Flora Wonder Blog

Thanks to all who participated in our July 1^st– December 21^stphoto contest. There was overwhelming enthusiasm for Oregon Sky #2, even though the instructions were confusing about choosing just one plant. Sorry about that – I don't care if you want a plant or the sky on your wall. The photograph was taken this past October above the Flora Wonder Arboretum after I had returned home from work. Ryan S. was selected at random as the winner and he will receive a 16" by 24" print mounted on a bamboo board, ready for hanging.

Oregon Sky #2

Thanks again for the enthusiasm shown by many of you Flora Wonder Blog readers.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Moonshine'

Like bowel movements, I try to be regular with the Flora Wonder Blog, meaning that I try every weak to exude one...knowing that skipping a week could become a regular habit that would likely end it altogether. It hogs time from Seth who's just trying to do his job, and he has occasionally snarled, “Do you want me to make money today or focus on your damn blog?” – or something to that effect. I reply, “Calm down Seth, and besides, it's not my blog, it's our blog,” to which he replies, “Whatever.” Really, I persist because I learn a lot, and not just about plants, but about myself also. Nevertheless, I will admit to creating a Buchholz persona that doesn't totally exist, but hopefully it leads me in the direction of who I want to be.

Cactus species

Cytisus scoparius

Well, enough of that. What with Christmas – er...the holidays, as p.c. would have it – heavily upon us, and my desire to appear nice and involved with the extended family, there was no blog theme that absolutely jumped out at me, so I invented one. At times I will go to our website's photo library and a certain plant will help generate a theme. If you go to “Our Plants,” then to “Explore Our Plant Library,” you will find the first entry to be Abelia grandiflora 'Radiance', but today I don't care about that bush, and so at random I chose Browse: and in particular the letter “C.” Punch on the “C” and you get Dacrycarpus sp. because your fat finger hits the “D” tab instead of the “C.” When you correctly re-orient yourself and explore the “C” section – not as in the Roman Emperor's surgical birth, but rather the group of plants – the genera that begins with the letter “C,” you will discover a wealth of photos that begin with Cactus sp. and ends with Cytisus scopiarus. In between you have Cedrus, Chamaecyparis, Crinum and much, much more. The moments that I took to photographically wander through the “C's,” I noticed that quite a few consisted of variegated plants.

Callicarpa dichotoma

Callicarpa dichotoma 'Duet'

Ok: variegated plants that begin with “C” then – and I have a theme. The genus Callicarpareceived its name from Latin callis, a “narrow footpath” or “track,” and carpa for “fruit,” as the beautyberries align themselves along the stems of the shrub. C. dichotoma is a species found in China, Korea and Japan, and the specific epithet means “divided or forked in pairs,” referring to the arrangement of the opposite leaves. The berries– which are pink-purple-to-white – cluster themselves at the intersection of the leaves and stem, and botanically they are known as drupesbecause they encase a pit or stone...like a peach (but inedible). C.d. 'Duet' was an introduction in 2006 from the U.S. National Arboretum, with cooperation from the Tennessee Technological University. The flowers are inconspicuous due to the variegated foliage, and almost too are the little white berries, so one grows 'Duet' mainly for the splashy foliage. I don't know if 'Duet' is patented or not – probably so – but I probably wouldn't propagate it anyway because it is too “easy” to produce, and therefore cheap to market, and I'm better off to leave it to the large bankrupt – or nearly so – firms that like to flood the market with these types of plants. Still, I like 'Duet', but just one in the collection is sufficient.

Calocedrus decurrens 'Maupin Glow'

Calocedrus decurrens 'Maupin Glow' is a deliciously variegated “incense cedar” with rich gold coloration at the tips of the lush green branchlets. Discovered by Greg Rigby near Maupin*, Oregon, the columnar evergreen will not burn in full sun, and once established it will not require frequent irrigation. I consider it superior to the old C.d. 'Aureovariegata' which grows more broad, and 'Aureovariegata'is plagued with large yellow portions that do burn in full sun. 'Berrima Gold' is a nice selection with entirely golden foliage, but I find it more boring than 'Maupin Glow'. Some suggest that 'Maupin Glow' will grow to 8' tall in 10 years, and that's about right for it is slow to start, but to suggest that it will top out at 12 to 15' is nonsense, and I would guess to 60 to 80' at least. The species is noteworthy for its aromatic wood and straight grain – cultivars are fun to graft – and it is ideal for the manufacture of pencils which are easily whittled. The genus name has nothing to do botanically with the true “cedars” – Cedrus – but is derived from the Greek word meaning “beautiful,” while the specific name decurrensmeans “extending down,” in reference to the drooping branchlets.

Chief Paulina

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

*The city – no, the town of Maupin – is located along the Deschutes River (French for the “shoots” or “rapids”) east of Mt. Hood. It was named for Howard Maupin who came to Oregon in 1863 and who settled in Antelope Valley, in the same general area as the infamously nefarious Rajneeshee cult over 100 years later. Besides being the town's first postmaster, Maupin was considered a crack shot, and it was he who dispatched the famous native Chief Paulina, who had been a pesky sore for the white, Manifestly-Destined invaders.

Camellia 'Eleanor McCown'

Camellia 'Finlandia'

Camellia 'Ohkan'

Camellia 'Haru no utena'

I only grow three cultivars of Camellia, so far, and they were all acquired in the past two years from Gossler Farms Nursery, a good source for wonderful plants. Google them and buy something for heaven's sake, so that they'll continue to buy from me. Previously Camellias were never my kind of plant, or maybe you could say that I just wasn't ready for them yet, but I sure do enjoy my 'Black Opal', 'Water Lily' and 'Kujaku tsubaki'. As far as variegated varieties go, I don't know of any with variegated leaves, but I wouldn't be surprised if one existed. The photos above are blossoms that I have seen at a Camellia show, where if you are friends with the judge you are more likely to win the blue ribbon. You'll notice that Camellia names are like those of Rhododendrons, where the breeder feels compelled to honor himself or a family member or some other person. I'm sure that Eleanor McCown is a wonderful woman and all, but why does the variegated plant have to be saddled with her name? 'Finlandia' is a catchy, likable name, and I never tire of Japanese names even though deciphering their meanings can be a challenge. 'Ohkan' means “king's crown,” but we also have a Cornus kousa 'Ohkan'*, and while I can see the name for Camellia, I cannot fathom why the dogwood cultivar is so named. 'Haru no utena' is a little more vague, but my Japanese wife/scholar explains Haru no means “spring of” – when blossoms appear – and utena meaning a “special seat for the Buddha,” like on a lotus blossom. She also reports that 'Haru no utena'– pronounced “ootena” – is a very popular cultivar in Japan, so take that Eleanor!

*Interestingly, the Japanese characters for “ohkan” are the same as for the generic name of “Cornus.” The Latin word “cornu” means “horn,” hence unicorn, while the Greek name for horn is “keras,” hence Rhinoceros.

Cedrus atlantica 'Sahara Ice'

The late Bill Janssen of Collector's Nursery in Washington state was keen on variegated plants, and those kind of plantsmen are usually the ones who find them. He discovered and introduced a variegated “Atlas cedar,” Cedrus atlantica 'Sahara Ice', and I think (but don't know positively) that it was a mutation from a C. a. 'Glauca'. Even though it has silver portions to the needles it can be grown in full sun in Oregon. I have never seen one large however, for I always sell mine before they exceed 10' tall. They are fast-growing and skinny when young, as with C.a. 'Glauca', and I know 'Glauca' broadens tremendously with age. The problem is that many homeowners and knuckle-head landscapers plant too close to buildings or under power lines because they think the atlas species will forever remain narrow. We propagate 'Sahara Ice' by grafting onto Cedrus deodara rootstock, as we do all of our Cedrus cultivars. What has always puzzled me is that we can root Cedrus deodara and Cedrus brevifolia, but not Cedrus libani or Cedrus atlantica. Anyone with a different experience? Could a botanist weigh in? Actually no botanists have ever weighed in, as they would deem my experiences with plants as insufficiently scientific. We both make our living with plants, but I am the one with the dirty finger nails and tired back, and they get to be “experts” with the higher salary and stay clean.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Variegated Selection'

I noticed variegation, rather subtle, on a seedling rootstock of Cercidiphyllum japonicum, so I set it aside to watch, and now it is about 12' tall. It is housed in the unreal world of BAG9 where it receives lush treatment, so lush that some vigorous shoots were not variegated by the end of last summer. I'm curious how it would do outside, but I should probably propagate a few first before letting an Oregon summer have its way with it. I have been “setting things aside” for 35 years and there have been wonderful successes, but most of the time it turns out to be a waste of time and money. Many other plantsmen give me stuff that they find, so there's a whole lot of fooling around going on at the nursery.

Corylopsis glaucophylla

Variegated Corylopsis spicata

I grow a number of species of Corylopsis, some with names that are still used, such as spicata, and some which have changed, such as willmottiae...becoming sinensis. The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs even lists C. sinensis var. calvescens f. veitchiana, and try to fit that onto a label. Frankly I can't tell one species from another, and most I don't propagate anymore, but since they are in my garden I always like to have the correct name. As I alluded to earlier, it is part of my persona that I know my plants completely, but no one notifies me when reclassification occurs; and I've never known two botanists to agree anyway. I purchased a plant of Corylopsis glaucophylla from the old Heronswood Nursery about 15 years ago, and the underside of the leaf is kind of glaucous – if that was the cause of its specific name – but I've never seen it elsewhere, or ever listed by anyone else. Krussmann in Manual of Cultivated Broad-Leaved Trees and Shrubs says that there are about 20 species native to Japan, China and the Himalaya, but then he only mentions 11 of them – and no glaucophylla. I tease you with photos of C. spicata with variegated foliage, but alas I don't have it and I don't know if the variegation is stable. I don't know if it now has a Japanese name – I don't know anything – but it sure was pretty when I saw it 12 years ago in Japan. “Every garden should have a Corylopsis” has been said by every garden writer. Hillier notes gloriously: “These exquisitely beautiful plants are easily grown and should be much more widely planted. The conspicuous, drooping racemes of fragrant primrose-yellow, cup-shaped flowers are regularly produced just before the leaves in early spring.” Perfect: poetry from Sir Harold Hillier.

Variegated Cotinus coggygria

Cotinus coggygria 'Young Lady'

Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple'

I think it was also in Japan where I saw a variegated Cotinus coggygria, but likewise I have never seen it again, so I don't know if it is a worthy selection or not. Generally they are not, especially with such a vigorous weed as Cotinus. We used to grow 'Royal Purple' and they were very popular as a tree form. Not many other nurseries knew at the time that the key to propagating via rooted cuttings was to use the tips of new wood – max 4 leaves – when they were very soft (mid-May) under mist. Some years all would root and some years only half would, and maybe a plugged mister for an hour was the culprit. There is also an American Cotinus – obovatus– which is native to southeastern USA, while the coggygria species is from Europe and Asia. The word Cotinus is from Greek kotinos meaning “wild olive,” and coggygria is from Greek kokkugia for the name of “smoke tree.”

Cyclamen persicum

Cyclamen persicum is known as the “Florist's Cyclamen,” or it's at least one of the parents of many large-flowered hybrids that are sold at the grocery store even. It's not hardy in Oregon, but that's why I have a GH20 for tender plants. Flowers are nice while the foliage is exceptionally marked. The name of cyclamen originated from Greek kyklaminos which has a root kyklos for “circle” due to the round tuber. The specific name persicum means that it is native to Persia, or modern day Iran, and surrounding countries.

Cornus kousa 'Summer Fun'

Cornus kousa 'Wolf Eyes'

Cornus kousa 'Ohkan'

Cornus kousa 'Akatsuki'

Cornus kousa 'KLVW'

Cornus alba 'Spaethii'

Cornus alternifolia 'Moonlight'

Cornus controversa 'Variegata'

Cornus florida 'Welchii'

Cornus mas 'Variegata'

Of course the Cornus genus is well represented with variegation, and I suppose that every species contains at least one cultivar with multi-colored forms. The kousas are led by 'Summer Fun'– much better than 'Wolf Eyes'– ,'Ohkan' mentioned earlier, 'Akatsuki' and 'KLVW' or 'Kristen Lipka's Variegated Weeper'. Cornus alba features 'Spaethii' while C. alternifolia can brag with 'Moonlight'. C. controversa is represented elegantly with C. controversa 'Variegata' and C. florida has 'Welchii'. The “variegated Cornelian cherry,” Cornus mas 'Variegata' is a small deciduous tree with glossy green leaves with cream-white margins. The tree is covered with golden-yellow flowers in early spring, followed by edible red berries in fall, and in-between the fun foliage carries you through the summer.

Cornus alternifolia 'Saya'

My favorite of all variegated dogwoods could have been C. alternifolia 'Saya', named after my daughter whose Japanese name means “a field of flowers,” but while it can look sumptuously alluring the truth is that it is weak, and in fact we no longer propagate it. Now I am sorry to have named it 'Saya', because she is strong and beautiful, and there's no doubt that Saya, my daughter, will become far more wonderful and long-lasting than my dogwood selection. Fool around and you will win a few...while you squander a lot.

Flora Wonder Blog readers might be interested in Variegated Trees and Shrubs by Ronald Houtman, in association with the Royal Boskoop Horticultural Society. Descriptions are brief and the text contains a number of nomenclatural errors, while the photographs range from good – from van Hoey Smith mainly – to horrible. It's like they were all “batched” together in production, which is cheaper, but that gives many photos a dull look, when probably the photos really were of better quality. Still I found dozens of variegated cultivars that I never knew about before, and would certainly like to acquire.

I wonder what was the first cultivar (cultivated variant) ever selected and propagated, and I suppose it probably had something to do with food since Mesopotamian art shows cultivated date palms, vines and cereals over 3,000 years before Christ, or as we now say: Before Common Era. Later, the Ancient Greeks, being a smart and curious people, didn't just hang around the Parthenon in their togas all day, but were well-attuned to the natural world and must have observed variation in trees and shrubs. I wish I could have been there to point out witch's broom mutations, weeping trees, variegated branch sports etc.

Theophrastus

Distinguishing between wild plants and those that arose in cultivation dates back to the Greek plantsman Theophrastus (370-285 BCE), and with his Enquiry into Plants he is considered to be the “Father of Botany.”*

*For more about Theophrastus – a pupil of Aristotle – and subsequent botanical history, one can do no better than read British author Anna Pavord's The Naming of Names, the “Search for Order in the World of Plants.” She describes, for example, Theo pacing up and down in front of his audience of more than 2,000 people at the Lyceum to hear his morning lectures. The book jacket accurately describes Pavord's work as “a thrilling adventure into botanical history.”

Liberty Hyde Bailey

The word cultivar can be attributed to Liberty Hyde Bailey of Cornell University in 1923. He wrote “The cultigen is a species, or its equivalent, that has appeared under domestication – the plant is cultigenous. I now propose another name, cultivar, for a botanical variety, or for a race subordinate to species, that has originated under cultivation; it is not necessarily, however, referable to a recognized botanical species. It is essentially the equivalent of the botanical variety except in the respect to its origin.” I came across this definition years ago, and even reading it three times slowly today, I would still like to ask Professor Bailey a few questions and for him to give some examples. Good thing I didn't attend Cornell in the 1920's – the good professor might have thrown me out of the class.

Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns'

All of the above was prompted by an email I received this past week from Rob Mills of Garden Works Nursery in British Columbia, Canada. I had written in an earlier blog concerning Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns' that, “The original seedling was selected at the Bruns Nursery in Germany (I assume) but the current owner of the establishment knows nothing about the tree. I saw a large one later in an arboretum (was that in Hamburg?), which maybe was the original. It snaked its way upward into the sky with as much 'character' as any tree I've ever seen. How could Mr. Bruns, at my age, know nothing about his father's wonderful tree?”

Mills reveals that, “The story I have is that a [British Columbia] Canadian nurseryman [of German heritage] was visiting the [German] Bruns Nursery and expressed interest in a plant (amongst many growing in the pot, I'm not sure what attracted his eye). They allowed him to take cuttings as they had no special interest in it. He hid the cuttings in the backpack of his eight year old son...and then smuggled them into Canada.” The German-Canadian named the plant after the nursery to honor Mr. Bruns though they never did get anything out of it...it being too early for people to be patenting and branding (ouch!) plants like they do now.”

Mills continues, “The story was told to me by the now 50ish plus 'boy' who helped smuggle them. They have a big one where the old family home is. Looked to be 40-50 feet high and 10' wide. Greenthumb Nursery [near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island] is the nursery, Gerhard is the 'boy.'” So finally the origin of 'Pendula Bruns'might be known to me, but since the naming occurred some 40 years ago – after the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants ruled that the use of Latin names for cultivars was no longer valid – the name of 'Pendula Bruns' is illegitimate. On the other hand the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs says it was introduced by Bruns Nursery in 1955. Krussmann in Manual of Cultivated Coniferssays nothing about 'Pendula Bruns' but does mention 'Pendula', and says that forms found under this name are “best considered as a collective name.”

My start of 'Pendula Bruns' came from a German Professor Reuter about twenty years ago when he visited America. He gave me some other plants as well – all without proper documentation – and I admit that I didn't report any of it to the authorities. I don't know how Reuter had ever heard about me, but since I have a German last name, he perhaps considered the two of us to be brothers of the Fatherland. So, did the cultivar originate in Germany and then make its way to America, or from Canada to Germany and then to me in America? I suppose it is possible that there are two distinct clones, both with the same name.

I could belabor and speculate on this until all of you Flora Wonder Blog readers fall to sleep. Or maybe I'll solicit Anna Pavord to write a book – she would get to the bottom of it and make it a thrilling adventure besides.

Thrysus

A Bacchant holding a thyrsus

I confess to being an aficionado of the torso – I don't mean of women, though that can be nice too, but of a tree: its trunk. The word torsois derived from Greek thursor for a “plant stalk,” and in particular a Bacchic staff which was a wand of giant fennel (Ferula* communis) covered with ivy vines and always topped with a pine cone. This thursor was a fertility phallus and the pine cone represented the “seed” issuing forth. Euripides wrote, “There's a brute wildness in the fennel-wand – Reverence it well.”

*Ferula is Latin for “rod.”

Bacchanalia

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Pinus bungeana

Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem'

Pinus bungeana 'Silver Ghost'

I am above resorting to bacchanalia-like revelry, and instead I will discuss tree torsos, in particular those of the pines...and oops – the genus Pinus is pronounced “penis” to the Europeans. I suppose most plantsmen, if asked to name their favorite species for an ornamental pine trunk, would respond with Pinus bungeana, the “Chinese lacebark pine.” It was rare in the trade when I began my career, and I got my start from the Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon when no one was looking. Now we only propagate cultivars such as 'Diamant', 'REL-WB', 'Temple Gem' and 'Silver Ghost'. To my knowledge there is no perfect rootstock for bungeana – some take off and grow well while others can linger and become off-color. The bad ones are eventually dumped, and at Buchholz Nursery that would be about 20%. We have used Pinus strobus and Pinus strobiformis with about the same result, but let me know if you experience a better graft with another species. Bungeana is native to northern China and I have seen venerable old specimens in Beijing. Oddly, Keith Rushforth in Conifers says, “The bark of old trees in China becomes a very striking white colour; in cultivation, so far it has only achieved the cream and green flaking, like that of a plane tree (Platanus).” Rushforth should get out more – I have seen all kinds of colors.

Pinus gerardiana

All reference books mention that P. bungeana is closely related to the “Chilgoza pine,” P. gerardiana, and the latter is native to the northwest Himalayas in Afghanistan, northwest India and southwest Tibet. I thought that those areas got as brutally cold as northern China, but P. gerardiana is only hardy to USDA zone 7, while P. bungeana can tolerate temperatures to USDA zone 4, or -30 degrees. Thankfully P. bungeana is the more colorful of the two, so you seldom see P. gerardiana in cultivation. I grant space to one in my Conifer Field and it is now about 35' tall, but sadly the trunk is riddled with sap-sucker holes. We don't propagate P. gerardiana anymore as sales were weak due to the hardiness issue. A third “lacebark” species exists – P. squamata – and it is native to northern Yunnan, China in a “floristically rich area” according to Debreczy and Racz in Conifers Around the World. The species was discovered in the 1970's by a village teacher, and was described scientifically in 1992. With only 36 existing trees (in 2000) it is the world's most rare pine. I have never seen it, but would be most indebted if someone were to send me one. P. squamata displays needles in fascicles of five, while P. bungeana and P. gerardiana are in fascicles of three, making the new discovery an important botanical link between Pinus species.

