembina Hills Flora after his retirement. In 1981 he was part of 5-person delegation visiting China to collect seeds and plants.
- Dr. Joseph Brueckner (- – 1994)
Dr. Joseph Brueckner
(- – 1994)Rhododendron hybridizer
Mississauga, ON
Dr. Joseph Brueckner first saw the bloom of a rhododendron on a hotel dining table during a visit to the Swiss Alps in the 1930s. Little did he know this would be a defining moment. Born in Hungary, Brueckner moved to St. John, New Brunswick in 1957 after a stay in New Zealand. In New Brunswick, he began hybridizing rhododendrons for the harsh maritime climate. Brueckner’s hybridizing focused on breeding two different species of rhododendrons to produce a cold hardy plant that could withstand hot summers while still producing stunning flowers.
In the 1970s, Brueckner retired and moved his family to Mississauga, Ontario. He continued his breeding work in this very different climate, benefiting from the area’s community of like-minded individuals. A charter member of the Rhododendron Society of Canada in 1971, Brueckner was an active member of the Canadian and United State rhododendron communities.
He registered at least 26 rhododendron cultivars with the Royal Horticultural Society. In 1988, he won the first ever Rhododendron Society of Canada’s Hybridizer’s Award. He was passionate about the public being able to access rhododendrons and donated many plants to a public garden in a perfect micro-climate in Mississauga. The Brueckner Rhododendron Garden is one of the largest public collections of rhododendrons in Canada.
In recent years, the Niagara Rhododendron Society in collaboration with the Rhododendron Society of Eastern Canada (RSEC) began conducting a five-year study evaluating the horticultural merit of more than 100 rhododendron hybrids developed by Brueckner. This is an opportunity for more of Brueckner’s creations to enter the market and continue his instrumental role in rhododendron varieties for the Canadian climate.
- Felicitas Svejda (1920 – 2016)
Felicitas Svejda
(1920 – 2016)
Hybridizer of the Explorer Rose Series
Ottawa, ON
Felicitas Svejda was born in Vienna, Austria. She obtained her Ph.D. in agriculture science in 1948 from the University of Natural Resources and Life (Hochschule fur Bodenkultur) in Vienna. She later moved to Canada in 1953 and settled in Ottawa, Ontario.
After graduation, Svejda remained at the university in Vienna where she worked as a research assistant in Agriculture economics from 1947-1951. She then moved to Sweden to work at the Swedish Association of Seed Selection for a year. When she moved to Canada she worked for the federal government’s Department of Agriculture as a statistician in the cereal division from 1953-1961 before accepting the position in ornamental plant breeding.
She then reactivated the rose breeding program in Ottawa aimed to develop completely winter-hardy, recurrent-flowering varieties. The rose varieties available in Canada in 1961 could not survive without winter protection outside the warmer conditions of southern Ontario and the coast of British Columbia. Armed with patience and determination, Svejda managed to succeed in developing a first variety with these characteristics after 8 years.
In 1968 she launched the first national trial of ornamental shrubs in Canada whereby she sent her roses and other plants to locations across North America to test their survival rates in local climates. The Canadian Explorer Rose series includes 25 different varieties released between 1968 and 1999; 13 developed during her career, the remainder developed by the program after her retirement. The Explorer Roses are winter hardy, recurrent-flowering, disease-resistant plants that have made their way into park gardens and backyards all over Canada. Svejda also worked with ornamental shrubs; five weigelias named after dances [Minuet, Rumba, Samba, Tango and Polka], robust forsythias Northern Gold and Happy Centennial, and three mock oranges including Buckley’s Quill.
Svejda received several awards and recognitions. She received a certificate of merit from the Royal National Rose Society of Great Britain (1985) and the Canadian Ornamental Plant Foundation (1999), the prestigious Portland Gold Medal (2004), and an honorary Doctorate of Science from York University, Toronto (2000) for her scientific career and contributions to ornamental horticulture. She was also the honorary patron of the Canadian Rose Society.
