The Magnolia Society will be holding our next annual meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, USA on April 19-21, 2013. Mark your calendar to join us for some spectacular magnolias, delicious meals, engaging speakers, and great company.
Can you believe the Magnolia Society International has been active for 50 years? One of our earliest magnoliaphiles, Joe McDaniel, started the Society in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1963. (Magnolia 'Joe McDaniel' pictured at left.) Joe met with Jack Fogg and about a dozen others during a break at the annual American Horticultural Society convention, where they unanimously decided to create an autonomous society. To celebrate our anniversary we will bring our yearly get-together back to its roots, returning to St. Louis on April 19-21, 2013, for our annual meeting.
One of the best attributes of the Magnolia Society's conferences is the opportunity to see magnolias in bloom. We will not deviate from that ritual in St. Louis. We have high hopes of showing off small and large magnolias that thrive in the challenging Midwest climate.
During our weekend we will spend time at one of the greatest plant gems of the Midwest, the
Missouri Botanic Garden. Long known as Shaw's garden because it was founded by Henry Shaw in 1859, it has the distinction of being one of the oldest botanical institutions in the United States (archive photo at right, Linnaean House at Missouri Botanical Garden, c. 1890). The Garden is world-renowned for botanical research and its extensive herbarium, as well as for its living plant collections. The 79-acre garden contains more than 200 magnolias.
Within walking distance of the Botanical Garden, we will tour the grounds of Tower Grove Park. Designated a National Historic Landmark, Tower Grove was designed as a wooded Victorian park. The 289 acres include many of the largest and oldest Magnolia acuminata in the St. Louis region.
Away from the beaten track, we will journey to Earl Culley's Heritage Trees, Inc. Earl has been a member of the Magnolia Society for many years and has been in the horticultural world for most of his life. Earl's passioin is finding plants with superior traits. His thinking was heavily influenced by Joe McDaniel when they met and became friends in 1952. Early in his career Earl worked with nut tree species, but later shifted to ornamentals. Earl has introduced many trees to the industry, his best known being Betula nigra 'Cully' Heritage. Over the last 40 years, Earl has converted his 34-acre property in rural Illinois into an arboretum used for identifying and evaluating possible superior plants, and amassing a collection of unique specimens. He is constantly adding to his collection of magnolias, and he hopes they will be in full glory for the Society to appreciate.
Please mark April 19-21, 2013, to visit St. Louis to pay tribute to the groundwork Joe McDaniel and his colleagues laid as we celebrate the founding of "another separate plant organization" that has grown into the Magnolia Society International.