Pinus ponderosa (eastern form)

Pinus ponderosa at Catherine Creek (eastern form)

Pinus ponderosa (western form)

Daily I pass a large Pinus ponderosa on my way to work, and it is of the subspecies that thrives in the soggy western portion of Oregon, Washington and California versus the east-of-the-Cascades version that will not. Generally speaking, I find the eastern form to be more colorful, with its mid-section cracked into plates of orange and black. My favorite P. ponderosa tree is found in the eastern portion of the Columbia River Gorge at Catherine Creek Nature Preserve, where a leaning specimen defies gravity – more-so than the Tower of Pisa – and in spite of winter's snow and ice accumulation it continues to thrive, and dutifully every year I pay homage to it. Certainly at some point it must topple, but I pray that I'll lay horizontal before I find that it does.

Pinus jeffreyi 'Gold'

Pinus jeffreyi 'Joppi'

Pinus jeffreyi is considered by some to be merely a variety of P. ponderosa, but Hillier in his Manual of Trees and Shrubs suggests that it is a true species, and must differ because of its “black or purple-grey bark, and its stouter, longer, bluish green leaves...” In a place such as Yosemite National Park in California, I honestly cannot tell where the P. ponderosa species ends and the P. jeffreyi begins, except that the latter is found at a higher elevation. Donald Culross Peattie takes it a step further in his A Natural History of Western Trees by mentioning that the P. ponderosa twigs, when broken smell like an orange rind, while broken twigs of P. jeffreyi smell like pineapple. Another difference is that when you heat the pitch of P. ponderosa – to extract turpentine – all goes well, but if you do it to P. jeffreyi it will explode...oops. I used to grow one P. jeffreyi 'Gold' but lost it when I transplanted it from the field – winter-gold pines can be touchy that way. The only other cultivar is 'Joppi', but be sure to give it lots of room as it is no dwarf. Dutch nurseryman, Piet Vergeldt – no stranger to the Flora Wonder Blog – discovered 'Joppi' in a bed of three-year-old seedlings of P. jeffreyi and named it after his eldest son. I only grow a modest number of 'Joppi' per year, but then I always sell out, and it's probably best that I don't try to fill the demand.

Pinus roxburghii in the Himalayas

Pinus roxburghii

William Roxburgh

Another P. ponderosa-like species is the “Chir pine,” P. roxburghii – or at least the trunks look alike. The photo above is from the Himalayan foothills in northern India, but I used to have one in the Flora Wonder Arboretum. Hillier calls it, “A rare species, only suitable for the milder areas of the British Isles,” and I remember in a previous blog I took him to task for that statement because we can get colder than anywhere in Britain. I will admit that my specimen was grafted onto hardy P. sylvestris and maybe that had something to do with its hardiness. In any case, the winter before this we dropped to 10-12 degrees F – not unusual in Oregon – but it happened in early November and my tree croaked. So Old Harold Highpockets was right after all. I have been to the Kolkata (Calcutta) Botanic Garden where I sweated profusely in the June steam. The garden was founded in 1787 by the East India Company, and the roxburghii species was named in honor of William Roxburgh (1751-1815) who was its superintendent in 1793.

Pinus patula

Pinus patula in Grandfather's garden

Benito Juarez

The freeze that killed my P. roxburghii didn't faze my P. patula at all. Patula is considered hardy to USDA zone 8, or 10 degrees above zero. Where hardy the “Mexican weeping pine” is an elegant tree, with long shiny green needles that softly droop. I saw it in the wild years ago in Oaxaca, unless it was a species similar, and I felt remiss that I had left my Pines of Mexico book back at home. One drives from Oaxaca City up into the mountains and you'll see P. patula just past the village where Benito Juarez was born...and if you keep driving you will wind up at Veracruz and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. When pines grow, they send up their candles in spring which develop into the new stems, and by early summer the needles are fully elongated. So one shoot of growth per year. But P. patula – in Oregon anyway – regroups itself then grows again, and even in the fall it continues to grow. Surprisingly, our early-November freeze did no damage to the very soft growth. The tree in the photo above is in my Grandfather's garden – gifted from me – and it is only about twelve years old. He marvels (and worries) about how large it will get, and the answer is way-too-large for his small garden; and besides, the specific name patula is Latin for “spreading.” Good luck Gramps.

Pinus albicaulis

The specific name for Pinus albicaulis is the Latin way of saying “White-bark pine.” It is native to the Rockies and south to the Sierras in central California, and also in the Washington and Oregon Cascades. It can be found at Timberline as the last species on Mt. Hood at about 5,500'. Keith Rushforth in Conifers says that, “Whitebark pine is amenable to cultivation but is not as attractive a tree as most pines.” I guess I would agree with that, for I have a 30-year-old in my Conifer Field, but it is most attractive as an old specimen a mile high in its native haunts. They are no doubt hundreds of years old and rise to less than fifty feet tall, and when they die the bleached-white trunk remains for another hundred years. P. albicaulis was introduced by John Jeffrey (1826-1854) in 1852, the same Jeffrey of P. jeffreyi fame. He began his career as a gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, then was sent to North America to continue the efforts of David Douglas. He spent four years exploring in Oregon, Washington and California, sending his specimens back to Scotland. He disappeared in 1854 while traveling from San Diego across the Colorado Desert, never to be seen again. I fantasize about stumbling upon his remains and finding his field notes, and maybe he discovered more than he is given credit for.

Pinus longaeva

At twice the altitude of P. albicaulis, one will encounter P. longaeva, and it is obvious what the specific name refers to. Hillier says that, “Specimens in the White Mountains of California have been proved [ sic] to be up to 5,000 years old, the oldest living plants.” But not so fast my friend, as Picea abies was the first gymnosperm to have its genome sequenced, and one clone proved to be 9,550 years old. Nevertheless the stand of P. longaeva at road's end is most impressive, and in many cases the old venerables can be 90% dead, but still “life” continues into one portion...century after century after century. The summit of White Mountain Peak is the third highest mountain peak in California at an elevation of 14,246', but it is easily accessible by car. Be careful though, because you have quickly risen thousands of feet in altitude, so don't go dashing off into the forest because your body needs time to adjust. You practically hallucinate looking at the tree torsos, at the sheen of the wood both dead and alive, and neither Stonehenge nor Machu Picchu will give you greater delight. Next to the office I grow a 35-year-old P. longaeva 'Sherwood Compact' which is about 10' tall. Andy Sherwood is long-gone, so we'll never learn the origin of his tree. It entered into horticulture as a selection of P. aristata, but since no white resin specks are evident, it was later deemed to be of the P. longaeva species. I don't know, why wouldn't it belong to P. balfouriana? These three species are closely allied and I don't know one from the others. My old 'Sherwood Compact' does produce cones, so if a certified dendrologist exists I would be happy to send samples for identification.

Pinus pinaster

Pinus pinaster is known as the “Maritime pine” which means that it is “of the sea,” or rather from the lands around the central and western Mediterranean. The specific epithet pinaster is Latin for “wild pine,” but maybe that has something to do with its prickly cones. For what it's worth, the common name of pine is derived from Latin pinus which can be traced to the Indo-European root pit, or “resin.” Before the 19^thcentury pines were known as “firs,” which was derived from Old Norse fura, and even today pines are known as fyr in Danish, fura or furuin Swedish, vuren in Dutch and fohre in German. In any case I have never grown a P. pinaster and the torso photos above were taken in England, at either Wisley or Kew, I can't remember. But who wouldn't want a tree with such a colorful trunk, regardless of what the top looks like?

Pinus pinea

Closely related to P. pinaster is P. pinea, the “Umbrella pine,” so-named due to its hovering crown. It is also referred to as the “stone pine” due to its edible nuts, and in fact its natural distribution is uncertain because of centuries of planting for its edible crop. One can imagine ancient Romans marching along the Appian Way with fantastic lollypop trees lining the road. I grew a P. pinea for a few years, before a 0 degree F winter took it from me. The species should perform well in the San Francisco area, but I don't recall ever seeing a mature specimen there, and the photos above were also taken in southern England. Also, I have never seen a cultivar of P. pinea – one would think that something different would have occurred over the centuries.

Pinus sylvestris

I began my horticultural career by growing a couple of cultivars of the “Scotch pine," Pinus sylvestris, which literally means “pines of the field.” Later I was soundly put in my place by a Scotsman who indicated that “Scotch” was a derogatory term, and that if knew what was best for me I should get correct...so ok, “Scot's* pine” then. In any case I have about fifty cultivars in the collection now, but I admit that P. sylvestris is not my favorite species, that I find the foliage to be rather boring. But as you can see from the photos above the trunks can be very colorful with orange, slightly exfoliating bark. The best characteristic about Pinus sylvestris is that it is hardy and easy to grow, and it proves to be a solid rootstock for cultivars of many species of two-needle pines.

Sottish mercenaries

*A Scot is a native or inhabitant of Scotland, a descendant of the ancient Gaelic tribe that migrated to the northern part of Britain from Ireland in about the sixth century AD. Today they can be characterized as a moody people with pasty-white skin and bad habits such as smoking and drinking. Well, the men anyway; but they think that all Englishmen are want-to-be Scotsmen.

Ok, I admit to being out of place and politically incorrect about many things, but frankly I prefer to spend my time in a grove of trees rather than with people, and all the better if the trees are adorned with treemendous torsos!

In The Garden– an English magazine I subscribe to – I read a review of A Natural History of English Gardening by Min Wood (the reviewer) who wrote, “Many people have no closer encounter with nature than a wasp lurking on the rim of a glass of chardonnay. Gardeners are more fortunate. For us, nature is a much-loved, if sometimes belligerent partner.”

Partner, eh? I have a lot of plants in my “garden,” but I'm certainly no partner with nature. Gardeners can afford to consider nature as a partner, where losing a tree or trees doesn't much affect their net domestic happiness. Look, Flora has admonished me in the past for whining about my relationship with nature; she reminds me that I was never coerced into horticulture, that I went into my nursery career by my own volition; but truthfully I would say that I stumbled into horticulture because I was unfit to enter into anything else. I won't go so far as to say that I am a victim of nature, but the belligerent bitch has slapped me around on numerous occasions. But ya, I love her from time to time too.

Mother Nature

In other words, though I direct a huge garden, the Flora Wonder Arboretum, I am first a nurserymanwho must feed my family – and my employees' families – with the sale of plants. Day after day, year after year...with no end in sight. I never developed an exit strategy because of the constant presence of impending circumstances, situations where imminent business survival outweighed any long-term strategy. So, I am not a partner with nature, but I do deal with her. And with people too. Notice that I designate nature as feminine, and maybe that's from the common term of “Mother Nature,” but never in my life have I ever been in control of anything feminine; it is not possible.

Plant life on earth

The origin of the word “mother” is from Old English modor, and that from Proto-Germanic moder, and that ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mehter. The word nature is derived from Latin natura for “essential qualities” or “innate disposition,” and it is a translation of the earlier Greek word physics. Over 90% of the total biomass on Earth is plant life, which we animals require for our existence. More than 2 million species of plant and animal life have been identified as of 2006, but of course new species are constantly being added while others disappear forever.

The same can be said for my nursery, with new species coming and others leaving. They “leave” by natural death, execution via chainsaw, or when I knowingly/unknowingly sell my last tree. I got over my Noah's Ark mentality some years back, where with every plant I wanted to keep at least one. Now, with far fewer years remaining in my career than have passed, I have a less acquisitive nature while I have grown more inquisitive hopefully. Actually, just seeing a new (to me) species somewhere, to make its acquaintance so to speak, satisfies my lust, and I don't have to find room for it in the garden. I am only “borrowing” trees anyway, as I hope that all trees on my property will outlive me.

Halesia tetraptera

A tree that left my sphere of influence years ago was Halesia tetraptera. I liked it, but somehow it was finally gone, but just as well as the species is now considered to be of the H. carolina group. I was unable to sell the “silverbells” worth a damn, and it was a shame to see them finish flowering in Oregon before we shipped east. No retail customer wants to unload a Buchholz truck and have a tree sit there until it blooms the following year, and only then would someone buy it.

Stephen Hales

The name Halesia is derived from New Latin for Stephen Hales, a 1700's English physiologist. Hales lived a long 83 years, born in Kent in 1677 and died in Teddington in 1761. Typical of his learned day, he was an English clergyman who contributed to the fields of botany and chemistry besides physiology. Somebody had to first understand the measurement of blood pressure, and indeed it was Hales. Apparently, “He bled a sheep to death and then led a gun-barrel from the neck vessels into the still-beating heart. Through this, he filled the hollow chambers with molten wax and then measured from the resultant cast the volume of the heartbeat and the minute-volume of the heart, which he calculated from the pulse-beat.”

The Halesia genus was named for Hales by John Ellis in 1759. The classical scholar Thomas Twining (1735-1804) penned the verse:

“Green Teddington's serene retreat

For Philosophic studies meet,

Where the good Pastor Stephen Hales

Weighed moisture in a pair of scales,

to lingering death put Mares and Dogs,

And stripped the Skins from living Frogs,

Nature, he loved, her Works intent

To search or sometimes to torment.”

Halesia carolina

Hales was not beloved by all, and the poet Alexander Pope said of Hales, “He commits most of these barbarities with the thought of its being of use to man.” I love the Halesia genus more than you do, apparently, and hopefully I haven't disserviced it with an unfair depiction of Stephen Hales's life. I was most pleased to see the Halesia genus in the Carolina wild, and though I no longer grow it, I continue to admire it in the gardens of others.

Keteleeria davidiana var. davidiana

Keteleeria davidiana 'Collector's Red'

Also terminated from the Buchholz scene is Keteleeria davidiana, and I grew the cultivar 'Collector's Red', given to me by the late Bill Janssen of Washington state who supposed its spring growth was more reddish than the type. Maybe that is the characteristic of the species, or not, I don't know as I've never studied other Keteleeria in the spring. I successfully propagated it via rooted cuttings in the winter, and sold all of the offspring since I reasoned it wouldn't be hardy for me in Oregon. One winter about 20 years ago we received an Arctic blast with 0 degrees F plus 30 MPH winds.* My 'Collector's Red' perished in its pot even though the species is listed as hardy to USDA zone 7, or 0 degrees F. Bets are off for hardiness when the roots are above ground. Imagine my surprise when I saw a large tree at Plant Delights Nursery in Charlotte, North Carolina, when the low of 5 degrees F was recorded in 2014. I would have been better off with my plant in the ground. 'Collector's Red' is gone, Mr. Janssen is gone and I'll never have another in the collection.

*The same winter I had Picea pungens cultivars above ground in 1 gallon pots, can-tight in beds of 10 pots wide. They were grafted onto Picea abies – hardiness to USDA zone 2, -50 degrees F – but the outer row on both sides died. The asshole owner of T----- Nursery in Portland called me in summer and demanded to know what rootstock I used because the spruce he purchased had all died. I replied, “Picea abies.” “No it wasn't,” he countered. “Yes it was, that's the only rootstock I have ever used for spruce.” “No it wasn't, I want my money back.” “Nope” – phone slams. And now he is dead too, and I didn't attend the funeral.

Euonymus oxyphyllus

I used to grow a number of Euonymus species, and one of my favorites was oxyphyllus. Sales were slow because no one comes to me for “cheap” trees, as all species of Euonymus are deemed to be low-priced but mine were not. At some point I had only one left and a customer saw it ablaze in fall and wanted to buy it. Alright, I reasoned, since I don't plan to propagate it anymore – adios to E. oxyphyllus. The species name is derived from Greek for leaves that are “sharp, acute” pointed. The term Euonymus was coined by Linnaeus from the Latin name of the “spindle tree,” and that originated from Greek euonumosmeaning “of good name.”

Euonymus sieboldianus

No more Euonymus sieboldianus either, for pretty much the same story as above.

Leucadendron argenteum

I lost a Leucadendron argenteum when the heater failed in GH20. Known as the “silver tree” due to its foliage, the species is native to South Africa where it is called Silwerboom in Afrikaans. I bought my tree at a retail nursery in California after seeing the species at the Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco and later at the Santa Cruz Botanic Garden. One can burn a lot of pixels when photographing the tree as the light dances off the evergreen leaves and every angle gives you something interesting. Even under the white poly in GH20 it was a shimmering show-off. The silver tree's leaves feel soft and silky, and the leaf color is due to soft hairs. I won't go out of my way to replace my Leucadendron, but it was fun while it lasted.

Pinellia tripartita 'Free Tibet'

Dracunculus vulgaris

Amorphophallus titanum

Sir David Attenborough with Amorphophallus titanum

Ok, enough for the extinct species at Buchholz Nursery, I'll discuss some relatively new additions. I had never seen nor knew anything about Pinellia tripartita until a year ago when I purchased the cultivar 'Free Tibet' from Plant Delights Nursery. Pinellia is in the Araceae family, commonly known as aroids, with Philodendron perhaps its most well-known member. With Pinellia its “flower” is known as the spadix, and it is housed in a modified leaf known as the spathe. The photo above doesn't show it, but 'Free Tibet' is attractive with yellow and yellow/green variegated leaves. We also recently acquired a related genus, Dracunculus vulgaris, which bloomed last summer. The flowers stink to high-heaven which is their way of attracting pollinating insects, but they disintegrate within a few days. The most impressive aroid is the huge species Amorphophallus titanum whose flower can reach over 10' tall and whose “fragrance” smells like rotting meat. It is native to Sumatra and Indonesia and in the latter it is known as bunga(for flower) bangkai (for corpse). Scientifically Amorphophallus is from Greek amorphos meaning “without form, misshapen” and phallos meaning “phallus” and titanummeaning “giant.” I remember seeing the program where naturalist Sir David Attenborough, in his series The Private Life of Plants, showed the flowering of the “titan arum” – a name he coined as he felt the word Amorphophallus was not appropriate for family television.

Silene davidii

Silene virginica

Virgil

Silene davidii is native to Sichuan and was named for the prolific French missionary Armand David. It grows in high alpine meadows where it forms low mats with pretty purple-pinkish flowers in summer. In spite of its alpine home it is easily grown and propagated at Buchholz Nursery – altitude 200'. A word of caution though – in winter the green foliage turns blond-brown and you're sure the plant is dead. However by early spring tiny specks of green begin to appear within the “dead” mat, and these expand until it is totally green again. The word silene (pronounced “syleenee”) is derived from Latin silenus viscaria and that refers to a “catchfly” plant, one which has a viscid secretion on the stem and calyx that can trap small insects, but Silene is not carnivorous however. One wonders about the connection in the Pastorals of Virgil where “the old silene sings about the chaos and organization of the world,” and what that has to do with the genus in question. Silene virginica is the “fire pink,” a short-lived perennial from eastern America, from Ontario, Canada south to Florida where it grows in open woods and rocky slopes. Its principal pollinator is the ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), and I remember when my Japanese wife was thrilled to see her first hummingbird – not on a fire-red Silene – but on my plastic-red hummingbird feeder. You just don't have that kind of fun in Tokyo.

Acer pubipalmatum

Tim and Matt Nichols

Acer pubipalmatum is a species I knew absolutely nothing about until I saw it at Arboretum Wespelaar in Belgium a few years ago. It can best be described as the Chinese “Japanese maple,” and indeed Acer palmatum is an acceptable rootstock. To quote from Mr. Maple.com – the Nichols Boys from North Carolina, the source for my new plant – “Acer pubipalmatum is a rare Chinese maple...This Chinese tree leafs out in the early spring with a pubescent bluish green leaf. Midsummer flushes are bright to deep red. Fall colors are more amazing than 'Osakazuki' with a bright fire-ry [sic] red. Acer pubipalmatum is estimated to get 15' in 20 years. Mature specimens have white striations in the bark giving an addled year-round and especially winter interest.” Usually when a nurseryman sings the praises of a plant it is because he has a crop that is slow to sell, but those of us who know the Nichols Boys understand that if they recommend a particular species it is for valid reasons.

