Tour an Outstanding Aptos Rhododendron Garden

On Sunday, May 6 at 1 PM, the Monterey Bay Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society will feature the second tour this year of the Monte Toyon Garden of Maurie and Fran Sumner located at the Monte Toyon Camp and Conference Center, 220 Cloister Lane, Aptos.

From the parking lot, please walk up the trail to the Observation Platform of the Rhododendron Garden, which is located at the top of the hill where the tour will start. Mike McCullough, who knew the Sumners from 1975 until they died, will lead the tour.

Fran Sumner published a book in 1997 when she was 97 years old entitled, “The Love Affair of Fran and Maurie.” One reader said it was the perfect, ‘How to have a Happy Marriage’ book.

The Sumners lived in San Francisco, but in order to test and display their hybrids such as the Maddenii Series rhododendrons My Lady, My Guy, Mi Amor, Saffron Prince, Martha Wright and Owen Pierce; and to grow other rhododendrons, in the 1950s they established the three-acre Monte Toyon Rhododendron Garden in Aptos.

We hope that the regular blooming Sumner hybrids Mi Amor (with its large fragrant flowers), My Guy, and R. burmanicum x R. dalhousiae will be in bloom as well as rhododendrons such as the Maddenii Series species Rhododendron supranubium.

Maddenii Series species and hybrids do superbly in the Santa Cruz area, make good container plants for the small garden, and many have fragrant flowers. (There is also a chance that newts will be spotted near the newt pond.)

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Information on the Monterey Bay Chapter, and the rest of the American Rhododendron Society can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/MontBayARS/ – https://www.rhododendron.org