The name of the 13 acres of green space on Northeast 170th Street in Kenmore is, after all, Rhododendron Park, noted volunteer Warren Timmons.

One of about a half-dozen adult volunteers on hand in the park Feb. 28, Timmons just happens to work for the King County Recreation Division, as well as being a rhododendron enthusiast.

According to Timmons, as they moved forward with plans to renovate the city park, Kenmore officials had planned on moving and saving about 30 of Rhododendron Park’s rhododendrons, plants that are — or were — in the path of that renovation.

Instead, Timmons and a local rhododendron club, with plenty of help from members of the Inglemoor High Key Club, intend to transplant around 300 of the flowering bushes, some of which Timmons and others described as largely irreplaceable.

According to Timmons, what is now Rhododendron Park was the site of a flower nursery in the 1920s. Owner Reginald Pearce apparently specialized in rhododendrons, even creating at least three new hybrid species of his own, Timmons said. He added that every year at Easter, the nursery would ship large numbers of pink pearl rhododendrons east.

The former nursery first became a King County park in the 1960s before eventually being turned over to Kenmore. Timmons used to work in the park when it belonged to the county, which explains his knowledge of the plot and how he became sort of the point man for moving the endangered plants. Kenmore Recreation Director Bill Evans said the city has on tap some $516,000 in improvements to the park, including a paved entrance and a new gravel parking lot.

Plans also call for new and relocated playground equipment and the replacement of an existing picnic shelter. Still, it was the plans to redo the park entrance that attracted the attention of members of the Kenmore Senior Center, which sits just inside that park entrance. The new driveway will displace and would have destroyed hundreds of the park’s namesake plants, according to Timmons.

“It was the seniors who really stepped up and said they’ve got to do something about this,” Timmons added.

“It’s worked out really well, so far,” said Senior Center Director Garreth Jeffers.

Timmons and Jeffers said the transplanting work will be spread out over three or four weekends. But Jeffers said about 70 plants were moved the first day volunteers arrived at the park Feb. 21.

That first group of volunteers included some 17 members of Inglemoor’s Key Club and about 25 were on hand for the second day of work Feb. 28.

“It’s just to volunteer for the community,” said Serena Lan, 18. “It’s a pretty good deal.”

Inglemoor’s Dylan Renkert, 17, said community service is, of course, central to the Key Club and helping out at the park just seemed like a worthy idea.

“They’re going to be bulldozed if we don’t move them,” he said of the plants he and his classmates were digging up from one side of the park and hauling over to the other.

For those who don’t already know, rhododendrons can get quite large, the biggest in the park hitting well over 6 feet tall. On Feb. 28, students were moving the plants in wheelbarrows or placing the roots on large pieces of tarp and dragging them across the park lawn.

“A lot of these are really one-of-a-kind,” said Dave Doherty, a member of the Cascade Rhododendron Club who came up with the idea of using the tarps. Timmons noted some 30 of the plants to be saved are so large they will be transplanted by the contractor hired to revamp the park.

Evans said construction work at the park should begin later this month and take about 90 days to complete. The park will be closed during the work, but Evans added the goal is to complete the project before the summer season.

“The park is just a great old park,” Evans added. “It just needs kind of some renovations.”