Rhododendron orbiculare

Rhododendron yuefengense

I acquired a Rhododendron yuefengense from the Rhododendron Species Foundation in Washington state two years ago, based solely on its cheerfully-green rounded leaves. They described that its origin is from southwest China (1800-2150 m.) and that its corolla is “funnel-campanulate,” i.e. bell-shaped. My favorite Rhododendron species is probably R. orbiculare, and R. yuefengense can be considered a R. orbiculare on steroids. When I saw the yuef. in flower the following spring I suppose my “favorite” Rhododendron had changed. Scottish expert Kenneth Cox relates that “more than 50 new species of Rhododendron have been introduced from the wild since 1981 and some are significant garden plants, worthy of cultivation,” and R. yuefengense is one of the best recent discoveries. Remember that a species of Rhododendron can vary in the wild, as with most plants, and the keen plant collector will seek out the “best” form to introduce into our gardens. For example, for R. orbiculare I have two selections – one that I identify as 'Edinburgh' and the other as 'Exbury', even though they are not really cultivars.

Salix magnifica

It's fun to discuss my “new” plants, but in the case of Salix magnifica it is not “new,” but rather “renewed.” I grew it for many years and admired it greatly, but it was difficult to find buyers. My last tree disappeared via sales – which later I regretted – and a dozen years passed before I found it again at Gossler Farms Nursery in Oregon. It is native to Sichuan, China where it grows at an altitude of 6,000 to nearly 10,000 feet. When first collected by E.H. Wilson it was thought to be a Magnolia...until it Salixly flowered, and later it proved to be dioecious with male and female catkins on separate plants. S. magnifica is grown mainly for its bold foliage and it possesses the largest leaves of any willow.

I don't know if my new plants are necessarily better than my departed, but at least it's a change of scenery that keeps me floristically fresh, and energetic with my difficult career. Not whining, of course, about the career.

Reuben "Gerald" Hatch

I am not original, rather I am a composite of others, trying to copy from the best. Likewise, my horticultural career has had its inspirational experiences, where many others have given to me more than I have given to them. Perhaps I should start with “Gerald” Hatch, more correctly known as “Reuben” Hatch (AKA my “Grandfather”). I have walked with him almost once a week for the past 25 years, where we observe nature, comment on the world's problems – without solution – and discuss his Toto toilet problem where the Japanese brand doesn't flush his crap down adequately.

What's Gerald doing back there?

Why do I call him “Gerald?” The answer is that he takes a daily walk near his home...where he meets many regulars on his morning constitutional. One couple who frequently passed him finally asked him for his name, and my Grandfather replied, “Reuben.” Upon the next encounter on the trail his acquaintances fell into confusion and uttered, “Good morning Gerald.” Reuben didn't correct them because it didn't really matter to him. I found the situation most hilarious and I told my wife about it, with our two children sneakily listening. Harumi said – emphatically, because she is Miss Emphatic – that “it is his own fault – he [Reuben] should have corrected itin the firstplace!” Yep that is Harumi. Saya and Haruko countered that “Yeah, well, these situations just happen...they develop...la, la, la etc.” What amazes me is that the whole Japanese community in the greater Portland area has weighed in on the matter – it has gone Orientally viral – and that includes thousands of people. “Gerald,” to be or not to be? Reuben himself shrugs it off, because at age 82 he doesn't care about it so much, and just taking a short walk in the morning is his primary objective. How do you think he should have handled it? For my part I basically side (rarely) with Reuben with “who cares?” but I relish the kerfuffle that has polarized the community. Grandfather's life continues on, and he has made no adjustments with regards to his pseudonym; he has his own eyes, ears and heart, and he does not require the validation or correct naming from others.

Rhododendron campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum

Rhododendron x 'Taurus'

Rhododendron x 'Seta'

Reuben is retired now, but in his prime he operated a one-man nursery growing “Rhododendrons for the discerning gardener.” His legacy can be seen in the Flora Wonder Arboretum where many choice species and cultivars reside. One of my favorite species is R. campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum, a compact shrub with metallic-blue spring leaves; its blossoms only add clutter to the bush. It is native to Sikkim and Bhutan, and impressive plantings of it can be found at the Rhododendron Species Foundation in Washington state. Reuben was also the source for my two forms of R. orbiculare, 'Edinburgh' and 'Exbury' which were featured in a previous blog. Since I am a fan of the skinny I appreciate R. roxieanum var. oreonastes with its long narrow leaves, and again, who cares if it ever flowers? For hybrids it is hard to beat 'Taurus' which was bred by the late Frank Mossman, using the species R. strigillosum – which I also like – and crossing it with R. 'Jean Marie de Montague'– which I hate. 'Taurus' makes a sizeable bush with large good-looking green leaves and a sturdy form. R. 'Seta' is a pretty Bodnant hybrid with R. moupinense crossed by R. spinuliferum, and it will begin to flower in about a month. All of these were gifts from “Gerald,” so I guess you could say that I am a discerning gardener – which is one step short of being a gardening snob.

Polystichum setiferum 'Bevis'

Gaultheria wardii

Roger Gossler

I don't remember the first time I met Roger at Gossler Farms Nursery, but sometime in the distant past we became plant friends. He would buy stuff from me for his retail/mail-order nursery and his mother Marj made sure that all invoices were paid on time. Then the relationship evolved to where he was always bringing me new plants to try, the most recent being a Polystichum setiferum 'Bevis', Gaultheria wardii and a Bergenia alata 'Dixter'. I have never seen any of these before but it will be fun to see what they will develop into. Actually his recent gifts are what would describe Gossler Nursery: a lot of solid garden choices, plus scads of things that you have never heard of before. The solid garden choices can be found in his Gossler Guide to the Best Hardy Shrubs, a Timber Press publication from 2009. I try to reciprocate with Roger and bring him new plants, but he always manages to keep ahead of me. Clearly Buchholz Nursery and the Flora Wonder Arboretum would be much more shallow without Gossler's input.

Corylopsis glaucophylla

Thuja plicata 'Holly Turner'

Rosa moyesii 'Regalia'

When I look at my Master Plant List, an alphabetical listing of all plants in the collection, whether they are propagated or not, on the right hand side is the source for my plant. Very often I see Heronswood, the quirky nursery from Washington state that is no more. I don't call them quirky in disparagement, not at all, but rather because there was no other like it, and I looked forward to their inch-thick catalog with tiny type. Within 24 hours I would have marked a dozen or so items to purchase, and then the next day I would add a few more. Thus I acquired Corylopsis glaucophylla, Thuja plicata 'Holly Turner', Rosa moyesii 'Regalia' and many more. Then throughout the year I would read about plants, even if I already had a particular plant and knew it well...just to get owner Dan Hinkley's view of it. For example, with Thuja plicata 'Holly Turner' Dan writes, “This cultivar was found on Whidbey Island, Wa., where it produced a wide spreading specimen that tried desperately to muster a leader, but opted in the end to produce only additional lateral branches that wept gracefully downward.” Hinkley named it for H.T., in memory of a “superb gardener, plantswoman and friend...”

Tsuga heterophylla 'Iron Springs'

Hinkley was right about the 'Holly Turner', but his forte really wasn't conifers. For Tsuga heterophylla 'Iron Springs' he describes, “From a towering Northwest native species comes this charming dwarf, which produces dense, irregular branches of dark green foliage to 5' over a long period of time.” I've just returned from a stroll down to my pond house to eyeball the size of my 30-year-old specimen, and good lord, it is over 30' tall; so, not dwarf. Still I have good memories of Heronswood Nursery: I still grow many plants from them and I learned a lot. I have saved all of their old catalogs; I'll never throw them out in my lifetime, and in fact I use them from time to time as a reference book much as I do the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs.

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Gold Rush'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Green Star'

The late Dennis Dodge from Connecticut was generous with new plant material for me, and I with him, and that makes for a great win-win relationship. His connections in Europe provided him with the best collection of Sciadopitys cultivars in America, and a number of them were then passed on to me. I gave starts of my S. 'Mr. Happy', and Dennis sent to me my first S. 'Gold Rush' and 'Green Star'. Many of his plants from Europe were illegal to import, and usually they arrived in small packages that made it through the post without inspection. He reasoned that healthy propagating wood coming from an established European nursery to his small hobby nursery did not require governmental intervention. I agreed with him, though I was much less bold, as the consequences for me would be much greater.

Cercis canadensis 'Ruby Falls'

My relationship with Heritage Nursery of Oregon is different than with Mr. Dodge. They are a much larger company than mine, and they propagate in far greater numbers, although overall I probably produce 10-20 times as many different plants than they. Their company model is that they are the “middle-man” for many new – and patented – trees and shrubs that are discovered by other plantsmen around America. Since they attend trade shows and have national exposure they can sell a lot of plants...which is good for the patent holder. No one seeks out Buchholz Nursery to distribute large numbers of plants. A lot of the “new” plants available at Heritage are eventually dropped, but others such as Cercis canadensis 'Ruby Falls' will probably stand the test of time. I buy a modest amount, grow them on for two or three years, then I am able to sell them all. But of course I am not allowed to propagate my own. I like Heritage's Acer macrophyllum 'Santiam Snow' which is notpatented, but I won't propagate any, or not many, because the macrophyllum species is not sales friendly. If I buy 10 to 20 to 30 of any one variety, usually one makes it into the Flora Wonder Arboretum, even though that entity is the black hole of my horticultural profit. The owner of Heritage is Mark Krautmann, and I fondly remember when we toiled in the fields of the Dutchman's nursery together, and what sustained us while we dug hundreds of boring boxwoods was our chatter about tree species. Overall Heritage Nursery has made my nursery a better place, but who would ever have guessed that 35 years later we would be two old geezers still in the nursery business?

Campanula latiloba 'Alba'

Woodwardia unigemmata mature fronds

Woodwardia unigemmata new fronds

Cardiocrinum giganteum var. yunnanense

I have received a lot of goodies from Far Reaches Nursery in Washington state, but it's all for fun since I don't think that I've propagated and sold anything from them. Their plants all end up in GH20 or out in the garden, but even there they make Flora Wonder more varied and perhaps more valid. I know nothing about many of their plants until I encounter them at Far Reaches for the first time. My most recent haul included Campanula latiloba 'Alba' and Woodwardia unigemmata, and a year before I scored a seedling from their discovery of Cardiocrinum giganteum var. yunnanense 'Big and Pink'. There is no guarantee that my seedling Cardio will also flower pink, but then owners Sue and Kelly offer that it could perhaps flower red. In the past I received the vine Billardiera longifolia from them, but B. l. 'Red Berried' disappeared without a trace, as well as a few other plants that are on my Master Plant List but somehow walked away. There will always be “new” plants from Far Reaches because they collect (responsibly) in Asia, and in fact Sue and Kelly were in China this past fall. One can cover the globe – horticulturally – with a visit to their nursery, but if that's not possible then google them and discover the hundreds of fantastic plants available online.

Abies concolor 'Hidden Lakes WB'

Abies concolor 'Z-Mark'

Pinus flexilis 'Chickasaw'

Pinus flexilis 'Comanche'

Rich's Foxwillow Pines in Illinois is a long-time customer who* pays their bill and never complains, so if for no other reason I would consider them beneficial for Talon Buchholz and family. Owners Rich and Susan Eyre are certified conifer addicts – coneheads – and besides supplying Midwest landscapes they have acres of large specimens in their collection, and I'm sure they consider that some are definitely for sale, some are sorta for sale, and that others are definitely not for sale – the same as with my collection. As we all grow older the lines blur, for there are plenty of conifers in heaven, and so if someone really wants my tree while I am still here, why deny them the pleasure? So, while Rich's Foxwillow is a good customer, the Eyre's have also blessed my endeavors by giving me starts of new plants, and then further blessing me 5-to-10-years later by buying the mature offspring. Some of the gifted sticks include Abies concolor 'Hidden Lakes WB', a dwarf powder-blue conifer that originated as a witch's broom mutation in the Hidden Lakes Arboretum in Michigan, and Abies concolor 'Z-Mark'– a great dwarf, but I can't remember its story. For dwarf pines I have received Pinus flexilis 'Cherokee', although Pinus flexilis does not exist in the Cherokee Nation's realm? Also from Rich came Pinus flexilis 'Chickasaw' and 'Comanche', and though I don't know their origins, I support the naming of anything Native American for their trees, rivers or mountains before we invaded their lands and designated them with our European names. As they say, “keep it real.”

*At first I wrote that “Rich's Foxwillow Pines is a long-time customer that pays their bills on time; but then I changed it to who pays their bills on time, for they are real people who choose to do so, to my benefit and appreciation, and I enjoy working with good people rather than with soulless corporations driven by the dictates of raw capitalism. I too am a capitalist, but never soulless, since I try to live by the Golden Rule.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Lutea'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold'

In my business beginning I was told that if I wanted to start a nursery I should go see John Mitsch at Mitsch Nursery, only an hour's drive away. He sold lining-out plants, primarily conifers, and many other wholesale nurseries would buy their starts from him. John had East Coast connections, and East was the place in America to get new cultivars. Thirty five years ago there was hardly any restrictions on bringing plants in from Europe, and the Dutch nurseries from New Jersey – the Flower State– were probably John's source. In any case I scheduled a visit, but after an hour my head was spinning from the Latin names and the fact that he grew hundreds of cultivars that I had never seen before. I think that Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Lutea' came to Oregon first by Mitsch Nursery, for example. John could root hemlocks, unheard of in the early days; I tried successfully also, and suddenly I was in the chain of demand. In the mid 1980's two things happened that put Buchholz Nursery into the realm of validation: 1) I sold maple liners to J.D. Vertrees and 2) I supplied Mitsch Nursery with rooted cuttings of Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold'. I stumbled into my stock of 'Fernspray Gold' via a circuitous route from New Zealand, and I may have been the first nursery in America to have had it for sale.

John Mitsch

In 1980 I humbly asked Mr. Mitsch – who is probably now in his upper 80's – if I could buy plants from him. He replied, “Of course, why not?” Well, “why not” is because I wanted to copy him, and eventually I probably took business away from him. He was a mild man but his propagating skills were sharp, and he was a solid reason why Oregon's nursery industry eventually grossed a billion – yes, with a “b” – dollars in sales per year. The Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) supposedly represents the interests of its members, and annually celebrates Hall of Fame inductees into its hallowed ranks. John Mitsch is not included, which is a travesty when you consider those who have been inducted. While I am less deserving than John, I too will never be inducted because I am an outspoken critic of the trinket organization, but then...I know you don't care. What I am trying to say in this blog is that I didn't just drop from the sky...to become a nurseryman, a plantsman; rather it resulted from an attempt to copy from the skill, knowledge and efforts of the floristically gifted people that – err...who– I was so privileged to meet. Again, I am not original, and many thanks to my numerous contributories.

Pinus jeffreyi and its male flowers

Conifer cones are hard scaly structures that contain seeds, and often they have a conical appearance as well. Greek konos originally meant “pine-cone,” and that evolved into Latin conus. Latin conifer literally means “cone-bearing” with the ifer part from Latin ferre, to “carry,” which is related to English bear. In German, Dutch and Danish a cone is known as kegle, in Czech it is kuzel and in Russian it is kohyc. Of course not all conifers feature cones, Taxus and Juniperus being two coniferous examples which replicate via berries.

I have read in Aljos Farjon's A Natural History of Conifers that “The 630 species of conifers cover a large proportion of the land surface of the Earth.” An accompanying map indicates that most occur in the Northern Hemisphere, but conifers can also be found in Australia, Africa and South America, and there is even an endemic to Madagascar (Podocarpus madagascariensis) which I have never seen.

Two giant redwoods at Buchholz's childhood home.


The tree is older than the house. I have been inside a strong storm and the house literally moves.

Frequently websites for botanical gardens or commercial nurseries will provide a template for describing the features of a plant, such as size, shape, hardiness, flower etc. Often for “flower”* you will see NA or Nonewhen describing conifers, but come on – if the pollen structure and the cones are not “flowers” also, I don't know what is. I have long been fascinated with the sexual expression of conifers, and I suppose my first realization that cones existed was growing up in Forest Grove, Oregon under two massive Sequoiadendron giganteums, now almost 150 years old; they're amongst the largest in the world outside of their native range in California. I harvested the cones and my Grandmother ferried me about to florists who would purchase them for a dollar-a-dozen, I think it was. The flower shops couldn't resist my earnest efforts and I was rewarded with sales that frankly surprised me, and one time I made $8 in one day. That was my first venture into horticulture sales: by simply picking up cones and selling them to florists, and in hindsight you could say that my future nurseryman-vocation was established. Later, how fantastic it was to discover that a stuffy botanist from the University of Illinois, Professor J.D. Buchholz, was successful in the 1950's in persuading the botanical cognoscenti that Sequoiadendron giganteum and Sequoia sempervirens should be scientifically segregated, and so now all reference books describe Sequoiadendron giganteumBUCHHOLZ, and of course I'm proud of that.

Northern spotted owl

*For example, the Missouri Botanic Garden lists Sequoiadendron as “Non-flowering.” Furthermore they say that, “Giant sequoia [sic] was originally discovered in 1833 by Zenas Leonard.” That is probably correct, for he mentioned “big trees” in his expedition account, but they were never verified, and he might have been referring to huge oaks or to the monstrous “sugar pines,” Pinus lambertiana, that dominate the same area as Sequoiadendron. The first certain and widely-documented sighting of the Giant Sequoia was in 1852, as the hunter Agustus Dowd was chasing a bear in the Calaveras Grove in the western portion of the Sierra Nevada Mountains when he stumbled into the giants, and no one would believe him until they saw the monsters for themselves. Of course these redwood forests were known for centuries by the local Indian tribes, and they knew them as “Wawona,” a word that imitates the sound of the Northern Spotted Owl, which was believed by the Natives to be the “Guardian of the Forest.”

However, the damn redwood cones got me into some trouble. You see, they were perfectly-sized to fit into my hand with the forefinger loped over the base, and I could hurl the wicked projectiles into the thick and ranks of neighborhood rivals. Cone wars was on! Eventually I was called into the Principal's office where the old codger glared at me with beady lizard-eyes over his bifocals...demanding to know the cause of my aggressive anti-social behavior, and I could only mutter that I just didn't know.

Young Buchholz got into trouble.......................................................

Later, when I was eleven, Forest Grove received its greatest weather event, the 1962 Columbus Day Storm, where winds exceeded 110 miles per hour and much of the Grove's canopy lay horizontal. My family, ensconced in the basement corner, worried mostly because the family cat went berserk over the atmospheric change, and the power of nature was firmly impressed upon me. I spent the next year, then twelve, with a hand saw, cutting up and burning the fallen debris, but fortunately our two titans remained standing. To this day, I remain deeply afraid of nature, and it is bewildering that I continue to try to make a living from her. Of course I can now relate to the Ancient Greeks who felt that there were forces – Gods – much greater than us Feebles, and that they could toss and dash us in an instant.

Sequoiadendron giganteum cone (left) and Metasequoia glyptostroboides cone (right)

Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Metasequoia glyptostroboides female cones (left) and male and female cones (right)

Sequoiadendron giganteum

I love the cone of Metasequoia glyptostroboides for it is a smaller version of Sequoiadendron giganteum, and indeed the former grows to a much smaller size. Sadly, while I have visited virgin groves of Sequoiadendron giganteum and Sequoia sempervirens, I have never ventured into the Hubei province of China to witness the shortest of the redwoods – but still a large tree that can grow to over 200' in height – which is the 1946-discovered Metasequoia. No longer is the Sequoiaodeae subfamily included in the family Taxodiaceae, it is now considered to be a member of the family Cupressaceae based on DNA analysis. Pizhou, China boasts of the longest Metasequoia avenue in the world at 60 km long with over one million trees, while North Carolina offers the Crescent Ridge Dawn Redwoods Preserve where the trees have been planted in a natural state to be observed and recorded in the wild. It is possible that the most extensive collection of Sequoia, Sequoiadendron and Metasequoia cultivars in America exists at the Flora Wonder Arboretum, only short in number to the collection in Deurne, The Netherlands, on the grounds of Kools Nursery.

