All is quiet every morning as the sunlight breaks through the fog at Hendricks Park, but only until the birds and the gardeners start their day.
“It’s just us and the birds,” said gardener Ginny Alfriend. “They’re saying good morning to us.”
This time of year, the gardeners at Hendricks Park are busier than usual because the Rhododendron Garden is in peak season and the flowers are in full bloom. Head gardener Michael Robert, who started working at Hendricks Park in 1978 and has been head gardener since 1981, said Mother’s Day is traditionally the busiest day of the year for families to visit the park. Hendricks Park is a short walk up 15th Avenue from the University. It is also accessible by car, bicycle or Lane Transit District bus by following Walnut Street to Fairmount Boulevard and heading east on Summit Avenue.
Robert and his two co-workers, Alfriend and Keith Stanley, maintain the 78-acre park, which includes a 12-acre garden. Their office — cluttered with everything from hard hats and gardening tools to yellow rain jackets and a coffee machine — is located beneath the bathroom, which means on lunch breaks they can hear the toilets with every flush.

Robert said about 100 “regulars” visit the park daily — walking their dogs, exercising or enjoying the tranquility of reading a book on the grass. He said retired ecology and biology professors from the University also volunteer their services, as do participants in the Looking Glass Youth Program and Northwest Youth Corps.
With a clear, 360-degree view of the Eugene countryside, it is easy to figure out what draws people to the park. It is located on Judkins Point and was created by Martha and Thomas Hendricks in 1906 as Eugene’s first city park. When the Hendricks family decided to make the original 47-acres of ridgeline property a park, Robert said they added both a panoramic viewpoint and changed the future landscape.
“By creating the park, they stopped development,” he said. “The city has grown up around the park.”
On the hill’s northern slope, visitors have a glimpse of Oregon Hall and campus. At night by the light of the moon, Robert said the “top of the hill seems to float as if it were in the clouds.”

Alfriend said she started gardening as a work-study student in 1988 while attending the University. She has continued to help facilitate the program for students who participate in it now. There are currently eight students, including freshman Alicia Robe, on the work-study gardening crew. Robe said she has enjoyed her outdoor experience maintaining the native plants and meeting friendly visitors of the park.
Robe said she became interested in the position because she was considering becoming an environmental science major. For $8 an hour, Robe bikes up the hill to work, putting in between eight and 10 hours per week weeding, watering and taking care of the plants.
“I’ve learned a lot of outdoor care — how to take care of different species of plants,” she said. “I really like just being out in the nice, quiet mornings. It’s amazing that you can get paid for that.”