The “Explorer Rose Garden” was planted in 2005 at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa to proudly display the results of her research. It combines plants from the original collection as well as more recent varieties. Svejda was a special guest at the official opening ceremony.
In 2010, she generously donated her personal records, correspondence, and library to the Montreal Botanical Garden Library.
- Tony Huber (1938 – 2019)
Tony Huber
(1938 – 2019)
A Quebec hybridizer who created hundreds of perennials
Tony Huber, born in Switzerland worked for over 30 years as principal hybridizer with the firm W.H. Perron, releasing hundreds of plants, many of which have gone on to become classics. He mostly worked with perennials, creating such plants as Dianthus ’Frosty Fire’, Arcanthemum arcticum ’Red Chimo’, Monarda ’Pink Tourmaline, Leucanthemum ’Glory’, Kalimeris mongolica ’Summer Showers’, Rudbeckia fulgida ’Pot of Gold’ and Solidago ptarmicoides ’Summer Snow’, plus a few small fruits, including the thornless blackberry ‘Per Can’.
He’ll however certainly be best remembered for a shrub, Gold Mound (Spiraea japonica), of which millions of plants have been sold worldwide. It remains popular today, over 30 years after it was released.
Tony continued to hybridize from his home garden after he officially retired in 1994, working notably with iris, where he managed several crosses once considered impossible.
Tony Huber received several awards during his lifetime including the prestigious Henry Teuscher Award given in 1999 by the Montreal Botanical Garden for his lifelong commitment to horticulture.
- Cornelia Oberlander (1921 – 2021)
Cornelia Oberlander
(1921 – 2021)
Landscape architect and garden designer
Vancouver, BC
Cornelia Oberlander was an award-winning landscape architect who practiced throughout the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Cornelia immigrated to the United States from Germany with her mother and sister while she was still a child. She studied at Smith College and then at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the first woman to be admitted to the school. She met her future husband H. Peter Oberlander at Harvard. Early in her practice she moved to Philadelphia where she became involved in community planning. After working on public housing projects, she moved to Vancouver BC in 1953. Her husband Peter was an architect and a city planner. In British Columbia, Cornelia established her own landscape architecture practice, developing a reputation for designs that were socially responsible, highly collaborative, and integrated environment considerations and experiences. A significant project was the design of the Children’s Creative Center at Montreal’s Expo ‘67, named the Space for Creative Play. This led her to be involved in drafting national guidelines for playgrounds, eventually designing 70 for urban areas. She collaborated with architect Arthur Erickson on projects such as the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, and Robson Square. Some of her most prominent designs were developed in collaboration with other architects, such as the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the New York Times Building Courtyard in New York City, and a master plan and visitor centre at Vancouver’s own VanDusen Botanical Garden. Among other distinctions, Cornelia received the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects’ Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture in 2016, the first person to be so honoured. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2018.
- Larry Hodgson (1954 – 2022)
Larry Hodgson
(1954 – 2022)
Prolific garden writer, broadcaster and communicator
Quebec, QC
Larry Hodgson, who died in October 2022, exercised his passion for horticulture right up to the very last minute.
This columnist, an Ontarian by birth, lived in Quebec City for most of his life. For almost 40 years, his horticultural columns were published in the city’s daily newspaper.
He has also published some sixty books, in both French and English. In addition to being well documented, his books always had a touch of humor.
Larry Hodgson was also president of GardenComm the world’s leading association of horticultural journalists and columnists.
Although he liked to describe himself as a “laidback gardener”, he worked constantly. In addition to his columns and books, Larry Hodgson appeared for many years on TV and radio gardening shows. And as if that weren’t enough, he was a sought-after lecturer to horticultural societies in both French and English, as well as organizing trips to the world’s finest gardens.
No surprise to learn that his blog generated over 15 million views in 2021 alone, on top of winning gold at the GardenComm 2022 Media Awards.