Abies koreana 'Gait'

Abies koreana 'Vengels'

Abies koreana

I love the perky cones of Abies koreana, though they aren't as large as with other Abies species. Look at the photo carefully as I find their spiraling pattern interesting, with some moving to the left and some to the right. The seed of Abies koreana is not difficult to germinate, and we fight with random seedlings that pop up all over the place from our mature specimens. It would be fun to dig them up to grow on, as I suspect some of them could be hybrids, but it would be an expensive and time consuming hobby. Abies koreana 'Gait' is a slow-growing – I won't say dwarf – cultivar selected because it cones so heavily, and in fact it is a burden on the overall vigor of the tree. Abies koreana 'Vengels' is a freaky selection with skinny cones that do not display the spiraling characteristic. Again, the Missouri Botanical Garden defines Bloom Description as “Non-flowering,” and again I repeat B.S. to that.

Pliny the Elder

The Abies koreana species is native to the mountains of South Korea, as you would suspect, hence koreana, while the genus name is an Ancient Latin name for a tree described by Pliny the Elder in about 77 A.D. Gaius Plinius Secundus (A.D. 23 - A.D. 79) was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher who died too soon because he was afflicted by asthma and couldn't breathe when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. He was on a ship waiting to sail away but unfavorable winds would not allow, and when pumice stones began falling from the sky, Pliny and the crew – including slaves – tied pillows to their heads; his companions survived but Pliny succumbed to the toxic fumes due to his asthma.

Cathaya argyrophylla

Cathaya argyrophylla female flower (left) and male flower (right)

Last year we attempted to root Cathaya argyrophylla. The cuttings that we stuck in January looked perfect in June, and every one of them showed happy puffs of new growth. Repeatedly I would lift the flats, hoping to find roots poking through, but never did. The cuttings formed an enormous callus but never did they sprout roots. This year we doubled the hormone rate – the same as we use for Sciadopitys – and we'll see what happens. For such a beautiful genus it produces (monociously) very ugly flowers; the male catkins are worm-like and the female cones appear like ugly rodent turds. Nevertheless we sowed the seed this winter because they have germinated for us in the past. I also heard that one can graft Cathaya on Pseudotsuga menziesii, and so I grafted some two years ago. Initially the “take” looked great, but one by one they turned off-color, and now I only have three left out of the original 50 grafts. They look perfectly healthy but we'll see what happens. A month ago we grafted 50 again on Pseudotsuga because just one year's poor experience doesn't mean that I'm ready to give up. As Gary from Gee Farms in Michigan says, “I have to kill a plant three different times before I give up,” and of course our stubborn nature often comes with a cost.

Picea orientalis 'Aureospicata'

Picea orientalis 'Lemon Drop'

Picea orientalis produces narrow pendant cones about four-to-five inches long and near our two 44-year-old specimens of 'Aureospicata' we've had dozens of seedlings sprout. One in particular displayed the same yellow new-growth as the parent, and appeared to be more dwarf besides. We have propagated it and have coined it as 'Lemon Drop', but I haven't distributed any because I still don't know what I really have. In shade the new growth is light green and is not spectacular at all, and in full sun I don't yet know. Will it remain dwarf when grafted onto vigorous Picea abies rootstock, or will it shoot skyward like its parent? The last thing that horticulture needs is an 'Aureospicata'-look-alike, or even worse, an insipid version of the mother tree. The orientalis species features bright red pollen flowers that are ornamental as well, and they stand out nicely against the dark green, short needles.

The specific name of orientalisis due to its origin in the Caucasus and northeast Turkey, as “orient” is derived from Latin oriens meaning “east,” from orior meaning “rise,” referring to where the sun rises. “Everything is relative,” said my Uncle Einstein, as Constantinople is “east” of Rome, but then Kyoto, Japan is far more orior than Constantinople. In Japanese the word tomeans “east,” so, Tokyo, the eventual capital of Japan, means “east of Kyoto.” Even without its great cultivars, P. orientalis, as a species, is well-suited for medium-sized gardens.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Contorta'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Rezek'

In a nursery setting the grower does not really want to see his conifers flower, he would rather see all of the plant's energy go to producing lush foliage. The cones on the Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Contorta' (photo above) were from a lonely straggler in the field when all of its brethren had been dug and sold. Who knows what its problem was – perhaps a gopher had tunneled under it, or some other microscopic creature had fed on its roots? Though the cones were attractive in spring – shiny and brown – by fall they had matured into ugly brown pellets and eventually the plant was tossed. The late hobbyist-plantsman Ed Rezek liked to collect seed off of Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Gracilis' because he enjoyed analyzing the offspring, and he would achieve quite a range of shapes and sizes. Since his garden had size limitations he naturally preferred the miniature, and he gave one such to me about twenty years ago. It was not named by him and I simply called it 'Rezek', even though I preach against naming plants after people. Actually I wasn't “naming” it, rather I was “calling” it, but in any case the narrow, compact dwarf was admired by garden visitors so I began to propagate it. A lot of horticulture is notevaluated and scheduled – you do not run anything through the banker or your accountant or survey your customer base – but you just do things when you feel like it, and since time flies you eventually grow old and die. Customers have requested to buy my original 'Rezek', but I value more my tree and memory of the wonderful plantsman than a couple hundred dollars, even though I suppose a future owner of my land will feel differently.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Yoshino'

Cryptomeria japonica

World War Two took a toll on Japan's Cryptomeria (sugi) and later development reduced the number of trees. The people (Nihonjin) and the Forest Agency were encouraged to plant Cryptomeria and they proudly did so. Now a sizeable portion of the population suffers from breathing disorders every spring due to the pollen, and some schedule vacations to get away from it. Known as kafunsho, or “pollen illness,” it is also caused by Chamaecyparis obtusa. Like the cherry blossom season, the pollen season moves from south to north and the Japanese media tracks and reports on it. March to April can be hell for an estimated 20% of the population. Japan's Forest Agency had plans to plant thousands of low pollen-producing Cryptomerias, but what do you do with the older, mature trees? One solution, I suppose, is to move to very southern Okinawa or to most northern Hokkaido which are low-pollen areas. As with Chamaecyparis obtusa (hinoki) the nurseryman does not want his crops “to go to seed,” although some old hags in my gardens certainly have, but at least I don't suffer from hay fever.

Wollemia nobilis female flower

Wollemia nobilis male flower

I have a sizeable Wollemia nobilis in a greenhouse and it has grown nearly to the top, and since it is probably too tender to plant outside I'll have to top it annually. People who are obsessed with plants – like me – find themselves collecting non-hardy species which require heat and space indoors, and you just want to issue an order to “stay alive but stop growing!” My tree has produced male flowers only, and the female cone (photo above) was taken at a different location. The “Wollemi pine” was recently discovered in Australia to the delight of botanists and conservationists, and especially by the people. I bought my small start from the National Geographic for $100, pretty expensive, but they promised that most of the money would go toward efforts to save the species. The location of the small grove, in a rugged canyon, is kept secret to help preserve the trees from disease or vandalism, and from thousands of foot steps tromping on the root zone. While I am happy to own one, I don't find Wollemia to be particularly attractive, as I generally don't care for Podocarpus-type trees, and I probably wouldn't grow it if not for the recent discovery. It doesn't appear that I'll make any money off of it either, as our one attempt to root cuttings resulted in 100% failure, and worst of all, when branch tips are severed they do not resprout.

Pinus torreyana

Harumi with Pinus lambertiana cone

I have seen most of the species of pines in the world, but I don't grow many due to hardiness issues or from lack of commercial appeal. All gardeners appreciate the foliage and bark of the pines, and who doesn't love a pine cone – especially children? A couple of years ago I visited the Torry State Park in southern California and I was able to photograph the trees and their cones. I lamented in a previous blog that I wished I could have a cone, and a kind reader sent me one, and the beauty resides on the fireplace mantle. I imagine to be independently wealthy, and I would spend my remaining days travelling the world collecting conifer cones and preserving them. I would house them in a museum – a conetum– and I would allow the public to visit for free. What a great idea! Who says that money doesn't buy happiness?

Last week's Flora Wonder Blog discussed the sexual expression of conifers – their “flowers” – and that many plant references dismiss a tree's cones and pollen structures as not being flowers. If we define a “flower” – as Oxford English Dictionary does – as the “seed-bearing part of a plant, consisting of reproductive organs,” I think that conifers certainly do...flower. Both words flour, as in baking bread, and flower, as in a posey, are derived from Latin Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers. But anyway, I am not on a mission to convert botanical institutions and nursery factories into admitting that conifers flower, and last week's blog was only intended to celebrate the male and female appendages which develop so that conifers can reproduce.

Today I will discuss flowers in the more traditional sense, what every man, woman and child considers to be a plant's bloom*, or singularly, a blossom. I'll try not to boast to those living in the frigidly hellish portions of the world where nothing is flowering now, but to my delight all of the following are currently in bloom in the Flora Wonder Arboretum.

*Surprisingly the origin of the word “bloom” is derived from Middle English “blome,” or a “lump of metal.”

Mahonia x 'Arthur Menzies'

Archilochus colubris

Frequently I walk past a ten-foot-tall bush of Mahonia x“Arthur Menzies' which has been blooming since mid October, and though there is less “yellow” apparent now, it is still nectar headquarters for our ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris). On cloudy days a couple will squeak and dart from flower to flower, but on sunny days numerous darters become frenetically agitated as they feed, and it appears that the commotion is not altogether friendly. I find myself squinting my eyes in fear of being speared by the beaks of the little devils, and I wonder if that has ever happened. x'Arthur Menzies' was selected at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle and is believed to be a hybrid between the tender M. lomariifolia and the more-hardy M. bealei. It was named by WPA's curator Brian Mulligan for colleague Arthur Menzies (1916-1973) who worked at the Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco, and who sent the seed to the WPA. Menzies was considered a “walking encyclopedia of flora and fauna,” and he was known internationally due to his correspondence and exchange of seed and plant material. The name Mahonia honors Bernard McMahon (1775-1816), an Irish-American who was Thomas Jefferson's gardening mentor, and in fact the President chose McMahon as one of two nurserymen to grow the seeds and roots collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Sassafras tsumu

Sassafras tsumu leaf underside

Sassafras albidum

A long 10' wide strip exists parallel along my shady creek, and it is planted with Rhododendrons, Tsuga, Acer etc. At least once a week I enter into one end of the nearby greenhouses and exit out the other end, making my rounds to check on plant quality and to make work lists. I was most surprised to be greeted by a flowering Sassafras tsumu in the strip, the Chinese species similar to the eastern American S. albidum; but no wonder when I consider that every year it is one of my first trees to bloom. As with S. albidum, leaves on S. tsumu can appear with three different shapes: with three lobes, or a mitten shape or with a broad single lobe. The genus is in the Lauraceae family, with S. albidum being dioecious (male and female flowers on separate trees) and S. tsumu monoecious (male and female flowers on the same tree). Both species are deciduous and I love the orange-red autumn color, and if you turn over a fallen leaf the color is pinkish shiny-blue. The east-Asian species, S. tsumu is called chu mu, while S. randaiense – which I have never seen – is called chu shu, and both are used to cure rheumatism and trauma. Besides a pleasant aroma, S. albidum was used as a toothpick by Native Americans, while Kenneth Klemow PhD. in Medical Attributes of Sassafras albidum(2003) claims that disorders ranging from toothaches to sexually transmitted diseases can be treated with the species.

Native Oregon hazelnut

Bordering the planted strip is my wild woods, and currently it is adorned with dangling golden catkins from the native Corylus (hazelnuts-filberts). These male flowers are fully extended now and eventually they will shed yellow pollen, while the female flowers will develop into edible nuts.* The European version is Corylus avelana, and excavated pits on the island of Colonsay, Scotland revealed hazelnut processing that is 9,000 years old. Later the Romans cultivated hazelnuts, including in Britain, but there is no evidence that they selected cultivars. Today it is used to produce Nutella– which Germans love – and it is a primary ingredient of the vodka-based liqueur, Frangelico, and the latter I have never tried, but I think I will seek it out. The name filbert is derived from a Frankish monk, Saint Philibert of Jumieges (608-684), an abbot and monastic founder. His feast day is August 20^th, and the filbert was named for him since it ripens at about that time.

*As a side note, Oregon produces 99% of the nation's filbert crop, and is only second in the world to Turkey. They are marketed – in Oregon – as “hazelnuts.”

Daphne odora 'Maejima'

Maejima, Japan

The Daphnes are blooming in GH20, our “French” house, and you can smell them from a long way's off on sunny days. D. odora received its specific name for an obvious reason, and the Chinese, Japanese and Korean native is commonly called the “winter Daphne.” In Japan the species is called jinchoge after the aromatic shrub Aquilaria agallocha, and in Korea it is known poetically as churihyang, or “a thousand mile scent.” I suppose the cultivar D.o. 'Maejima' was selected in Japan, for there is an island with the same name between Honshu and Shikoku in waters known as the “Inland Sea.” In any case 'Maejima' (jima means “island”) features deep-green evergreen leaves edged dramatically in cream-yellow, and the compact cultivar is far more impressive than the old C.o. 'Aureovariegata'. Also, flowers on 'Aureovariegata' are an insipid pale-pink while 'Maejima' can boast of blossoms carmine-pink, so if you grow the former in your garden toss it out and replant with the latter. The neighbors will notice your superior horticultural acumen and seek you for gardening advice while inviting you over for barbeques.

Daphne jezoensis

Also in flower is Daphne jezoensis, but I only have one plant in the garden and it is in a perpetual battle with a thuggish Ajuga which I should never have planted. My Daphne creeps out so very little new growth that I am unable to propagate it, but I pray that it will endure because I have never seen it for sale, neither wholesale nor retail. Junker Nursery in England – colleagues who have received starts of my new Acer cultivars – list only a “small handful” available so maybe the species is simply a scrubby shrub that will never become widely available. I like the Junker description, “This Daphne is like no other! For a start it is summer deciduous. This means it loses its leaves in summer, and starts into growth with fresh new foliage at a time when so much else is looking tatty.” Junker goes on to describe the “deep yellow trumpets [flowers] held in groups in typical Daphne fashion in January-March.” I knew very little about D. jezoensis when I first acquired it twenty years ago from a quirky gardener, and when it went deciduous for the first time in summer I assumed it had died, but I scraped the bark and it was still green. Concerning the damn Ajuga, short of a nuclear bomb, does anyone know how to get rid of the invasive “carpet bugleweed?”

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Arnold Promise'

Parrotia trunk

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Sunburst'

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Angelly'

An old specimen of Hamamelis xintermedia 'Arnold Promise' in the original Display Garden has been flowering for almost two weeks now. I never dreamed that one day it would outgrow its place, and in a year or two we will have to ladder-up to prune its spread. You wouldn't know it to be a Hamamelis at all if you looked only at its trunk, and that's because the rootstock is actually Parrotia persica, the “Persian ironwood.” I had two 8' Parrotias that weren't shaped particularly well, so I didn't ship them and instead I grafted about five 'Arnold Promise' onto the lateral branches of each. To my surprise all grafts “took” and 32 years later the unions still appear quite compatible, and only I can point out where the Parrotia ends and the 'Arnold Promise' begins. The best part is that there is no suckering from the “witch hazels” base. 'Arnold Promise' is no longer on our propagation list due to poor sales for the past 10-15 years, but it once was considered the standard for golden-flowered Hamamelis. Instead, customers now prefer the more bright and large flowers of H. 'Sunburst', which is also blooming today. When 'Sunburst' begins to fade, H. 'Angelly's' flowers develop and they are equally as nice.

Winter Jewels

Helleborus x hybridus #108

Helleborus x hybridus #106 February 2015

Helleborus x hybridus #106 February 2016

Helleborus x hybridus #109

Acer palmatum 'Strawberry Spring'

Acer palmatum 'Celebration'

The hellebores are in bloom, and we have them scattered throughout the gardens. We selected our favorites from the Winter Jewels strain developed by the O'byrnes of Northwest Garden Nursery near Eugene, Oregon. However we were second in line as they first cream out their favorites. I do the same with maples by raising seedlings from named varieties, and that has yielded some spectacular new cultivars such as Acer palmatum 'Celebration' and Acer palmatum 'Strawberry Spring'. One thing I have learned about the hellebores is that the first year they flower you will probably be unimpressed with a dull green blossom, but the following year – at least here in Oregon – the blooms will be far more fantastic. Nevertheless, every year they vary, depending I suppose upon the amount of light they receive. My appearance changes as well – as I age – every year growing ever more handsome. Ok, ok. We have simply given numbers to our Winter Jewels, and we may or may not ever get around to naming and selling them. When I say they can vary in appearance, consider Helleborus x hybrids #108 which was light yellow when the photo was taken, then the following year it presented a more apricot hue. I find #106 to be particularly attractive, although I can't begin to describe what color it is. #109 is the most vigorous of them all, and it features – at the same age – over twice the number of blooms as any of the others. The name Helleborus is derived from the Greek name for H. orientalis, from elein“to injure” and bora for “food,” as many species are poisonous. “Black hellebore” was used by Ancient Greeks to treat various diseases up to and including insanity. Helleborus niger is commonly called the “Christmas rose,” as legend has it that it originated from the tears of a young girl who had no gift for the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Kniphofia rooperi? Oregon form

Kniphofia rooperi at Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum

Please – would someone help me! I have seen Kniphofia rooperi in various English gardens, and they are always in full glory in October with the most plump flowers of any “red-hot poker.” The species masquerading as rooperi in the Pacific Northwest produces identical flowers, except they appear in spring, and in fact the flower heads are now rising and they will open soon. The foliage of our “rooperi” looks identical to what I have seen in England, by the way. It's almost like Oregon is in the Southern Hemisphere concerning this contradictory bloom time. An English gardener would naturally conclude: “You don't grow the true rooperi, you American idiot!” What species do I grow, then? Is mine a hybrid? K. rooperi, or whatever I have, is hardy in Oregon if you mulch the base of the plant, though after a particularly brutal winter you might not get flowers the following spring. I have never propagated and sold my “variety” because I'm not certain of what I have, but they look spectacular planted out in the garden. For what it's worth, Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina does sell K. rooperi, and their website indicates that it blooms in fall.

Prunus 'Ume kyushu'

Umeshu

We have a weeping plum along our driveway which was given to me as a weeping cherry from Kyushu, Japan. Not certain of the species, I call it Prunus 'Ume kyushu', which of course is an invalid name, but who cares since I don't propagate and sell it anyway. Prunus mume – which I assume is what it is – is native to southern China in the area of the Yangtze River, and later it was introduced to other Asian countries including Japan. It is commonly called, then, “Chinese plum” or “Japanese apricot,” and the distinct species is related to both the plum and the apricot. I like my weeping specimen and it does produce fruits, and later my Japanese wife introduced me to Umeshu, an alcoholic beverage that we occasionally serve to friends and family. Last fall when the Maple Society visited we served it heated to the delight of many, and I noticed that a couple of people staggered back to the tour bus. It is made by steeping green plums in shochu(clear liquor), and it is sweet and smooth...the kind of drink that leads to a pleasant second helping...and then to the stagger back to the bus. Japanese tradition considers that the ume tree protects against evil, so one should plant it in the northeast portion of the garden, the direction whence evil is believed to come. Myself, I love Umeboshi– my wife does not – but it is a pickled and dried Japanese specialty. It is salty and sour, so you eat only a tiny bit, and it is used with rice in bento boxes or in rolled sushi, makizushi. One of the most interesting discoveries about marriage is the likes and dislikes of one's partner. At first you are lovey-dovey about everything, but eventually your true preferences emerge and your partner must deal with who you really are. I absolutely love Umeshu and Umeboshi, but yesterday my wife served me a breakfast sandwich that was dominated by super healthy kale, and I almost staggered to the courthouse...to seek a divorce.

