History of the Glide Wildflower Show

Beginning as a modest effort that attracted a handful of visitors, the Glide Wildflower Show has become recognized as the preeminent exhibit of wildflowers in the Pacific Northwest. Over 500 displayed species attract thousands of flower-lovers during the annual two-day event on the last full weekend in April.

The seeds for the show were sown in May, 1965, when the Glide Community Club was casting around for ideas to create more community, highlight diverse activities, and bring people together. Mona Riley called her friend Regina Miller to ask if she had any ideas. Reggie, whose hobby and passion was wildflowers, said, "There are so many beautiful plants in our area. I think it would be nice to have a showing of these." A coffee hour was already scheduled in three days. Could she put it together in that time?

In just two days Reggie collected 71 specimens from the countryside around Glide. She couldn’t go too far into the mountains, because of a late, slushy snowstorm. She borrowed vases from her friend Audrey Young, who helped Reggie arrange the flowers and label them with botanical name, common name, and family. Thirty-two people came to the show, held in the newly opened Idleyld Lodge. They enjoyed it so much that they suggested it be an annual event.

The following year the show was moved to the Glide Community Center and scheduled for the last weekend in April, when the greatest number of blossoms would be available. Reggie and several volunteers collected 91 specimens, but only 25 people came. Understandably discouraged, the volunteers were inclined to give up the idea, but Mona thought more widespread publicity was all they needed.

Mona contacted a Portland friend, Molly Grathaus of the Oregon Journal, who also loved wildflowers. Molly wrote an article about wildflowers of Oregon and where to see them—and mentioned the Glide Wildflower Show.

The improved publicity brought to the 1967 show 400 guests from Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska, and Arizona. Reggie and her crew of volunteers exhibited 191 varieties of wildflowers. The community decided to keep the show as an annual event.

1967 was the first time visitors had come from throughout Oregon. Some of the visitors, from the coast and inland valleys as well as from Glide, offered to help collect and classify the plants. As a result, in 1968 the collecting range enlarged to include the Siskiyou Mountains and Curry, Coos, Jackson, and Josephine Counties. Local people also began bringing specimens that grew in only a few places, including loggers who watched for special plants growing at higher altitude. All together, collectors had gathered 243 specimens from different elevations and microclimates.

The 1968 show was huge success. Continuing word of mouth and widespread publicity, including an article in Sunset Magazine, drew more than 1400 visitors from as far away as London and Amsterdam. The unexpectedly huge crowd waited cheerfully in long lines for sandwiches provided by the Community Club. When they ran out of food, Glide residents showed up with home-cooked dishes.

Visitors included botanists, nature study groups, and garden clubs. A bus brought 27 members and guests of the Native Plant Society of Portland, including a prominent English botanist of the Linnaean Society of London. A professor of botany from Eugene led a field trip to the North Umpqua area and the show.

The U.S. Forest Service arranged displays of native trees, cones, and shrubs, as well as an information booth about local points of interest. Audrey Young constructed a fern grotto with a water feature.

The show had awakened great interest in learning about native plants. The spring of 1969, a continuing education botany course was taught at one of Roseburg’s junior high schools. The course was timed to conclude the week before the wildflower show, so that attendees could use their new knowledge.

For the 1969 show, a major attraction was three-hour guided field tours, offered by the Society of American Foresters. Maps were provided for visitors who preferred to make the tour on their own. Other new features at the show included a display of pressed specimens, including many that bloom later in the year, and a Forest Service display of native rock.

The Sunday of the show, a dedication ceremony was held for the newly installed native plant garden at Colliding Rivers Viewpoint. This landscaping was a direct result of the interest in native plants awakened during the first four years of the Glide Wildflower Show.

By this time, Reggie Miller was working toward a degree at the University of Oregon. For one of her courses, in June 1969 she wrote a paper titled, "Glide Wildflower Show - A Community Activity." Thanks to her paper, we know many details of the first five shows.

We also know some of the headlines above newspaper stories reporting on those early shows. From the Roseburg paper in April 1968, "Glide Wildflower Show Becomes Big Attraction" and in May 1968, "County Hasn’t Realized Wildflower Show’s Value." In February 1969, "Glide Wildflower Show ‘Blossoms’ Into Major Event." April, 1969: "Glide’s Wildflower Show Fine Community Activity." And from the Oregon Journal in May 1969, "Glide Wildflower Show ‘Smashing Success.’"

Reggie Miller was the dynamo that drove those early shows. The Glide Community Club unanimously agreed that as a tribute to Reggie, the show should be named in her honor. With typical modesty, however, she declined and insisted that the official name should be the Glide Wildflower Show.

