Dr. Charles Heuser

International Award of Honor, 2018

The 2018 recipient has been a member of IPPS since 1963 – 55 years. While not quite the longest member attending this meeting, he is certainly one of our more senior members.

He holds two degrees from Rutgers University and one from Purdue

  • He was part of the horticulture faculty at Penn State for almost 40 years, was also responsible for coordinating the educational curriculum in that department. He taught classes in woody plant identification and also computer aided design. He was given the status of Professor Emeritus when he retired in 2011.
  • He taught at Longwood Gardens for several years as an adjunct instructor for plant identification classes, with an audience of gardeners, as well as landscapers, many of who didn’t pay attention when they took his classes at Penn State!
  • He was one of the first faculty at Penn State to convert his courses to website access – allowing his courses to be taught remotely at three campuses.
  • Earlier years of research in plant physiology and propagation earned him the nickname of “Mung Bean Charlie” among his colleagues – later he did extensive research in tissue culture propagation and other areas.
  • He is a Co-author with Dr. Michael Dirr of The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation, now in its second edition.
  • He was co-author and editor of two publications with the Pennsylvania Nursery Association on nursery production and on environmental resource management.
  • Editorial Consultant for a book published in the United Kingdom in 1997 - The Complete Book of Plant Propagation.
  • Served as a judge for the awards given by the American Society of Landscape Architects.
  • Served as a judge for the Gold Medal Plant awards presented by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
  • Has also been Editor for the IPPS Eastern Region for 41 years – having taken the job in 1977. He is also a Fellow of the Eastern Region.
  • He has been IPPS International Editor since 1992 – 26 years – having started with Volume 41.
  • I wonder how many IPPS conference speakers have been harassed by this gentleman when they didn’t return their manuscripts back to him on time. A stickler for detail, correct grammar and correct plant names, he has helped maintain a very high professional standard for the IPPS Proceedings. And for this we are all grateful. For many years the IPPS Proceedings were the Google and Wikipedia of the horticultural industry well before the internet was developed.
  • Married the last 25 years to Patricia Heuser, who served as IPPS International Secretary for a few years.
  • A few years ago he retired to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he has extensive display gardens and not enough help according to his wife.

By now it has become obvious to many of you that I have been describing our IPPS International Editor who is retiring at the end of this year.

Please help me congratulate the very worthy 2018 IPPS International Award of Honor recipient - Dr. Charles Heuser.