Leptospermum scoparium 'Kiwi'

Leptospermum scoparium is the “manuka” or “tea-tree” of New Zealand and Australia; it was introduced to horticulture back in 1771, and two hundred years later it was honored with the Award of Garden Merit. Manuka is the Maori word for the plant, and the “tea-tree” name arose because Captain Cook used the leaves to make a tea drink. It is grown in New Zealand for manuka honey, and there are other oil-like products that are derived from it, but I'm not an “oil” kind of guy. We grow only one cultivar – 'Kiwi'– which is a dwarf evergreen shrub with tiny bronze-green leaves with maroon new growth. The main event, however, is the deep-pink five-petaled flowers that cover the entire bush. A few flowers are open today, but I see hundreds of more buds swelling, ready to shine in about a week. The good news about 'Kiwi' is that it is easy to root; the bad news is that it is only hardy to 10 degrees F, USDA zone 8, which is why my stock is housed in warm GH20.

Camellia x williamsii 'Water Lily'

Ah, wabi sabi

Camellia japonica 'Nuccio's Pearl'

I have sung the praises of my Camellia mini-collection in recent blogs, so I probably can't add anything new, other than to say that 'Water Lily' and 'Nuccio's Pearl' are loaded with open blossoms, and with dozens of swollen pinkish buds ready to follow. And yes, some blossoms are already finished and have fallen to the ground. “Ah, wabi-sabi,” as the Japanese would say...when something that was once beautiful transcends into the realm of the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Don't cry because it is gone, smile because it happened.

Spring is upon us in Oregon thank God, and last week I reported on those plants that were in flower. I think I have blogged upon that for three or four years in a row, every February. Well, I celebrate every February, then. I don't remember everything I did a year – or two or three years – ago. When I tell a joke or launch into a story, the groans from my wife and children are an indication that I have done so before. They look at each other...like: Pops is losing it. So, I repeat myself I guess, but hopefully I remain true with the same story, but hopefully I remain true with the same story.

If I live to the age of 79 – the American national average – I will be very pleased to do so. While I was generally aware of the season of springas a youth and as a young adult, I wasn't totally attuned to it until my horticultural career began...42 years ago, when growing plants became my vocation. The gift is that you get a certain allotment of springs, but a number you'll never know, except I realize that there will be far less to come than I've already had. I inhale especially the smell of the awakened earth, the color of emerging shoots and flowers and the sounds of kids running through the trees and the birds singing every time they pause. At my age it is all vibrant and good and I look forward to this spring playing out.

But not so fast, my friends. This morning was sunny and cheerful, but by afternoon the temperature dropped by ten degrees and I got caught in a chilling downpour. So Mother Nature was teasing me, reminding me that at this point we are still closer to winter than to summer. The February afternoon cold enveloped me and I had to put on an additional coat. The good news is that we are already shipping plants: a full truck to Seattle, one to Virginia, one to British Columbia etc. That leads to invoicing customers, and it's nice to find checks in my mail besides four pieces of junk mail and five bills for me to pay every day. When our plants are shipped to our independent retail stores it opens up space for next year's crop, and it doesn't take long to fill the gaps. Every now and then we get compliments, and I happily receive them as validation that we are doing something well, that our dog and pony show is worth all of the effort. XYZ Nursery emails: “Hello Eric and Talon,

I received your well packed truck with no issues. All the plants look fantastic and we are starting to sell them already...even these gloomy days cannot diminish their beauty.”

Warm regards,

XYZ”

Acer palmatum 'Rising Stars'(tm) series

Wow! It is so easy to please me. So what did this customer get with such “undiminished beauty?” Let's look at some of the order. First of all, Acer palmatum 'Rising Stars'(tm) Series in 10-gallon pots. These are seedlings from named varieties, where the mother tree is known, but we don't know its pollination source. Sometimes these look better than the mother tree and sometimes a little more plain. At the retail garden center some shop for named cultivars only, but I think that most gardeners buy when they are visually impressed with a tree, and its official cultivar name is secondary. Also I feel it would be cumbersome to name the parent, for example as Acer palmatum 'Seedling from Purple Ghost' because the unsophisticated gardener might conclude that he is purchasing the real 'Purple Ghost'. I get a real kick out of my maple seedlings, and if I was independently wealthy I would change from normal nursery production to seedling evaluation only. As I said in my promotional email earlier this week, “Add some fun to your spring order!”

Punica granatum 'Sarasa shibori'

Haruko's wedding kimono

We also shipped Punica granatum 'Sarasa shibori', a pomegranate grown for its rumpled orange flowers with white edging. Sarasarefers to a “beautiful figured fabric” and shibori means the “tie-dyed white” of the edging. If nothing else, sarasa shibori is a beautiful-sounding pair of words, and the Japanese are excellent at naming plants. Many thanks to my wife Haruko for helping with the translations, besides of all of the other stuff she does, for she has deeply broadened my world. She explains that one would see an example of sarasa shibori in a traditional kimono.* The word kimono is derived from ki“wear” and mono“thing,” and it was originally a Chinese garment that eventually made its way to Japan as early as the 5^th century AD. We grow Acer palmatum 'Beni kosode' and kosode is a single kimono formerly considered underwear, so the maple is “red underwear” then. We grow Acer sieboldianum 'Sode no uchi' and sode refers to a kimono's sleeve, and Acer palmatum 'Komon nishiki' with komon meaning a “fine pattern kimono.”

Kusumoto Takako

*A most alluring photo of a woman in a kimono is Kusumoto Takako, the granddaughter of Philipp Franz von Siebold and a Nagasaki courtesan.

Acer palmatum 'Green Tea'

Acer palmatum 'Festival'

Ok, back to my customer's order. They got Acer palmatums 'Green Tea' and 'Festival', two of our recent selections, but they can't know much about either of them. Both are worthy cultivars in my opinion, but I know that sales will never be overwhelming. 'Festival' is stout-limbed and vigorous, with the main event being its outstanding autumn color. 'Green Tea' is also quite vigorous, and it is an 'Osakazuki'-type of tree. New growth is reddish before it settles down to a sweet pea-soup color in summer. With thousands of seedlings to choose from, the two that became 'Festival' and 'Green Tea' greatly impressed me, but I know from visitor comments that everyone chooses a different one as their favorite. In spring every tree is outstanding, but by mid-summer they mostly look tired, and we then prune off most of the new growth to build caliper. By the end of August they usually shoot out a foot of new growth, and they are once again stunning. If an independent analyst was to look at our seedling program, he probably would conclude that the time and money involved does not make economic sense, that we would be better off just sticking to the basics. But alas, it is my nursery and I would rather live with the richness of beauty, even if I must die poor.

Cardiocrinum giganteum var. yunnanense

Cardiocrinum seed

Cardiocrinum seed pods

My customer prefers to remain nameless because XYZ doesn't want competing nurseries to know their wholesale source. That's fine with me, but on the other hand we have other customers who blog to their gardeners that a truck of Buchholz plants arrived today, and come and get them. What gardener wouldn't want to buy Cardiocrinum giganteum var. yunnanense. This is the “giant Himalayan lily” which is from China's Yunnan province, but its range is far more extensive than just Yunnan. Sometimes there will be as many as 20-30 large trumpets on a single stalk, the outside of the flower being white and the inside streaked with purple-red. Nathaniel Wallich – of Pinus wallichiana fame – first described the plant in 1824, and it was originally introduced as Lilium giganteum, and indeed the flower-stalks can rise to ten-to-twelve feet tall in just a few months. Cardiocrinum is a small genus in the Liliaceae family, and it received its name from Greek kardiofor “heart” and krinum for “lily” due to its large heart-shaped leaves. The stalk and seed pods make an excellent dried specimen, and we've had one in our guest bathroom for years, keeping company with the watermelon man.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Chirimen'

Ten Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Chirimen' in a 3 gallon pot were shipped. They were of good size, and about seven years old, and we only charged $36 apiece – about equal to the cost to produce them. We sold out the first day of releasing our specimen availability I might add. 'Chirimen' was most likely selected and named in Japan, however Oakdene Nursery in England takes credit for its origin and introduction, and Cedar Lodge Nursery in Australia does also. Its name is due to wrinkly silk crepe fabric that you would find on Japanese kimonos, not unlike the shibori mentioned earlier, and I really doubt that an English nurseryman or one from Australia would know anything about kimonos. In the maple world there is an Acer palmatum 'Chirimen nishiki', a small green linearlobum with delicate light yellow variegation on some of the lobes. The Chamaecyparis features delicate, almost thread-like foliage – but it is not juvenile, it stays that way always. I think I would have left chirimenout of the equation if I discovered it, but I won't take the time to propose a better name. The thing is: I have never seen another hinoki quite like it. Fortunately 'Chirimen' is easy to propagate and grow.

Davidia involucrata 'Lady Sunshine'

Cornus kousa 'Ohkan'

I don't think Davidia involucrata 'Lady Sunshine' was ever on our sales list, but XYZ saw them when visiting last summer, and due to our long-time successful relationship I relented and sold a few in 7 gal pots. My intention was to grow all of them for three or four years more, when the wholesale value would be about $200. Oh well, I suppose a dollar in the hand is better than keeping it on the bush. Davidia cultivars can be rooted, as in 'Sonoma', but I like to put the variegated ones on green seedling rootstock for added vigor. 'Lady Sunshine' would be ideally sited with afternoon shade, but it might hold up in full sun in areas with high summer humidity. I've had visitors gasp when they encounter 'Lady Sunshine' for the first time, and I wish that E.H. Wilson, the Englishman who first collected massive amounts of Davidia seed in China, could come back for one day to see it and the other cultivars. While we're at it, how about Beethoven comes back for a day so he would know we still love his music 200 years later, then maybe he wouldn't have been so grumpy. 'Lady Sunshine' was discovered and introduced by Crispin Silva of Molalla, Oregon, a plantsman with a number of excellent selections, such as Styrax japonicus 'Frosted Emerald' and 'Fragrant Fountain' and Acer palmatum 'Sir Happy' which is the most dwarf Japanese maple that I have seen. He is also responsible for Cornus kousa 'Summer Gold', a selection that he patented. Unfortunately for Mr. Silva, an identical cultivar – 'Ohkan'– was sent to me from Japan at about the same time, so my customers are not burdened with a royalty fee.

Schefflera delavayi

Schefflera macrophylla

Of course my mysterious – though sophisticated – customer wanted a liberal amount of Schefflera delavayi, because for some reason that plant is currently the bee's knees of horticulture. Myself, I just don't see it, and I think its appeal will soon wane, especially when I saw a large specimen at Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina a couple of years ago. It looked dreadfully sloppy even though all of their other plants were well-tended. The Schefflera genus is of interest because all of us previously knew it as a house plant. According to The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2014), “Has formed plants to 6m tall in some Cornish gardens. Introduced by Edward Needham in the early 1990's. China Vietnam.” From Yunnan and Vietnam comes Schefflera macrophylla, and I have seen it growing in the conservatory at the Rhododendron Species Foundation in Washington state. Whenever it nears the top of the structure they cut it back to the ground and it resprouts quickly.

Ginkgo biloba 'Troll'

Ginkgo biloba 'Spring Grove'

Ginkgo biloba 'Mariken'

Seed of Ginkgo biloba 'Autumn Gold'

Begonia 'Escargot'

Pocket gopher

I can't detect much difference in Ginkgo biloba 'Troll', 'Spring Grove' or 'Mariken', but my customer ordered the former two. All three originated as witch's broom mutations, and their leaves are different than a regular Ginkgo. Even though all are bi-lobed, the leaves are more round and the lobes spiral around to touch each other, and the pattern reminds me of Begonia 'Escargot'. Plants are lush in our greenhouses, and the green leaves have a bluish hue to them, but regardless whether grown inside or out, autumn color is a rich butter-yellow. Virtually all plant authorities will remind you that Ginkgo is immune to disease and pests, and I think the experts say so because they repeat what has been said before. But with my boots-on-the-ground approach to horticulture, I can attest that the Oregon pocket gopher loves to feed on Ginkgo roots, and I have lost many dollars to the nefarious rodents. Another myth is that “male and female strobili occur on separate plants” (Hillier). Maybe most of the time, but I have three 35-year-old 'Autumn Gold'– supposedly a male clone – that all produce fruits. We have a couple of options here: that 'Autumn Gold' never really was a male selection, or that it changed sex. Animals have been known to change sex in response to stress, as a means for survival. To date I've never seen fruit on any of the witch's broom selections, but please report if you have.

Thuja plicata 'Whipcord'

Thuja plicata 'Filifera Nana' in summer

Thuja plicata 'Filifera Nana' in winter

Also shipped was Thuja plicata 'Whipcord', a selection of the “western red cedar” with glossy-green thread-like foliage. It grows into a mound, and when young it is neat and tidy and makes for a great container plant. I'm glad that none of my customers have seen the original seedling at Drake's Crossing Nursery near Silverton, Oregon, for it is a most hideous sight, and no one would ever want one if they saw what it can grow into. Sales for 'Whipcord' are strong, nevertheless, and it has replaced the old T.p. 'Filifera Nana' which we used to grow. So, 'Whipcord's' name is better and also it stays green in winter, unlike the yellow-bronze of 'Filifera Nana'. It's interesting that the three most-cultivated species of Thuja – occidentalis, orientalis (Platycladus) and plicata – all feature one or more cultivars with whipcord foliage. If you put sunglasses on 'Whipcord' you could create a Dr. Seuss type of creature. The name thuja is derived from Greek thyafor an unrelated African tree with aromatic wood. Plicata is from Latin plicare, referring to the pattern of its leaves which are “folded in plaits” or “braided.”

Rubus spectabilis 'Golden Ruby'

Let's see, what else? We sent some Rubus spectabilis 'Golden Ruby', a cheery yellow form of our native bramble in the rose family. The species is commonly known as “salmonberry” due to the yellow-orange fruits which resemble the flesh of a salmon, while another name-theory is that the berries were mixed with salmon roe and eaten by indigenous peoples. The raspberry-like fruits are insipid in any case, but that never stops me from eating them. “Golden Ruby” is a clever name, and it's obvious why it was coined when you see the ruby-colored flower sitting atop the golden leaves. I planted a bush in the shade at the edge of my woods along the creek, and it is about 8' tall and wide, but it has never fruited. Also, the foliage is merely greenish yellow because of the shade, so morning sun with afternoon shade is the best place to plant one. The generic name Rubus means “blackberry” in Latin, derived from the word ruber for red. The specific name spectabilisis odd because there's absolutely nothing spectacular about the suckering shrub with prickly stems. The species was introduced into Britain by David Douglas in 1827. Rubus spectabilis was named by Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774-1820), a German-American botanist who studied the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Poor Pursh died penniless in Montreal from ill health due to alcoholism, and his funeral expenses were funded by his friends.

My good customer bought a lot of plants and I look forward to a check in the mail. I was also pleased that ten different plants on order were my own introductions, proof that the buyer made smart choices. Choices of undiminished beauty.

This past week I spent some time in western China studying the flora, but I did so with my butt on the couch while reading the Guide to the Flowers of Western Chinaby Christopher Grey-Wilson and Phillip Cribb. The title is somewhat misleading as the area covered does not extend totally west into Tibet, Xinjiang and western Qinghai, and according to the parameters (see above) the area is actually south-central China. The book is basically an encyclopedia with a short paragraph given to each plant, and it takes the broad point of view about what constitutes a “flower” and includes conifers; and you might recall in a blog or two ago that I too consider conifer cones and pollen structures to be “flowers” even though many notable botanical institutions and nurseries do not. Them rong.

Yunnan Province, China

The book consists of over 600 pages in small print and thousands of color photographs by 60 different photographers, and the depicted quality ranges from superb to serviceable to absolutely horrible. It's odd that useless pictures are included since it's a 2011 Royal Botanical Gardens Kew publication, but I am relieved to know that the paper used came from “responsible sources.” I learn in the introduction that China, at about the same size as the United States, contains almost twice as many species and that 56% of them are endemic to China alone. Imagine 571 species of Rhododendron (409 endemic), plus vast amounts of Primula, Clematis, Gentiana, Saxifraga etc. The introduction also reminds us that to collect plants in China without permission is to break the law, a fact that many western plantsmen find out the hard way. I have been to the Chinese province of Yunnan, which is included in the book, but I only took photos and left footprints...well, except for a little seed deposited in the bottom of my camera bag.

Rhododendron faberi ssp. prattii

Rhododendron faberi

Rhododendron proteoides

Rhododendron proteoides 'Cecil Smith Form'

George Forrest

Let's begin with Rhododendrons since the book's cover shows a wonderful photo of R. forma prattiinear the Hailuogou glacier in western Sichuan, a species that is considered R. faberi ssp. prattii by the Rhododendron Species Foundation. In any case, I don't grow it but I do have other species in the subsection Taliensia. R. proteoides is one such, but it is much smaller and lower, with my 15-year-old specimen hardly larger than a dinner plate. It bloomed the first year after it was grafted but never since. R. proteoides is notorious for requiring decades to flower, but when you graft it onto another species it suspects that something is abnormal and it decides to bloom before it might die...sort of like “getting your affairs in order” with people, but maybe I'm giving plants too much credit. The blossom photo above is from the Cecil Smith garden, and the late Oregonian Mr. Smith was equally famous for his generosity as for his excellent garden. R. proteoides was discovered by George Forrest in 1914 in Yunnan at an altitude of 12,000-15,000' elevation. In my garden the leaves will burn unless given afternoon shade, but at least the plant is hardy to USDA zone 3, or -40 degrees.

Rhododendron wardii

Frank Kingdon-Ward

Rhododendron wardii is also native to Yunnan, but at a lesser altitude “in open forests, thickets, shrubberies and open slopes.” The Flowers of Western Chinaoffers five photos of the species in the wild, all from different locations, and you can see that the richness of the yellow blossoms can vary. Frank Kingdon-Ward discovered it in 1913 and he was known not only for his discoveries but also for introducing the best forms. Ward (1885-1958) was a botanist, plant collector and author, and I have many of his books on my basement shelves. He explored in Tibet, China, Burma (Myanmar) and Assam (northeastern India), and to get to the higher elevations with the good stuff, he had to slog by foot through the hot humid lowlands first. Ward led an adventurous life, once being close to the epicenter of a 9.6 earthquake. He was also a spy for the British India Office, and was arrested by the Tibetans for crossing the Sela pass when he was denied permission to do so. In 1923 he moved into a large house on Hatton Road in London where he built a big rockery, but today the house and rockery are under London's Heathrow Airport. Alas, he had to sell his house because he lost too much money running a plant nursery business. I find it interesting – amusing really – that Ward was successful at so many endeavors, but that he failed as a nurseryman...especially when I am apparently the opposite.

Rhododendron yunnanense

Pere Delavay

I grow – wait a minute, I grew– Rhododendron yunnanense which the book describes as, “Variable, erect, often rather sparse evergreen to almost deciduous shrub.” The species is native to Tibet, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan and even in northern Myanmar, but the amazing thing is that it is found as low as 3,000' and up to 13,000'. I lost my one plant when we reached ten degrees in early November a year or two ago, but at least its pixels live on and thanks for the memories. If I ever acquire it again I'll pay more attention to its provenance and try to find one from higher up the mountain. My departed was beautiful in bloom and quite fragrant and I miss her dearly, as I do an early girlfriend. Many Rhododendron snobs will tell you that a species should be judged by its appearance when not in flower, but R. yunnanense was a plain-jane for most of the year, but then she positively elated me when floristically showing off in April. The delightful species was introduced by the French missionary Pere Delavay in about 1889, and it received the British distinguished Award of Merit as early as 1903. All Rhododendron species can be attractive, but R. yunnanense was certainly my type of girl, err...plant.

Primula vialii

I'll now move on to the Primulaceae family and discuss my favorite “primrose” species, Primula vialii. It is also native to northwest Yunnan where I have been, but since I visited in the fall (1988) I have never seen it in flower in the wild. Maybe I like it because it has a different kind of primrose flower – not a “drumstick” or a hybrid kind of flower, but instead a “spike, red in bud; corolla violet-blue, with rather narrow, pointed, unnotched lobes” as described in The Flowers of Western China. My first encounter with the species was at the Rhododendron Species Foundation – my favorite “home away from home,” and they feature a large planting in a soggy area where it thrives. According to my book, P. vialii is “apparently now rare in the wild,” and indeed I too am not able to keep it alive in the Flora Wonder Arboretum. It at first survives, then dwindles then dies...is my experience. I was shocked to find it for sale at the local box-store garden center for only two bucks a pop, and I assumed they were produced via tissue culture. I didn't buy any from them – that would lead to bad karma – and the only reason I go into these box-stores is to snoop to find out which ill-advised nurseries are supplying them. Pere Delavay originally discovered the species but there was some confusion about the name he gave. Later George Forrest found it (1906), and he concluded that it was new to science, so he named it P. littoniana. The word primula is the Latin feminine diminutive of primus, meaning “first” due to Primula's early flowering in spring. I don't know anything about a Mr. Vial who is honored with the specific name – perhaps one of France's recipients of Delavay's plant shipments.