Over the next years, additional botanical expertise arrived. Mildred Thiele, Lois Hopkins, Joan Fosback, and Mary Carlson called themselves "Little Old Ladies in Hiking Boots." These four women were amateur but knowledgeable and serious botanists. They spent much of their spare time in the countryside and forest, searching for and documenting the wealth of plant diversity. Later they donated their work to found the Douglas County Museum Herbarium.

For the 1969 show, Mildred Thiele had contributed her collection of pressed flowers. For many years after that, all four women volunteered with the show, helping to build its legacy of wide collection, beautiful displays, and scientific accuracy.

Reggie Miller died in 1973, but numerous councils—the show's governing body—continued her legacy. Over the years, members have included Mona Riley, Yvonne Knouse, Mary Powell, Audrey Young, Mary Carlson, Jean Cross, Jane Talcott, Ina Serafin, Marilyn Sams, and Jeanne Moore.

Sometime in the 1970s, Jeanne Moore began working with the show. Along with her husband Frank, Jeanne owned and ran Steamboat Inn. When she could get away from the inn, she loved walking in the forest and discovering wildflowers. She too became a highly knowledgeable amateur botanist. Long after Reggie, Mona, Audrey, and the "Little Old Ladies in Hiking Boots" were no longer around, Jeanne was the guiding light of the show for successive generations of collectors, botanists, and other volunteers. She continued to collect and identify specimens and to teach and inspire everyone around her through 2018, when she was in her nineties.

After the first couple years, botanists from the Forest Service, BLM, universities, and Umpqua Community College also volunteered to help collect and identify specimens. The dedication of this corps of expert plant lovers ensured the accuracy of identifications and built the reputation of the show among botanists and naturalists. Some botanists have been volunteering with the show for many years. Dr. Dan Luoma remembers coming to the second show in 1966 as a boy, began helping out in the late 1970s, and is still a show collector and botanist.

Among the many tasks done by local residents, they collected plants and produced a list of the previous year's specimens. That list evolved into the Glide Wildflower Show's Flora Book, still available each year. A complete listing of all species ever shown, the booklet is regularly updated to reflect species added and the currently accepted scientific nomenclature.

The earliest show served tea, coffee, and cookies to the visitors. In 1968, the Community Club served sandwiches for lunch and dinner. At some early time, the club began featuring a variety of local homemade pies, a tradition that has been maintained ever since. Food sales were dedicated to scholarships for local students.

In the late 1970s, Students' Day was added to the agenda. On the Monday following the show, local elementary school students visit to learn about native plants through a variety of activities designed and supervised by additional volunteers. Several generations of students have experienced the excitement of a field trip to the show, and one-time students are now sending their own children and helping to organize the event.

In 1994, the Glide Wildflower Show Council was down to just two active members. The hard decision was made not to present the show. The vase collection of nearly thirty years was given away and the treasury distributed as scholarship funds. It seemed as if the show was over forever.

But the following autumn, Abbey Rosso, a young biologist recently moved to the North Umpqua, heard about the legacy of the show from Jeanne Moore, her friend and neighbor. Abbey too was an avid naturalist and outdoor enthusiast and became inspired to revive the wildflower tradition. She held the first planning meeting at her home, and a new council was formed. In April, 1995, the Glide Wildflower Show was held again, with newly trained collectors and the able help of more than 100 seasoned volunteers.

Abbey's botanical experience and attention to detail enabled the show to continue to maintain its standard of quality, equal to any wildflower display anywhere. Her particular area of expertise was lichens—she held a doctorate in lichenology—and she created a lichen collection for Glide. She volunteered with the show every year through 2012 in spite of declining health.

The magnificent quilt which hangs each year at the Glide Wildflower Show was a gift from Alice Parker in 1999. For many years she and her husband Fred traveled the wild areas of Oregon, discovering where rare wildflowers grew and photographing them.

Alice had earlier created for the Audubon Society a bird quilt which was raffled to raise funds. For the wildflower show, she made a quilt with transfers of her and Fred’s stunning photographs, lovingly stitched into brilliant textile art. Although the wildflower quilt was also intended to be raffled, the Council unanimously decided it was "too important to let it go to just one person." Instead, they created an annual tradition of displaying it at the show. To fulfill Alice’s intention of raising money for the show, a photograph of the quilt was made into notecards, sold in the show’s bookstore.

In addition to the quilt, Alice donated to the Glide Wildflower Show dozens of photographs of rare flowers that cannot be collected. These are displayed along the north wall each year. The rest of the thousands of wildflower photographs taken by her and Fred have found a home in the archives of the OSU Herbarium.

