Since 2017 members of Riga Ridzene club has a new tradition – to organize the club meeting at the Rhododendron Garden of the University of Latvia. This year,   May 28,  the guest –Manca Kragelj, president elect  for 2019/20 of the Rotary club Celje, Slovenia was with us too.

Rhododendron breeding and experimental nursery  was established in 1980.. Today it  covers 11.8 ha of pine forest near Riga,  but among pines Rhododendrons flourish.The founder of the nursery is Rihards Kondratovičs (1932–2017) academic, Dr. habil. biol. professor, breeder of rhododendrons, the head of the nursery until 2017. He studied the genus of rhododendrons for 60 years. This is the only specialised rhododendron nursery in Baltic states. The nursery shows a remarkable collection of rhododendrons with 76 wild species and 269 cultivars, 112 of which are created at “Babīte” nursery and registered in the International Cultivar Register of the Royal Horticultural Society, United Kingdom. Every year in the blooming time – May and June – the nursery attracts about 25 000 visitors.