Osmanthus delavayi

Delavay was honored with Osmanthus delavayi, which was originally classified as Siphonosmanthus delavayi. He introduced it in 1890, and first discovered it in the mountains in Yunnan near Lan-kong. Osmanthus delavayi is a beautiful species eventually reaching about five feet tall by seven feet wide, and is covered with fragrant white flowers on arching stems. The evergreen leaves are dark green and attractive, though only about one-half an inch long, but when the plant is in flower it becomes totally white for a few weeks. Delavay didn't name the elegant shrub for himself, but he sent it to a French nursery for introduction, and I'm not sure if he (D.) was ever aware that he had been honored. The common name is the “Delavay tea olive.” The word osmanthus is derived from Greek osme for “fragrance,” and anthos for “flowers.” The only short-coming to the plant is that it is only hardy to 0 degrees F, USDA zone 7.

Prunus serrula

Prunus serrula is the “Tibetan cherry,” but it should not be confused with P. serrulata. E.H. Wilson introduced both cherries, the former in 1908 and the latter in 1900. No wonder Wilson was known as “Chinese Wilson.” P. serrula's name comes from Latin for a “small saw,” the diminutive of serra saw due to its serrated leaves. The peeling mahogany bark is a wonderful sight, but best in someone else's garden. If you use it as a lawn tree and water often you'll constantly be mowing its root suckers. I can't grow it because I have a Prunus crud at Flora Farm; I don't know what the disease is or how it arrived, but I've lost half of an old edible cherry tree, one pie cherry tree, half of a weeping Prunus mume and I was forced to cut down an almost dead Prunus maackii. I use all of my energy to take care of my happy trees, so there's nothing left to deal with Prunus problems.

Corylopsis willmottiae 'Spring Purple'

Eryngium giganteum

Ellen Willmott

E.H. Wilson

Corylopsis willmottiae was named for Ellen Willmott, an English gardener, as the iae at the end of the specific name indicates a woman. It was discovered by E.H. Wilson in 1900 on his first expedition to China. I remember reading in The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs that they now lump it under C. sinensis Willmottiae Group. Sorry for Ms. Willmott, but at least in her lifetime she had a species named after her, something I'll never be known for. For the record, Kew's Flowers of Western Chinasticks with the willmottiae nomenclature, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Kew and Hillier do not agree, even though both are venerable English institutions. I will not change my labels to C. sinensis because I generally champion the woman first, and besides E.H. Wilson is one of my Heroes of Horticulture, so let him decide the name! I grow C.w. 'Spring Purple', and what do you know?: that cultivar was selected at Hillier Nursery about 1969. Back to Miss Willmott, Eryngium giganteum is known as “Miss Willmott's ghost.” The plant is an herbaceous perennial thistle native to the Caucasus and Iran, and Miss Willmott* was so enamoured with it that it is said she carried seeds with her at all times, and when no one was looking she would scatter them in other's gardens. Myself, I like the plant, but I'm not sure if I would have liked the sower of the seeds.

*Her life story is very interesting, and maybe I'll take it up another time. Suffice to say that she had money and in part sponsored Wilson's expeditions, and because of that he named the Corylopsis for her, as well as Rosa willmottiae and Ceratostigma willmottiae.

Magnolia wilsonii

Magnolia wilsonii has a blossom as beautiful as any flower in horticulture, but it remains rare in the trade. A couple of things against it is that it is notprecocious, that is it blooms when leaves are present. The second problem is that the blossoms hang downward, and I think I stood on my head to take the photo above. The species is similar to M. sinensis which also is located in the zone covered by The Flowers of Western China, but I learn that M. sinensis has been reclassified as M. sieboldii ssp. sinensis. What the heck – Wilson introduced both species in 1908 when he was working for the Arnold Arboretum near Boston. My oldest M. wilsonii is less than 10' tall – on its own roots – so it is either very slow-growing or it's not happy for another reason. M. wilsonii occurs between 6,000' to 10,000' in elevation in Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. It is considered Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List and the population is in decline. That is due to 1) habitat loss and 2) to the use of its highly aromatic bark for medicinal purposes, known as hou po. China is catching up to the West in horticulture and if there is the political will and enough concern for the environment there should be nothing going extinct.

Spring cones

Fall cones

Picea likiangensis

The streets of Lijiang

A conifer species that I grew early in my career was Picea likiangensis, and I was pleased when I saw it near Lijiang, Yunnan in 1988. My trees were propagated by grafting onto “Norway spruce,” Picea abies, but the tops performed as if they were on their own roots. Sales were never great so I discontinued growing it, content to have just one older tree in the collection. Unfortunately it fell victim to a wet October windstorm, and with my other worries we never got around to propagating from the toppled. I would like to acquire it again, both for the beautiful cones and for the Lijiang memories. The old town is a UNESCO Heritage Site with cute cobblestone streets, canals and bridges. It was our base for jaunts to the nearby Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, as the five people in my group were there for plants. One member, Fred Nelson, managed Portland's Forest Park – the largest urban forest in America. He foolishly got into a drinking contest with our Chinese chaperone, and the Chinese never lose those. The next day we climbed to a high elevation and poor Fred lagged behind with a hangover. This area is peopled by the Nakhi people, a matriarchal society where the women wear the pants and the men raise the kids. Anyway, that's how it used to be 28 years ago, but I know many things have changed.

Meconopsis 'Lingholm' at the Rhododendron Species Foundation

Cardiocrinum giganteum

Meconopsis 'Lingholm' is a hybrid with M. betonicifolia as one parent, and this species is covered in the book, as well as 17 other species. I grew it in a large box with other plants in GH20, but the Himalayan Blue Poppy was always the star of the show. It lived for four years before failing, and I remember its flowers were huge in its final year. I've tried other 'Lingholm' plants in other parts of the garden but they have always died before blooming. In one case it was thought to be a weed – since it had no label – and the Buchholz Nursery Roundup crew polished it off. The aforementioned Rhododendron Species Foundation has great Meconopsis success with a sizeable patch interplanted with Cardiocrinum. The only problem is that thoughtless visitors tromp into them to take pictures on their cellphones. Garden Director Steve Hootman might be pleased to know that I even yelled at a group – for all I knew they were going to pick the flowers. Sorry if I ruined their day, but their kids were wild and loud too, and the garden is kind of a church for me.

Bletilla ochracea

Bletilla 'Kate'

Bletilla striata 'Alba'

Bletilla striata 'Murasaki shikibu'

The Flowers of Western Chinalists three species of Bletilla: ochracea, striata and formosa. They are easy to grow and plenty hardy in Oregon, and there is nothing more cute than their blossoms. The plants slowly spread by underground rhizomatous corms, and just yesterday we divided a few clumps. Besides the straight species we also have a few hybrids – like 'Kate' and cultivars such as B. striata 'Alba', 'Kuchibeni' and 'Murasaki shikibu'.* When fully opened the pale lavender flowers have a bluish-purple lip, and in many ways it reminds me of a miniature Iris.

Murasaki Shikibu

*Note how I spell 'Murasaki shikibu' with the second name uncapitalized per the rules of Japanese botanical nomenclature. But maybe I should relent because Murasaki (purple) refers to the heroine of the old The Tale of Genjiand to the book's author, Murasaki Shikibu. Both are fake names used in the Heian period (794-1185) because it was then considered vulgar to address people by their personal name. The real name of the author is lost, and Murasaki was the heroine she created, and Shikibuafter her father's official rank. In olden times, and even today, the Japanese use a lot of smoke and mirrors when dealing with each other. In old Japanese poetry the relationship between the deep purple of the violet and the lavender of the wisteria led to the revered name Murasaki. Thanks to wife Haruko for the explanation, and maybe she should be writing the Flora Wonder Blog.

Near the Bletilla-Pleione section of the book is a genus I've never heard of called Phaius. There are eight species in China, four endemic, and I wonder if they are hardy in Oregon. I am familiar with about half of all of the species listed in the book, but I am intrigued by many, like Phaius, from the half I don't know. I have to concede that many I will never know. Besides that, I don't even know the price of tea in China.

The word propagate is derived from Latin propagare, “to increase plants by cuttings,” from propages, a “cutting,” from pangere, “to fasten.” At Buchholz Nursery we also increase plants by grafting, and that word originated from Greek graphein, “to write” from the resemblance of the point of a cleft graft to a stylus. I don't know how the “graft” word also came to mean the acquisition of money, power etc. by dishonest or unfair means, but I have sure seen a lot of it. In any case we have finished our propagation for the “season,” a time-consuming process that began in July of 2015 and finished on February 28^th of 2016.

For grafting we begin by rooting or purchasing rootstocks a year or two or three ahead, and then we “attach” the desired scions onto them; or for cuttings, we pluck current-year's plant growth from our stock trees and with the aid of a rooting hormone we then “stick” the cutting into a media consisting of pumice and peat moss and hope for the best. There is no way that I can adequately explain the procedures of propagation– the process that creates new plants which feeds my employees and myself – and to fully understand the fascinating details you would have to commit to five years of servitude at Buchholz Nursery. But at some point you will quit, concluding that you are smarter than old Buchholz, and then you will start your own plant nursery and...and then when you eventually grow old and tired and gray you will realize that a nursery is more easily gotten into than out of.

Maple grafts at Buchholz Nursery

Maples are always the first plants that we begin our grafting season with, and every year I'm anxious in the gut if the process will work. Even though it always has, I still worry and wonder if we'll be successful in the current season. A know-it-all ex-employee once told me that I worried too much; I replied that he didn't worry (or care) enough, and I turned out to be right because he was terminated at the end of the year. So yeah, I worry...that maybe the greenhouses will collapse from snow, maybe a new maple disease will appear, maybe our fertilizer was not formulated correctly and contains poison, maybe the grafters will suddenly forget to line up the cambiums etc. Well, those fears proved unfounded this year because the new growth from the maple scions is nicely progressing. The percent – the “take” – looks good, and in three-to-ten years from now the gardening public will have some nice plants to choose from.

Acer palmatum 'Golden Falls'

For the first time we grafted a handful of the Buchholz discovery, Acer palmatum 'Golden Falls', a yellow-foliaged selection that arose as a seedling from the weeping green A.p. 'Ryu sei'. About 500 'Ryu sei' seeds germinated and we potted all up, and then a year later we separated the 5% that displayed a pendulous form. All of them were green like the mother tree, except one that was yellow. Our 'Golden Falls' scionwood was not top quality, and I would have been happy if only a few survived so that I would have a backup, but to my surprise I saw that 100% made it. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket too. Of course I am hoping that in the future I will find a red “Ryu sei;” then I would make a ton of money and you would find me on a beach sipping cocktails.

Acer macrophyllum 'Santiam Snow'

I see that a few grafts of the Acer macrophyllum 'Mieke' made it. Last summer I blogged about a new variegated “Big leaf maple,” 'Santiam Snow', which was introduced by Heritage Seedlings of Oregon. Green leaves are splashed with white, but I have yet to test it outside in full sun; but then I worry too much. A few days after reading my blog, friend Dave Kemper was driving down the narrow road to his property – Almost Paradise – a road he has taken thousands of times. Suddenly, for the first time, he noticed a macrophyllum branch also variegated with white. He brought me the wood which was mostly too big, but we were able to graft about ten sticks after scraping the scale off. Anyway, four are growing and I'll be sure that Dave gets one. The name of 'Mieke' is the nickname for Dave's wife, Marieke, a Dutch name.

Acer palmatum 'Killarney'

We didn't graft very many A.p. 'Killarney' because of limited scionwood, and there was limited scionwood because I've always considered the selection to be a “non-event,” so better to not have too many around. A few springs ago we shipped a good-sized tree to Amazing Maples in Washington state which I completely forgot about. Then in the fall I was on the Maple Society trip to Amazing Maples, where every maple in his collection was displaying fall color at the same time, which has never happened at my place ever. One plant had a wonderful pastel color that I had never seen on a maple before, and reaching for the label I saw that it was 'Killarney'. The way it was being grown – probably with less water than we use – allowed the fall color to prosper. Our plants, and especially those grown in a greenhouse, are so lush with new growth that I never saw what the maple was selected for in the first place. There is sparse information about 'Killarney'– who and where it came from – but I naturally assume that it was from the town of Killarney in Ireland, and the first place I saw it was at Wisley in England.

Acer pentaphyllum

We waited until winter to graft Acer pentaphyllum – the five-lobed maple – because the potential scionwood was so soft in summer. In January, 2016, we hooked about 200 pents onto the improbable rootstock of Acer rubrum. A. pentaphyllum is in the section Pentaphylla while the rubrum is in the section Rubra, and by appearance they are as different as cheese from chalk. Sadly, A. pentaphyllum is hardy to only about zone 8, or ten degrees above zero. I tested one outdoors – on rubrum rootstock – where the low was 5 degrees F. I waited...forever, because the species is notorious for leafing out late. By July I could see that the top was certainly dead, but the rootstock was sprouting from the base, determined to live. So my theory that a hardy rootstock might convey some hardiness to the top proved negative. I recall twenty years ago our state agricultural inspector was in a greenhouse checking on something, but he kept glancing further into the greenhouse, apparently obsessed with a lofty 12' pentaphyllum. He seemed troubled that I would so blatantly grow a marijuana plant out in the open. I didn't say anything until we progressed further, then I pointed out the Acer pentaphyllum, and I explained the name was due to the five lobes, and that it was perhaps the most rare of all maples with only twenty trees known in the wild. Inspector Gordon – who never knew much of anything about plants – was relieved and actually seemed fascinated with my maple story.

Davidia involucrata 'Sonoma'

Davidia involucrata 'Lady Sunshine'

Davidia involucrata 'Aya nishiki'

We potted some Davidia involucrata seed which originated from various 'Sonoma' trees, a cultivar known to bloom more early than the type, and the main reason is that Davidia rootstocks go for $6.50 each, and some even need an additional year before they are large enough to graft. At least the cultivars are fairly easy to take and there has never been a problem to sell them. It will take two years for the seed to germinate – if any do – and hopefully I can eliminate the expensive seedling purchase. The pride of our Davidia fleet is clearly 'Lady Sunshine', a selection from Crispin Silva of Oregon. 'Aya nishiki' is also popular, but I don't grow many because it burns in the Oregon sun. The straight species used to be an easy sell when I was early in my career, but no longer. Back to the cultivar 'Sonoma' which blooms early, it is a fantastic sight to see a six-foot branched tree with twenty large handkerchief bract-pairs hovering ghost-like in the foliage. In the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs, I read that 'Sonoma' was “selected for its exceptional ability to flower as a young plant, sometimes after only two or three years.” That's not true at all – it was originally selected for its largerthannormalbracts, with the early blooming an unexpected bonus. I have seen the mother tree at the Sonoma Horticultural Nursery in California, and while it was poorly sited and scraggly in appearance, the rest of the nursery was fantastic with numerous Japanese maples and Rhododendrons.

Cornus florida 'Autumn Gold' fall foliage

Cornus florida 'Autumn Gold' spring flower

I have lots of Cornus kousa cultivars, but only two of C. florida: 'Welchii', a variegated selection which burns in Oregon, and 'Autumn Gold'. I used to steer clear of C. florida due to its susceptibility to the anthracnose disease caused by the fungus Discula destructiva, but I like 'Autumn Gold' so much that we grafted a good number (onto C. kousa). Creamy white flower bracts greet the gardener in spring, followed by green foliage. In autumn the fruit is glossy red and the leaves turn a luminescent gold, and in winter the bright twigs range in color form yellow to orange. I got my start from the late Dennis Dodge of Connecticut when he offered to send scions. I didn't really want the florida, but I had just recently given him something and he wanted to “pay” me back, so out of politeness I accepted. Now I'm sure glad I did.

Thuja orientalis 'Franky Boy'

We grafted some Thuja orientalis 'Franky Boy'* on three-foot standards, and in four years from now the 'pops will form full heads, and they are quite unique and easy to market. They make for a Dr. Seuss type of creature. We also propagate it by winter rooted cuttings, and since 'Franky Boy' is still fairly new, sales are also good. Eventually it will grow into a broad, dense upright, and since we experienced a mild winter this year the thread-like foliage remained a pleasant green. In the 1984 Hillier manual (5^th edition) orientalis is classified as a Thuja, but now it is placed in the monotypic genus of Platycladus. At some point I will issue orders to acknowledge the change, but that means my employees will be confused, besides that all of the labels will need replaced. When you look at the cones of the real Thujas, they are very different from Platycladus with its recurved hooks. Before the Thuja orientalis classification the genus name Biota was used. Biota now means the animal and plant life of a particular region, habitat or geological period, and the word is derived from the Greek biote for “life.” Interestingly the common name arborvita– which is actually spelled arborvitae– is Latin for “tree of life.” The word platycladus is from Greek platyclados meaning “with a broad stem.” The Chinese common name is baishu, but the genus is also native to Japan, Korea, Russia, and surprisingly there's a thousand-mile disjunct population in Ukraine.

*'Franky Boy' was a seedling of 'Elegantissima' raised by Frank Nursery in Austria.

Cupressus macrocarpa 'Greenstead Magnificent'

Early in my career I acquired a plant of Cupressus macrocarpa 'Greenstead Magnificent', a slow-growing blue form of the “Monterey cypress.” I wanted to propagate it but nothing rooted. Hmm, what rootstock could I use to graft it? When you consider a question like that you start by pondering what is related to it, not just scientifically, but also by appearance. I knew that C. macrocarpa was crossed with Chamaecyparis (at the time) nootkatensis and that resulted in x Cupressocyparis leylandii. Since I didn't have nootkatensis available, and since leylandii is not hardy in my market I tried Thuja orientalis because it's the rootstock I use for Chamaecyparis (Xanthocyparis) nootkatensis cultivars. Don't worry, you won't be asked to remember what I just wrote. Anyway, even with its hardy rootstock of T. orientalis...err, Platycladus orientalis, 'Greenstead Magnificent' is not fully hardy in Oregon. I planted one in the garden and it survived three winter but it succumbed in the fourth. I grow it for my Seattle and California markets, but one thing that displeases me is that Cupressus macrocarpa 'Greenstead Magnificent'takes a lot of time to write or type out, and try to fit that damn name on a label!

Cupressus cashmeriana

We grafted Cupressus cashmeriana onto Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd', and have successfully done so for over twenty years. The graft union is perfect, but not so with T.o. 'Pyramidalis'; and it's a situation that I find odd, that if one cultivar is perfect, why is another one not? In any case, C. cashmeriana is now called by Hillier the “weeping cypress of Bhutan,” when in the 1980's it was “origin unknown,” and that “it has variously been regarded as a juvenile form of both C. funebris and C. torulosa.” It was introduced into England in 1862, and it was named cashmeriana because some were growing in Kashmir, India, around sacred places. Its origin is now known to be in Bhutan, and Debreczy and Racz in Conifers Around the World even report that “five tall trees of C. cashmeriana occurring on rocky marble slopes in northeastern Bhutan's Yangri Chu gorge were measured at an astounding 74-95m tall...making them among the tallest conifers in Asia – indeed, the world.” The earth has been highly scrutinized, so how could one of the tallest conifers in the world go unnoticed in Bhutan until recently? I love it when these types of discoveries are made.