In 2002 the Glide Wildflower Show was incorporated as a tax-exempt non-profit organization. It is still governed by a hands-on Council that meets at least nine months of the year to plan and organize the event.

In 2012, after a big fundraiser and through the generosity of the Community Club and the next-door landowner, the Council constructed a storage building adjacent to the hall and moved tables, vases, and other supplies out of closets of the Glide Community Center. The building is highly visible to travelers along Highway 138 through Glide, displaying huge dogwood blooms year-round courtesy of artist Ginger Updegrave.

The Glide Wildflower Show always advertised the show with colorful flower-filled posters. Early posters did not show the year and could be used multiple years simply by pasting new dates.

In 2002, the poster style changed. That year it featured a full-color reproduction of an original painting of red columbine by Glide artist David Hall. Since then, the posters have become sought-after collectibles for their gorgeous art—paintings or photographs—by local artists. All the posters can be seen on the Glide Wildflower Show website and are available at the book table.

Local people know the show is coming when posters go up in shop windows and on bulletin boards at the beginning of April. They also know it’s getting close when bright yellow banners with the iconic trillium appear, lining Highway 138 through Glide. Designed by Susan Rudisill, the banners were first hung in 2006.

The website was created in 2008 by Dianne Muscarello to provide information for visitors and volunteers. Continually evolving since then, it is full of photos of past shows and posters, information about presentations, show history, wildflower links, and resources that help volunteers do their jobs.

Over the years, features have been added to the show to provide varied experiences for visitors and to help them learn more about native plants.

A slate of presentations by experts on a variety of topics related to native plants is scheduled during each show. Medicinal and edible plants, landscaping with natives, plant recovery after fire, mushroom identification, and rare plants are popular topics. Also, since 2014, show collectors have led a wildflower walk on a nearby trail, identifying and discussing flowers in the wild.

A book sales table offers the opportunity to pick up reference books to learn more about native plants, as well as a variety of picture and coloring books for children to begin to appreciate wildflowers. Native plants and seeds are also for sale to incorporate into one’s home landscape.

Since 2008, show labels have changed from plain cards with scientific and family names to laminated multi-color versions. A map of Oregon on each label, derived from Oregon Flora data, shows where the species occurs throughout the state. The dots tell a story: whether the plant is widespread or uncommon, found along the coast or in the mountains, only in the warm south or throughout the state.

During set-up for the 2014 show, crews from Oregon Public Broadcasting came to Glide to film the process and interview volunteers. The story they put together became an episode of Oregon Field Guide and was aired throughout Oregon in November and again in April.

That April of 2015 was the show’s 50th anniversary. The poster that year by David Hall featuring an art deco-style design of western trillium may be the most popular poster ever. The combination of the anniversary and the OPB publicity brought such large crowds to the show that it was hard to see the flowers! Reggie’s daughter traveled from Australia and, with her brother, spoke to the crowd about the joy her mother found in wildflowers and how pleased she would be to know the show has continued for so many years.

Planning for each show begins in October of the previous year. So preparations were far advanced in early March of 2020,when the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic forced cancellation of all public gatherings. The already-printed poster by Jan Horn featuring bleeding heart, a symbol of compassion, was sold by mail to raise money for Glide's food bank.

In 2021, with the pandemic still going, the show went virtual. A BioBlitz on the iNaturalist app allowed anyone with a camera in southwest Oregon to contribute observations to the show. In 2022, the in-person show returned, but the virtual show continues to be held concurrently.

Although the show has grown larger and added new features, much remains the same as the early years. The show is still put on by a small army of several hundred dedicated volunteers. It is still held in the Glide Community Center the last full weekend of April.

Hundreds of specimens still represent the range of wild plants blooming throughout southwest Oregon. Exhibits of native trees, mosses and lichens, edible plants, and a fern grotto accompany the rows of native wildflowers and shrubs. Visitors still enjoy unique vases that complement the flowers they hold. Show organizers still take pride in ensuring botanical accuracy and integrity, with each identification verified by a botanist.

The table of home-made pies stays crowded all day long, still raising money for scholarships. And visitors come from throughout the West and beyond to enjoy and learn about native plants.

In 2025, the Glide Wildflower Show celebrates 60 years, continuing a legacy of preserving, caring for, and educating about native plants. Building on the knowledge and experience of Reggie Miller and the other local naturalists who have nurtured the show over the years, it continues to be the largest wildflower show in the Pacific Northwest.

The words of Reggie Miller continue to guide the Glide Wildflower Show:

"Wildflowers are often abundant, but they are not indestructible. Many of our loveliest ones are in danger of extinction by our carelessness. By knowing our wildflowers, we can better preserve them for ourselves and for the future."