Meet our August Staff Feature – Ron Schmaltz! Ron is the horticulturalist in charge of one of the Washington Park Arboretum’s signature collections: Rhododendron Glen. Ron spent almost 30 years as an IT software developer before pivoting to horticulture. After returning to school at the Edmonds College, Ron started as an intern at the Arboretum in 2017 and, before too long, was working as an official gardener and caring for the 4 acres that make up the Glen. You can catch Ron and his volunteers out doing all kinds of work to keep the Glen beautiful, but in the summer months it’s mostly weeding, weeding, weeding.

There are many rhododendron species represented in the Glen, but Ron loves the young Rhododendron macrophyllum (our native Pacific rhododendron) that he has in his care. Rhododendron Glen is a popular destination in May, when most of the rhodies are in their most dramatic blooming period, but Ron defends the Glen as the best place to visit all year round: in the summer, it’s the perfect cool retreat from the hot sun, and in the fall and winter you can still appreciate some of the “living fossils” we have here at the Arboretum – the wollemi pines (Wollemia nobilis) and the dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). “Come at three o’clock in the afternoon,” Ron says – the sun streaming through the tall, twisting rhododendrons and filtering down to the stream running through the Glen is a sight not to be missed.