The Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden (RSBG) is unusual for many reasons, including its unassuming address. Federal Way is a suburb nestled between Seattle and Tacoma, best known for its strip malls and horrific traffic. It’s not somewhere you’d expect to find a botanical garden—let alone a sprawling, 22-acre oasis teeming with rare plants. In the 1970s, the Rhododendron Species Foundation was allotted a plot of land on the 400-acre wooded campus where a large logging company maintained its headquarters. What began as a small space for the foundation to house its…
