Gardens Day Committee Honors 'Subtle' Towson Garden

A colorful West Towson home has been named the 2012 Towson Azalea House for .

R. Carlton Seitz's home at 502 Highland Ave. was honored for its "wide variety of colorful azaleas setoff by an immense dark evergreen in the front yard and a lush array of lavender azalea peeking through the wrought iron front fence," according to a Gardens Day committee report.

"It's a subtle arrangement, not splashy, but the total picture is pleasing to the eye," the committee said.

Seitz's home and others will be honored during an awards ceremony during Gardens Day on Thursday.

According to a release from the Gardens Day committee, Seitz gives all the credit to his mother, Dorothy Sumner Cook Seitz, who planted many of the azaleas in the 1950s, using bonemeal to fertilize the plants.

Dorothy Seitz, a native New Englander, was a graduate of what's now the Maryland Institute College of Art and often talked gardening with neighbors.

More from the Gardens Day press release:

Their old neighbor was librarian Helen Emig Lyness, Carlton Seitz said. "When Helen and Mother got together to talk flowers, you could listen to them for a half an hour and not understand a thing they said because they were using botanical names. 

"Both were avid gardeners. Mother's style of gardening was what the Germans called 'Lustgardnerei' or pleasure gardening where everything was 'higgledepiggly au natural' looking. But believe me, mother spent endless hours  planning everything in her gardens."

There were probably 100 varieties of day lily in the yard in the 1950s and 1960s, he said.

But Virginia Campbell, who helped found the Women's Club of Towson and the town's public library, deserves credit for the azaleas too, he said. She and her family lived in the house for 20 years before they moved out and the Seitz family moved in. 

An avid gardener, Virginia was responsible for many of the azalea plantings, he said. But he was told that she lost interest in gardening after the death of a son in World War II.

The younger Seitz moved into the home in 1985, and has kept the tradition—and the flowers—alive, despite a few rough winters along the way.

"I don't take the same interest in them that Mother did, but I try to keep them going," he said in the release.

Here are the other awards set to be handed out on Thursday, according to the Gardens Day press release.

Community Appreciation Awards go to:

• for the near the Berman Cancer Center, gifted by the Roland Park Garden Club
• Parler & Wobbler LLP, 406 East Joppa Road, for a well-landscaped small office building
• Greater Ruxton Foundation for the small neighborhood park along Bellona Avenue near Joppa Road
• Clark Langrall of Langrall Realty for a well-landscaped small office building at 606 Providence Road near Joppa Road
• York Manor Association for their entry off York Road, which was designed by Ben Grimm
• Friends of the Towson Library for the Towson Library Garden. The committee said a $180 check will be presented to the group toward the purchase of mountain laurel and red-twigged dogwoods.
• Elementary School for its learning garden, developed by Lutherville students with help from the Lutherville Garden Club. The school will be awarded a $100 check to purchase more perennials.

Neighborhood gardens of Merit:

• Fellowship Forest: Patricia and Peter Santori of the 500 block of Hickory Lane
• Greenbrier: Elizabeth Dunn of the 500 block of Brook Road
• Knollwood: Kim and Jonathan Bandell of the 900 block of Fairway Drive
• Lutherville: Marie and David Frederick of the 200 block of Morris Avenue
• Rodgers Forge: Gina Marie and James Fischer of the 200 block of Stanmore Road
• Ruxton: Susan and Robert Aumiller of the 300 block of West Wind Road
• Southland Hills: Patricia and David Jackson of the 400 block of Alabama Road
• Stoneleigh: Jane and Brian Schaffer of the 800 block of Stoneleigh Road
• West Towson:  Carey and Thomas Mitchell of the 800 block of Chestnut Glen Garth
• West Towson: Judy Wine of the 500 block of Charles Street Avenue
• Wiltondale: Terry and Robert Grothmann of the 500 block of Wilton Road
• York Manor: Ben Grimm of the unit block of Haddington Road