Picea polita

This was the first winter that we grafted Picea polita in at least ten years. Sales were good in the 1980's and 1990's, with a Michigan customer claiming that P. polita was hardy for him. I find the spruce to be very attractive, but sales slowed to almost nothing, and maybe because customers found the sharp needles to be dangerous. The “Tiger-Tail spruce” was first described by Siebold when he was snooping in Japan, and it was J.G. Veitch who introduced it to England later in 1861. Once again we've had a name change, with Hillier listing it as P. polita in the 1980's, but in the 2014 edition (8^th) it has been changed to P. torano. No explanation is given. Who is it that makes name changes without consulting with me, especially when you make my business more difficult? I don't even know what a torano is, and if you google it you'll get a famous cigar from the Casa Torano. So if there are any botanists in the Flora Wonder readership – and I doubt there are – get off your pedestal and answer me why polita was changed to torano.

Rhododendron orbiculare 'Exbury'

Rhododendron orbiculare 'Edinburgh'

Rhododendron campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum

We grafted a couple of hundred Rhododendrons this winter, with the main goal of backing up my R. orbiculare 'Exbury' and 'Edinburgh', as I have only one plant of each. The rootstock wasn't perfect since I bought them from a Rhododendron nursery that grows them for a bushy form, not as rootstock, but the one-gallon pots were only $4 each. We also did another favorite, R. campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum, plus a few hybrids such as R. x'Ever Red' and R. x'Wine and Roses'. I won't describe any of them because I'm not really Rhododendron guy and I can't add anything new or interesting. Some have emailed that I never have, but they gutlessly sign off as Anonymous, the despicable cowards.

Last year I visited the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden four times, not to optimize my membership, but because every month brings its own special rewards. The drive to the garden takes about twice the time spent in the garden, followed by the weary drive home, all the while being serenaded by the opinions of my Grandfather. Last week we went again, and at the entrance we stumbled upon director Steve Hootman, and wonderfully he offered to show us around. We usually miss him because he is frequently off on a collecting trip to China or New Zealand or somewhere else...either that, or maybe he hides behind a bush when he sees us coming. His brain contains a wealth of information from his experiences, both from his exotic jaunts and from at home in his botanic garden.

Rhododendron blackii

The following is not necessarily in chronological order, but at some point we entered the conservatory. A sweet warm odor – odour really – greats you first thing, similar to a Paris perfume shop I imagine. There is always something blooming, even in early March, because the tender plants from low-land China, Vietnam, Borneo etc. keep a different calendar than the hardy species and hybrids that we plant outside. Rhododendron blackii, a non-hardy Vireya, was impressive in bloom, and it looks similar to the image used for the Species Garden logo. It is a terrestrial species from Papua New Guinea that thrives on decaying trees. R. sleumeri is a synonym as it was first described by Hermann Sleumer in 1973, but I don't know why a Mr. or Ms. Black is getting credit. The conservatory contains a number of Vireyas, and I can see how someone could easily get hooked on them. Hmm...GH20, my warm greenhouse...

Rhododendron boothii

Rhododendron boothii was flowering, a species from the temperate rainforests of the eastern Himalaya. Steve says that “it is very slow-growing and requires excellent drainage (the only place I have ever seen it growing in the wild is on the sides of maple trees, rooted into the bark).” The species was apparently lost to cultivation in the UK until the Coxes of Glendoick in Scotland collected it in the Arunachal in northeast India. On close inspection you'll notice hairy stems, but I was mostly impressed with the mahogany-colored new growth. The species was once known as R. mishmiense by Frank Kingdon Ward as he collected it on the Mishmi Hills at 7,000-8,000 feet, and generally one needs a collection from 10,000-12,000 feet to be hardy in Oregon outdoors.

Rhododendron himatodes

The cutest Rhododendron in the conservatory has to be R. himatodes. There is scant information about it and I can't even find anything on the Species Garden's website. The internet doesn't reveal anything either, as google directs you to R. haematodes, a very different species. Perhaps the Flora Wonder readership can help – if any of you do actually read the blogs.

Gaultheria pseudonotabilis

There is not a lot of information about the conservatory's Gaultheria pseudonotabilis either, except I know that Steve collected it himself. It was first described by H. Li in 1999, and in the Flora of China it is said to come from NW Yunnan at 1,000-2,000m in “evergreen broad-leaved forests, thickets and rocks.” What an odd specific name though, indicating “falsely notable?” I think it is remarkable, for it climbs out from below the bridge along the path like a fantastic serpent with a hairy red body. As you can see from above we caught it in flower which I apparently missed last year. G. pseudonotabilis should be easy to root and I hope they will soon offer it in their sales yard, otherwise a piece of the serpent might find itself in my pocket.

Rhododendron yuefengense

Rhododendron orbiculare

Back outside I noticed a spreading Rhododendron yuefengense and I need to come clean about it. In a January blog I described it as a R. orbiculare on steroids. Imagine my surprise when I read on the Species Garden's website, “A new and very exciting species in cultivation. This is, in general appearance, a dwarf and compact version of the well-known species orbiculare...” Baloney, my memory of the two species is the opposite. So I marched out to the Display Garden where both are growing and I was humbled that old Hootman was right. Of course he was, he's Rhododendron Guy after all. I still prefer the flower of R. orbiculare over R. yuefengense, as the former is deeper pink.

Xanthocyparis vietnamensis

I almost walked past a cheerful, but tiny conifer planted next to a stump, and Steve confirmed its identity as Xanthocyparis vietnamensis. The recent discovery (1999) caused a new genus to be created, to accommodate it and the closely related nootkatensis, formerly Chamaecyparis nootkatensis. I don't know the hardiness of the new Vietnamese conifer, but I hope the Species Garden has a backup. I don't grow it myself, but I had seen it before at Plantmad Nursery in Oregon, and the remarkable thing is that it possesses both juvenile and adult foliage even on mature trees. If you look closely one of the photos shows a small cone, which surely must be one of the first fruits in America. The new conifer is classified as critically endangered as only a few hundred trees remain in the wild. There have also been recent Vietnamese animal discoveries ranging from flying frogs to fishing cats, and of course most of them are endangered as well. I was fortunate to dodge military duty in Vietnam, hiding behind a student deferment, but it's clear to me that if we all spent our energy on plants and animals we would never get around to war.

Schefflera hoi

Schefflera delavayi

A plant I had not seen before is Schefflera hoi, a species that has had some previous names such as S. salweenensis, after the Salween River (“Angry River” in Chinese). S. hoi grows in densely-forested valleys between 4,500-10,800 feet in Sichuan, Xizang and Yunnan. Yet again I wonder if it will be hardy, but finding out is one of the purposes of the Species Garden, and Steve gets his salary whether it lives or dies. I don't know how S. hoi differs from S. delavayi, which we do grow, and it will be interesting to observe S. hoi in the future.

Corylopsis veitchiana

Corylopsis is a beautiful and easy-to-grow genus containing about twenty species, depending upon whether you are a lumper or a splitter. The garden contains a large C. veitchiana which was smothered with racemes of light yellow flowers with conspicuous red anthers. I used to grow it, but sales were never as good as they should have been for such a wonderful shrub, and I wonder if the beginning of March is just too early for gardeners to have fun? C. veitchiana was introduced from western China by E.H. Wilson in 1900 when he was employed by the Veitch Nursery firm. His mission on that expedition was to collect seed of Davidia involucrata and Veitch told him to “not waste time on anything else.” Wilson was successful with the Davidia mission, but he also collected the Corylopsis, Acer griseum and a lot more, so much so that he was eventually known as “Chinese Wilson.” I have one plant of C. veitchiana in the garden but I must prune it hard to keep it in its inadequate space. Some (Hillier) would have the species reclassified as Corylopsis sinensis var. calvescens f. veitchiana, but I've decided to not go along for the ride on this change; can't fit that on a label.

Camellia reticulata

Robert Fortune

George Forrest

A number of camellias were in bloom, and in a pot by the office was C. reticulata, a Chinese species introduced by Robert Fortune in 1820. In the same way that Wilson was told to not waste his time, Fortune's main purpose in China was not to hunt for Camellias, but rather to steal tea plants and tea processing knowledge for the British East India Company. He was successful with the tea, but he surely would have lost his life if caught. Anyway, the semi-double that Fortune collected was considered the type plant when botanist Lindley gave the specific name. Later the plant-hunter George Forrest found a single-flowered form in 1924 in Yunnan, and it is known as the wild form. Personally I don't care for the flower color, not to take anything away from Forrest's great career.

Camellia 'Elina Cascade'

Akira Shibamichi

Another Camellia I noticed for the first time was labeled C. 'Elina Cascade'. It wasn't in flower but I admired its refined weeping habit. The species is actually C. tsaii which was also collected by Forrest in 1924 in Yunnan, but it can also be found in Myanmar and in North Vietnam. I like the pretty name, and certainly Elina must be a woman, and hopefully pretty too. The “Godfather” of Japanese horticulture, Akira Shibamichi – whom I've met and have drank warmed sake with on a cold night after a day of plant fun – discovered 'Elina Cascade' as a seedling. A patent was issued on Christmas day in 2001, so apparently commerce continues for the Buddha-loving Japanese people, or at least for the merchants. Hines nursery of California was assigned rights to grow 'Elina Cascade', and that's how the Cascadepart of the name originated, but I'm dying to know more about Elina – is she American or Japanese? Unfortunately it is only hardy to USDA zone 8, or ten degrees above 0 F, but again, Steve has nothing to lose by planting one out.

Acer forrestii

The first time I saw Acer forrestii was at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and I was pleased that Scotsman George Forrest's legacy lived beyond his remarkable life. The species was introduced in 1906 from Yunnan, and Hillier's well-measured description in The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs is just perfect: “A most beautiful small tree with striated bark; young stems and petioles are attractive coral-red.” Previously I questioned the identity of the garden's acquisition because I didn't notice any striations to the bark – which Hillier insists it has – but on this visit I studied the bark closely, and yes, the vertical stripes are apparent, though faint, but they are there. I don't have any of the following, but I wish I did: such as A.f. 'Alice', a chance seedling that has “very distinctive striped pinkish red bark in winter,” and A.f. 'Sparkling', which my acquaintance at Junker Nursery in England describes as a tree with young growth with a coppery tinge.

Persea thunbergii

We walked past a Persea* thunbergii, a tree in the Lauraceae family, and it stood alone looking forlorn and boring with nobody to love it. Generally I hate the Lauraceae because I was the head gardener of the Buchholz house in my youth, and every year I had to prune the laurel hedge. And guess what, when I bought the Buchholz Nursery property it came with a damn laurel hedge. The first year I pruned it, then the second year I ripped it out, reasoning that I had better things to do. All that aside, I would love to acquire a P. thunbergii because of the exciting deep-red new growth. I imagine a hedge of it, or a sole plant kept well-pruned. In many respects it could look like the common Photinia x fraseri which is in every other landscape, a hybrid that most plant snobs don't like because it is overused. The evergreen P. thunbergii is native to Korea and Japan and the genus is sometimes known as Machilus. In Korea it is commonly known as Tonbai for “boat,” and boats were made from its wood. In olden times the Japanese corrupted the Korean name and it is now known as Tabu no ki. The last part – no ki– means “of tree,” but Tabu does not mean “boat,” in fact there is no such word in Japanese.

*Persea americana is the avocado tree.

Illicium henryi

I hadn't noticed an Illicium henryi in the garden before, another evergreen medium-sized shrub, but one with star-petaled flowers that range from pink to crimson, blooming in the spring. Hopefully I can find it again and I look forward to seeing it bloom. I'm tempted to make a joke about its common name of “Henry Anise Tree,” but best to not embarrass myself. The genus name of Illicium come from the Latin illicere, “to allure,” and the oils of some species are used as flavorings. The Aniseplant itself is not at all related to Illicium, for it is an herbaceous annual that was first cultivated in Egypt. It is used to flavor French absinthe, Greek ouzo and Turkish raki, and it is probably one of the secret ingredients in the French liqueur Chartreuse, which of course is the origin of the name of the pleasant green color.

Rhododendron lanigerum

Rhododendron lanigerum 'Round Wood'

I don't want to give short shrift to the Rhododendrons in bloom outside of the conservatory. I have a R. lanigerum flowering in my garden, and it possesses pretty pink flowers, but in the Species Garden the cultivar 'Round Wood' was more deeply red, and it won an Award of Merit in 1949. Last year I was impressed with the new growth on R. lanigerum 'Silvia', which really is just as interesting as its flower. R. lanigerum is native to northeast India and southeast Tibet, and it was another of the Frank Kingdon Ward introductions (1926). The specific name lanigerumrefers to the Latin word for “wool-bearing,” describing silky hairy leaves, buds and shoots. Animals also carry the specific name, such as Eriosoma lanigerum, the wooly apple aphid.

Rhododendron ochraceum

It was impossible to miss the deep-red flowers of Rhododendron ochraceum, and I regret that it is a species that I don't have. I cannot improve on Steve Hootman's description, so here it is: “This red-flowered species is considered by many to be one of the finest of the myriad of new Rhododendron introductions in the modern era of plant hunting. It was introduced into general cultivation in 1995 when Peter Cox and I found it in the Jin Pin Mountains of southern Sichuan Province, China, not far from the Yangtze River. There were only about four small plants found growing on top of a giant boulder in an untouched, deep valley full of exciting and new plants ...since then it has flourished in cultivation and is often seen in species collections where its bright red flowers stand out in the mid-spring woodland garden.” Wow – discovering a new species! The only thing I would question is Steve's “mid-spring” reference, for my photograph was taken on March 3^rd.

Rhododendron pemakoense

Schima argentea x wallichii

I fear that I am over-staying my welcome with the blog, just as we over-stayed with Steve, so I'll finish with a few more plant photos. At the end he saw me admiring a pot of Rhododendron pemakoense and suggested that I take one. Then for good measure he suggested I take a pot of a Schima hybrid between argentea and wallichii. So, lucky me.

Rhododendron calophytum var. calophytum

Rhododendron asterochnoum

Rhododendron davidii

Rhododendron coelicum

Rhododendron gongshanense

Rhododendron calophytum var. openshawianum

Rhododendron coeloneuron

Rhododendron mallotum

Rhododendron sherriffii

Grandfather Gerald (left) and Steve Hootman (right)

I receive a variety of responses (comments) to the Flora Wonder Blog, some which enlighten me, some that correct me, some that support me and alas, a few that condemn me. I read the following three times...trying to make sense of it:

Native Pseudotsuga menziesii at Flora Farm

Native Quercus garryana at Flora Farm

“So what's so wrong about promoting sole use of our native plants? The nursery industry had [sic] made it fashionable to grow the exotic 'non-native' plants, for the most part replacing native plants that are critical for the survival of our native insects and animals...You seem rarely to speak about the virtues of our wonderfully endangered native plants now, thanks to your philosophy that non-natives are ok because people want them. This industry has failed in recognizing its duty to keep our environment healthy...Your list of offerings is based on their ability to generate revenues and that is based on the fact that you also control the offerings. Talk about the evils of Big Box stores...you are not much better.

Exotics and natives coexisting peacefully in the Flora Wonder Arboretum

Wow – I resemble that! This commenter is a male, I can tell, and he has certainly worked himself into a lather in Mom's basement, but at least he is devoted to saving our “...wonderfully endangered native plants...” Woah, is it wonderful that our native plants are endangered? Anyway, is there science that proves that planting a Japanese maple endangers our native insects and animals? In my experience the exotics and the natives coexist peacefully – at least in the Flora Wonder Arboretum – where our ruby-throated hummingbirds love to nest in the canopies of Japanese maples. I have never seen their nests in our native Acer macrophyllum, circinatum or glabrum, though I suppose that some do, but I have never seen it in my world.

Buchholz preaching to the cognoscenti

You know, I admit to preaching in the Flora Wonder Blog; I tell you my likes and dislikes, and I provide you with well-reasoned opinions as well as those that are admittedly half-baked. Not to come across as arrogant, not at all, but Seth and I produce the blog for ourselves, not for you. Well, Seth participates, when he would probably rather not, but at least he is usually a good sport about it. Since I “preach,” I guess it's ok that you readers can preach back to me. The difference is that I identify myself, whereas the pony-tailed basement dweller does not – he is Mr. A, Mister Anonymous, so I can't really embrace his nit-wit manifesto.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Ginkgo biloba

When the queerly-opinionated Mr. A. states that “I rarely speak about...,” the implication is that he is a frequent blog reader. Good God, A, why torture yourself? Yes, I am into and absorbed with exotics. My wife is Japanese and we have produced two wonderful hybrid children, both of whom have already – at one third your age – contributed more to the betterment of the world than you. Should I have instead saddled myself with a native Oregon woman? What is native anyway? Should my wife be native to the same state as me? The same city? The same street? Should I have mated with my cousin or my sister? What, Mr. A., is native? Is Metasequoia glyptostroboides “native” to Oregon? Of course not, you would say, it is native to China, and it should not be planted in Oregon. Well, I counter, it used to be native, as supported by the fossil record...so where do you stand on that? I have a Ginkgo fossil from North Dakota, and if I lived in Fargo would you be cool with me growing a Ginkgo there?

Thuja plicata

Rubus spectabilis 'Golden Ruby'

Hey, Mr. A. – I like natives at least as much as non-natives, it's just that I can't make a living with them. I do sell a few natives anyway, and the blog which you tarnished with your curious vision actually mentioned Rubus spectabilis and Thuja plicata. I also mentioned Oregon's pocket gopher – one of those animals that you so cherish – but I shoot them whenever I can as they damage the roots on my exotic Ginkgo biloba. Careful now, don't you pop up out of a gopher hole.

There are a number of nurseries that grow native plants only. These are usually supported by government projects, and those projects are supported by me, the taxpayer. Do you know that I am in the minority, that a greater number of American adults pay no federal tax at all? Are you one of them? So I guess I actually do support native plants, because I've paid far more taxes in my life than you ever will.

Native plants at Flora Farm

Saya fishing the Tualatin River

A Monet moment on the Tualatin

Adios, Luna

Besides, I own about 45 acres of fields and woods that are entirely native. The native deer come up from the woods along the Tualatin River and visit my apple orchard every fall. The trees are exotic, but the deer don't seem to mind. My woods contain a pack of coyotes – do you love them also? – which howl at night, and they even snatched the family cat on the front lawn, just ten steps from the door. My property hosts eagles and hawks and herons and egrets – and it's fun to watch the latter two perform their mating dance. Just before daylight doves begin to coo, and robins (Turdus migratorius) serenade me. Soon the frogs will also perform, basso profondo, in the morning orchestra. As ridiculous as politicians debating about who is the more religious, is your assertion that I haven't “recognized my duty about keeping the environment healthy.”

So you see, Mr. A. that I am not as evil as “Big Box Stores.” They pave thousands of acres and sell cheap stuff from China that is manufactured with polluting ingredients. A salesman once stopped by the nursery to promote plastic containers from China because they were less expensive. I wondered if each pot had its own DNA.

Japanese maples in autumn

Don't take this blog personally Mr. A., I'm just messing with you a little bit. You can use the roads that I paid for while you're trying to find a job. Keep taking your meds – your Mom thinks they are helping – while I'll go outside and hug a Japanese maple.

The exotic morning sun coming from 92.96 million miles away

Spring is absolutely beautiful at Buchholz Nursery and in the Flora Wonder Arboretum. Magnolia blossoms come and go, pines are shooting up candles and some Japanese maples have fully leafed out in the greenhouses. We are suddenly behind, as we have been every spring of my career. The main activity that gets in the way of actually growing plants is the shippingof them, and why do trucks have to come on the nice sunny days?

While I remain virile and frisky, and could very easily write a blog, shipping manager Seth has no time to produce it. Once during shipping season he snapped,” Do you want me to make money or work on your damn blog?” I wanted to answer, “Well, both,” but I didn't push him, and eventually we did both.

Anyway, since Seth is out “making money” today, I decided to devise a contest. It is entitled What Is It? The three images from below come from a file of photos that really belong nowhere, so we created a cubbyhole called Esoteric Stuff, except that our S word contains only four letters.

If you can identify any one of these, email us promptly at info (@) buchholznursery (dot) com. The first five with a correct answer* will receive an outstanding new maple, Acer palmatum 'Japanese Princess'. Along with your answer, please provide a shipping address (PO Boxes do not work).

*If you guess all three I'll...I'll leave you in my will.

Acer palmatum 'Japanese Princess'

Contest ends next Monday (28^th) at 4:30 PM, Pacific Time, and the correct answers will be posted the following Tuesday (29^th).

