Gardener’s rhododendrons create long lasting legacy

“When the gardener dies, the garden dies,” Jim Browning was known to say. He passed away two years ago leaving his garden to be cared for by his widow and daughter.

Becky Wojcik and her mother Blanche Browning pose in the garden of Jim Browning who was Becky’s father and Blanche’s husband. He passed away two years ago. His three acre garden is filled with thousands of rhododendrons, azaleas and many other plants. Browning started designing and planting the garden in 1973.

This is one of the thousands of rhododendrons in the garden of Jim Browning who passed away two years ago. His three acre garden is filled with rhododendrons, azaleas and many other plants. Browning started designing and planting the garden in 1973.

On a warm May day, his wife, Blanche, and daughter, Becky Wojcik, walk his 3-acre landscape filled with thousands of blooming rhododendrons and azaleas. At 81, Blanche enthusiastically hikes up the hills as the pair recall the names of each plant. Even though her memory isn’t as good as it once was, she knows most of them. For those that don’t come to mind, Blanche looks through her husband’s writings and is relieved when she discovers the proper names.
“It was like being reacquainted with old friends I hadn’t seen for a while,” she says with a laugh.
For Wojcik, 45, knowing the varieties is second nature after a lifetime of exploring the garden with her dad.
“How would you grow up in a place like this and not love plants?” she says with a gentle smile. She followed her father along the same route through the garden hundreds of times a year on their “rounds,” examining and learning about the plants. He was a meticulous record keeper, she discovered after looking through his old notebooks.
“I was blown away,” she says. “He counted the number of buds and noted them from year to year. Now, that’s dedication.”
Each of his beds was named and included detailed information about varieties, when they were planted or moved, what their future location might be in the garden and more.
The show begins here in April and runs into early June and it was all created by Jim without professional help — a true labor of love.
The former ophthalmologist’s healthy obsession with rhododendrons and azaleas can be traced back to 1971 when a friend bought one to improve his own landscape after neighbors complained about his yard. That’s when Jim Browning got intrigued by the plant. By 1973, when the family moved into their current home, he began the slow transformation, turning the forest into a showplace.
There’s an area of all red rhododendrons called the Red Bed surrounded by plants with pink, white and yellow blooms and everything in between; some reach 20 or 30 feet tall with impossibly thick trunks. It’s a stunning and intriguing collection, the age and scale of the plantings make it completely unique.

This is one of the thousands of rhododendrons in the garden of Jim Browning who passed away two years ago. His three acre garden is filled with rhododendrons, azaleas and many other plants. Browning started designing and planting the garden in 1973.

K.D. Harris is one of the thousands of rhododendrons in the garden of Jim Browning who passed away two years ago. His three acre garden is filled with rhododendrons, azaleas and many other plants. Browning started designing and planting the garden in 1973.

Browning was a visionary who walked the grounds at night wearing headphones, listening to the classical composer Mahler and thoughtfully deciding what should go where. Even though his passion was so strong for rhododendrons, there are many other interesting mature cultivars planted throughout the property.
His widow is doing her best to keep up with the garden, but she knows it can’t last forever and wonders what will happen to the garden when she can no longer live here.
“I would hope that someone would be interested in the plants,” she says.
But she and her daughter believe it will be a hard sell finding someone interested in a 1930s Tudor along with a garden that is an integral part of the landscape and needs a good bit of routine maintenance.
“Whoever moves in here is not going to appreciate these flowers, it breaks my heart,” Wojcik says sadly.
With the help of her husband, she’s transplanting some of the smaller shrubs into their own garden to keep her father’s legacy alive. “We will take what we can, we’ve got our memories, we’ve got our pictures and then we’ve got our place, I’m sure he would have been proud of.”
Jim Browning wanted the plants to grow in a natural setting and never used mulch or edging or even fertilizers. In the 1980s, he started hybridizing his own creations by crossing plants, coming up with many prize winners. He was a longtime member of the American Rhododendron Society Great Lakes Chapter along with Blanche who still belongs.
His patience for breeding was rewarded by the profound satisfaction he received from the beauty of the flowers. When a prized plant was lost to a storm or other problems, he rolled with the punches.
“He just accepted that as natural,” Blanche says. “That was what happened, he was never one who mourned over any loss.”
This year the flowers have been incredible, Blanche says, a banner year for the plants.
But the sweetness of the blooms is tempered by the bitterness of living here without her husband, who didn’t get to see some of his creations reach fruition.
“It just gets harder without him,” she says through tears. “This year particularly, I miss him more than ever. I want to show him the garden, what he did.”
Doug Oster is the 535mediarack home and garden editor. Reach him at 412-965-3278 or doster@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @dougoster1. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodygardens.com.