Good luck.

Wow, there were six winners for our photo identification contest, where you guessed correctly at least one of the three.

Contest photo

Visiting Chihuly Garden and Glass

I thought I could fool you, but five of you correctly guessed the yellow object to be the Citron Icicle Tower located in Seattle. One of you thought it was located in Boston and another in Miami, so apparently there is more than one, but still you win.

Contest photo

Seattle Art Museum's painting of Leaves

A couple of you identified photo #2 to be a painting – actually a detail – by Gloria Petyarre.

Contest photo

Also, two of you correctly guessed the third photo to be peanut butter, while many of you suggested that it was the underside of a mushroom. M.S. from Seattle said it was “forked” peanut butter, and indeed I do fork my peanut butter. She also identified the icicle tower, while S.R. from Monroe, Washington guessed the tower and the aboriginal painting, so hats off to these two amazing women. Nobody could identify all three, so I don't need to amend my will, but you would have been disappointed anyway.

Your 'Japanese Princess' maples will be sent next Monday via UPS, so be sure the dog doesn't tear into the box and eat it.

Thank you for participating – I had fun with your guesses.

One of the following happened to me last week:

1) Eric and Seth both quit.

2) I bought a horse.

3) I broke my leg.

4) My daughter Saya eloped.

5) I was in a traffic accident.

6) I retired.

Not number six – I didn't retire – but I am tired. Number five happened, as a young man sped through a red light and T-boned me. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the incident has left me rather disoriented. If the accident would have been fatal I could have finally found a nursery exit-strategy.

Anyway the blog never got past page one, but hopefully I can finish it next week. The following is from about a year ago, a re-blog if you will.

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The Old Office

It's been nearly fifteen years since we moved from the old office into our current command center. My goal was to slowly (but surely) toss what wasn't really needed and to incorporate the remainder into our office system of today, especially since I now employ personnel who are far more diligent and capable. But every time I would venture into the old place I dredged up history and memories of the good, the bad and the ugly. So usually I would walk out with a sigh and leave the task for another day. Thence fifteen years have passed.

Whet stone

I was prompted to re-enter, however, as we have begun our winter grafting and the crew announced that they needed more whet stones. Not whet stones for their dull wits, rather for their Tina grafting knives. The term is derived from Middle English whetston and that from Old English hwetstan, and in German it is wettstein. In England a few places where suitable stones for sharpening could be found are Whetstone in Leicestershire and Greater London, or from Wheston in Derbyshire. Never mind that, as in America we have excellent sharpening stones from Arkansas...and our supply should be located somewhere in the old office.

Order index cards

So in I went, determined to prove to my over-spending staff that we had plenty of stones, and that how we organized (or disorganized) our supplies was the issue. Drawers, cupboards and shelves were checked, but to no avail. I did find a box full of late 1980's index cards, where each card recorded the number of grafts or rooted cuttings that were on order for the following spring. For example, for Tsuga canadensis 'Cole's Prostrate'– a cultivar we no longer propagate – 900 rooted cuttings were on order from twelve different companies. When the cuttings were shipped the entry would then be crossed off. For Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star', over 12,000 were on order from twenty eight companies. On a sour note was record of a Minnesota company that ordered for many years, then declared bankruptcy and screwed me out of $20,000. More fondly, I discovered evidence that we used to sell to the San Diego Zoo, to horticulturalist Jim Gibbons (no kidding!) in particular. His orders were small, but he appeared determined to test “true firs,” such as Abies pindrow for the San Diego environment.

The old catalog drawer

Well that was a little fun, but I threw the box out. Streamline, simplify and pare the business down to the essentials only. But one drawer contained dozens of old European nursery catalogs and maps. These are useless now but I began to flip through them nevertheless. Eventually I made a coffee and sat to study them in earnest.

One surprise was the Stangby Plantskola prislista(price list) from...where? I could see from a map that this nursery was located near the city of Lund, and a quick google revealed that it was located in southern Sweden. The city of about 100,000 is among the oldest cities in Sweden and was founded in the late 10^th century. The Lund cathedral is nearly as old and was built in traditional Romanesque style; it features an astronomical clock, five organs and an ancient crypt. The botanical garden (Botanisk Tradgarden) is popular with foreigners as well as with the denizens of Lund. Lovisa B. “loves having a picnic with friends in the summer,” Martin from Ireland claims it is “Beasutiful [sic] for a stroll” and Sophie A. from Athens calls the garden “amazing.” Alan M. from Shaftesbury, United Kingdom, importantly notes that the garden is free. All of that sounds wonderful and I would love to see the garden, perhaps with Lovisa and her friends, as well as the Stangby Plantskola. But I have never been to Sweden, and I'm not sure just how I came upon their prislista. Perhaps a Swedish nurseryman visited years ago and dropped it off. He would be old like me now, except that he would be retired and socialistically comfortable, whereas I must still grind out a living.

Acer palmatum 'Inaba shidare'

I have thrice been to Boskoop, The Netherlands, and I began to page through the town brochure which celebrates their Vijf Eeuwen Boomkwekerij, or “five centuries of nurseries.” I read that more than half of Boskoop's 14,000 people work at the area's 900 nurseries, which are usually long and narrow – the nurseries that is – and are sited along 500 kilometers of canals and ditches. I took a canal tour about fifteen years ago, and I remember the bank-side nurserymen – old and young, male and female – bent to the ground, toiling on their tiny plots with peaty fingers, scratching out a living on their rectangular islands. The most important tool is said to be “the skilled hands of the nurseryman,” and “due to a vulnerable soil structure only limited use of machinery can be made.” Most of the product is exported to more than 75 different countries, and I too once received shipments from Boskoop. Most of the time the product was of good quality and true-to-name, but once the Boskoopians substituted Acer palmatum 'Select Red' for 'Inaba shidare', as if the two cultivars were the same. Absolutely they are not, and I knowthat they knew, but then they supposed that American nurserymen were not sufficiently sophisticated to see the difference, and that it wouldn't really matter after all.

Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' at Firma Esveld

Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum'

Acer shirasawanum 'Mr. Sun'

A must-stop in Boskoop is the Firma C. Esveld, and in my drawer I rediscovered their Catalogus of 1991-1993. The van Gelderen family runs the show, and they explain that they “do the job” with fifteen people (parents, two sons, a daughter-in-law and ten regular staff). My last visit in 2012 revealed a nursery with no such staff anymore, but the Acer collection, which they call the Aceretum, has matured nicely. The anchor is the famous Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' which is probably the oldest and largest in the world. Their 1991-1993 catalogus lists just under 200 cultivars of Acer palmatum, but their online listing today reveals they now grow many more, including most of my introductions, even those I am least proud of ('Red Wonder', 'Green Fingers', 'Uncle Red' and others). The text of Esveld's old catalog, plus the modern online version, is rendered in English as well as Dutch. My description of Acer shirasawanum 'Mr. Sun' begins, “A broad, upright deciduous tree with sharply pointed green leaves that resemble a child's drawing of the sun.” Humorously, Esveld offers, “Leaves do think on childrens drawing of sunny with rad.”...which reminds me of my wife when she asked Dutchman Nelis Kools how to say, 'Nice to meet you,” just before she was about to meet his brother for the first time. Haruko chirped “luk tu en tu muten.” The brother blurted out, in English, “What!, my mother died?”

Abies koreana 'Silberlocke'

Mrs. Horstmann and son

In the year 2,000 I was fortunate to visit the Horstmann Nursery, but I was too late to meet the founder Gunter Horstmann, for he died a few years previous. I was travelling with a bus-load of “cone heads,” or conifer aficionados from the American Conifer Society. Horstmann was primarily known for his discovery and introduction (1986) of Abies koreana 'Silberlocke', a dazzling selection where the needles curve around the stems and reveal the glittery-silver undersides. We were all handed a Zwergkoniferen-Sammlung Horstmann Schneverdingen, which translates as “Dwarf Conifer Collection” of Horstmann Baumschulen (nursery) from the town of Schneverdingen, Germany. We received the Gesamtliste– the “total list” – which at Buchholz Nursery I call my “Master Plant List.” I was surprised to find a few of my introductions, none of which came directly from me: such as Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Green Arrow' and 'Laura Aurora', Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Jack Frost', Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem' and Pinus mugo 'Woods Columnaris' which I originally named 'Wood's Pillar', as I believe I was the first to propagate from a narrow seedling growing next to the home of the late Edsal Wood. I also noticed a Sequoiadendron giganteum 'Moonie's Mini', which was originally discovered as a witch's broom mutation along McLoughlin Blvd. in SE Portland, Oregon, a selection named for an itinerant grafter (Will Moonie) who first climbed the tree to procure scionwood for Buchholz Nursery.

Pinus parviflora 'Tanima no yuki'

The nomenclature of Horstmann's gesamtliste was not the plantsman's forte, and many errors abound; or perhaps he was spot on and the rest of the plant world is incorrect. But I take issue with Abies balsamea 'Welcott Pond' which should be 'Wolcott Pond', Cedrus deodara 'Raiswood Contorta' which should be 'Rayswood's Contorted', Cedrus deodara 'Feeling Blue' which should be 'Feelin' Blue', Cedrus deodara 'Golden Nugged' which should be 'Gold Nugget', Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Tatsunami' which should be 'Tsatsumi', Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Draght Hexe' which is actually a selection of the C. lawsoniana species and on and on. But anyway, Horstmann was well-known throughout Europe for his unusual nursery, and his sloppy list does little to detract from his illustrious career with his many wonderful plant introductions. And besides, the mistakes are easily solved, such as the incorrect listing of the cultivar Pinus parviflora 'TamMano Uki' which is obviously what we correctly know as 'Tanima no yuki'.

Mrs. Jeddeloh toasting her visitors

I also discovered a zu Jeddeloh Pflanzen catalog from 1995-1996. Oddly I had not been to Jeddeloh nursery until October, in the year 2000. Apparently what they handed out to us was old literature with the main goal of cleaning out their office storage room, especially since none of us would be buying anything from them. In any case we were treated to a brimming tablespoon of vile schnapps as a traditional northern German welcome. I winced as I swallowed my dose, but soon thereafter I was glowing with warmth.

Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium'

Maple listings in the old Jeddeloh catalog were sparse, and all was in German. For Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium' they describe Japan-Ahorn Frischgrüne Blatter, in Herbst feurig rot, and even with my limited knowledge of German – from which English is derived – I could figure out it meant “Japanese Maple Tree with fresh green leaves, in fall fiery red,” or at least something close to that. For Acer palmatum 'Atropurpureum', it was described as Fächerahorn Rotblättrig, which strangely means “fanmaple tree with red leaves.” Acer palmatum 'Viridis' is Zwergahorn Grüne Blätter, tiefgeschlitzt which means “dwarf maple tree with green leaves,” but the tiefgeschlitztpart is beyond me, and also beyond my German-to-English dictionary.

Quercus robur 'Purpurea'

The Jeddeloh catalog lists Quercus as Eiche, German for “oak.” Interestingly, eichhörnchen is German for “squirrel.” Quercus rubra is Amerikanische Rot-Eiche, or “American Red Oak.” Quercus robur is listed as Deutsche Eiche, or “German Oak.” In France, by the way, the species is listed as “French Oak,” in England as “English Oak,” and in Russia as “Russian Oak.” I got a kick out of some German common names. Araucaria is Schmucktannewhich means “smart or trim fir,” Symphoricarpos is Schneebeere– and what fun to say! – which means “snowberry,” Cryptomeria is Sicheltannewhich means “sickle fir” and x Cupressocyparis is Bastardzypresse, which needs no further explanation.

Johann (left) and son Jan-Dieter Jeddeloh (right)

Grandson Jan-Dieter Jeddeloh in the Buchholz Display Garden

Coincidentally, the day after I discovered this Jeddeloh – pronounced yed de low– catalog I was visited by the third generation of these plantsmen. I guess it speaks to my longevity that grandfather Johann, his son Jan-Dieter, and grandson (also) Jan-Dieter have been to Buchholz Nursery. I envy the Jeddelohs and their history, for the family and their village share the name of Jeddeloh, and the forefathers have been cultivating the land for fifteen generations. I'm sure that their product line has changed greatly since the 1995-1996 catalog, as most nurseries have. Also Jeddeloh Nursery does little of their own propagating now, as it is possible to buy quality liners from other nurseries, and today Jeddeloh could be considered as growers-onersand distributors. Their loading docks are active day and night with plants shipped throughout all of Europe and Russia. When shipping to Russia, the cost of freight must also include a substantial portion to cover the required bribes to get the product to its destination.

The German Wittboldt-Müller nursery catalog from the year 2,000 reminded me of my first visit, also with the group from the American Conifer Society. We had a wonderful botanical tour through Holland and Germany, with Dutchman Van Hoey Smith as our master of ceremonies and his delightful daughter Joan as the logistics coordinator. Everyone on the bus got along well, and every day we had the opportunity to sit with somebody new. After spending a long day next to an interesting woman, she concluded that I was very different from whom she thought I would be (due to my "reputation"). I responded by saying, "So, I'm not really an asshole after all." She laughed and said "Yes, that's right."

Sciadopitys rows at Wittbold-Müller

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Fireworks'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Green Star'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Gold Rush'

The Wittboldt-Müller catalog features all types of plants in color, most never grown at the nursery. Apparently German nurseries do this because they can provide a one-stop shopping experience for their customers, and the perennials, shade trees and shrubs can easily be procured from their associates at other nurseries. The one product that they did grow, and specialized in, was Sciadopitys, the "Japanese Umbrella Pine." All were grown from seed, and every year they would germinate thousands more. I think they said it took seven years before a tree was sold. Naturally with thousands of seedlings some variation would occur, and this led to cultivar selections such as 'Fireworks', 'Green Star' and 'Gold Rush'. Sadly the nursery had fallen on hard times and my last visit in October, 2007, revealed a nursery in disrepair with only two employees and overgrown, crowded stock trees. Maybe the German market had their fill of Sciadopitys, but it was a shame to see them go to waste.

Upon entering the Von Gimborn Arboretum near Doorn, the Netherlands, I was issued a guidebook. In the preface the Arboretum Director (V.P.A. Lukkien) states "I wish you, when you are walking through the Arboretum with this guide in hand (for it is not ment [sic] for the bookshelf at home), many pleasant and studious hours." In the section Guidelines for the visitor, we are admonished to keep our dog on a leash, to not pick the flowers, and to not mess around with any of the labels. The final guideline: "To give a zest to your stay, you are allowed to bring food and drink but do not trouble other visitors or us with any litter whatsoever."Fair enough.

Pinus parviflora 'Gimborn's Pyramid'

I was anxious to see the Gimborn collection for I grow a few trees that were selected there, such as Pinus parviflora 'Gimborn's Pyramid', 'Gimborn's Ideal' and 'Tempelhof', and Tsuga mertensiana 'Blue Star'. Max Von Gimborn began the park-arboretum in 1924, and his goal was to gather as big a collection as possible of conifers, both species and cultivars. When he died in 1964 his wife arranged for the arboretum to become the property of Utrecht University Botanic Gardens.

Tsuga x jeffreyi

I saw a good number of Pinus parviflora trees, but the labeling was sparse and I couldn't identify any as being 'Gimborn's Pyramid' or 'Gimborn's Ideal'. I was hoping they would be growing side-by-side, so I could finally tell the difference, if any, because as younger plants they look alike. The 'Blue Star'"Mountain Hemlock"– the original tree – looked nice, but with pretty much the same foliage color as 'Bump's Blue' which I have grown for thirty years. Of more interest to me was a specimen of Tsuga x jeffreyi, the naturally-occurring hybrid between T. mertensiana and T. heterophylla, a tree that I have never grown or even seen before. Supposedly at least one location for it is at White Pass on the southern flank of Mt. Rainier in Washington state.

I doubt that I'll ever go back to the Gimborn, mainly because there's so many other quality places in Holland. Maybe it is better today, but I really have a problem with a tree collection that lacks labels. One stated purpose is the "conservation of old cultivars which are no longer commercially available." I disagree, for there is a reason they are no longer commercially available. I'll actually say it: with the exception of a few interesting specimens, I found the Von Gimborn Arboretum kind of boring.

So now my coffee is cold; I forgot to drink it being so absorbed with the old catalogs, and I'll toss them back into the drawer, for they weren't doing any harm there anyway. No whetstones to be found, but I had a good time.

Saya at Catherine Creek

The Columbia River from Catherine Creek

Every spring I visit the Catherine Creek Nature Reserve which is located at the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, on the Washington side of the river. My little munchkin, Saya, popped out of bed early to join me, then we drove into Forest Grove to pick up our new Brazilian intern for the trip, Rodrigo Desordi (mother German, father Italian).

Ranch at the east end of the Gorge

The only route to Catherine Creek is through Portland, but fortunately the traffic was light on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, however, it was windy and raining hard, and I fretted that my first nice-boss gesture with Rodrigo would turn out to be miserable. Catherine Creek is at the beginning of eastern Oregon, where the lush biota of the west transitions into a dryer rangeland with pine (P. ponderosa) and oak (Q. garryana) forests. There the wind is stronger and the rain is wetter, and in summer it is hotter and in winter colder. Ranching red-necks abound in eastern Oregon, the kind of people who hate that President Obama frequently takes days off to golf, or goes on lavish trips to Hawaii on the tax-payer's dime.

Dodecatheon poeticum

But I digress. The main event at Catherine Creek, besides enjoying views of the Columbia, is the smorgasbord of wildflowers. First on the trail was a nice patch of Dodecatheon poeticum*, or the “Poet's Shooting Star,” one of six or seven Dodecatheon species found in the Columbia River Gorge. I don't know if they hybridize in the roughly seventy-mile-length of the Gorge, but why not?, as most plants will mate with a near relative if given the chance. Actually the plants aren't promiscuous at all – they just sit in the soil – and it is the wind or insects that provide the lustful energy. I don't know why Dodecatheons are commonly called “shooting stars;” I just don't see it, and I much rather admire employee Eric Lucas's 93-year-old mother's tag of “crow's bills” for the species. The generic name of the genus is from Greek dodekatheos, which is from dodekafor “twelve” and theos for “god.” Dodekatheonis the Greek word for “primrose,” and indeed it is in the Primulaceae family. Surprisingly, D. poeticum wasn't discovered until 1930, previously escaping the eyes of David Douglas and Lewis and Clark. Dr. Louis Henderson of the University of Oregon was the finder, and perhaps he was moved to poetry when he was trying to decide upon a specific epithet. The Dods occur along the soggy spring seepage ravines, and they don't mind that these wet areas will become baked and bone-dry in summer. One experiences most vividly at Catherine Creek that each species will approve of, or reject, a particular micro-site, but fortunately there are five or six of them and so we are rewarded with a wide display of wild flowers.

Dodecatheon conjungens?

*Previously we thought this was Dodecatheon conjungens, and frankly I can't tell the difference.

Fritillaria pudica

And since such a wide array occurs, every week will present you with one that particularly stands out. I don't think that I have visited C-Creek at this exact time before – Easter, March 27^th– but I was amazed with the multitude of the yellow nodder, Fritillaria pudica, and daughter Saya also adopted it as her favorite. Saya was particularly charged by its clear-yellow flower color, and that the specific name pudicameans “shy” in Latin, due to its nodding flower whose sexual expression modestly attempts to avoid detection. Rodrigo, the youngest of three children, gazed at Saya, at such an incredible creature, and smiled at her energy and zeal for C-Creek's F. pudicas, because there is nothing better than a pretty girl in love with flowers. The generic name is due to the Latin term for a “dice box” – fritillus– because of the checkered pattern of the flowers in some species. Many species are poisonous, but F. pudica is edible if prepared correctly, and it was eaten by the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. One wonders how many humans might die while a tribe tests a particular species to be edible or otherwise beneficial. Hey – you try it first! – and it was especially useful to have slaves for the research.

Sisyrinchium douglasii with the rare white-flowered form

The population of Sisyrinchium douglasii must be in the millions at Catherine Creek, but we were about a month late, and had to content ourselves with a few patches here and there. Just as well for I remember times when you couldn't go anywhere without stepping on them. Linnaeus named the genus in 1753 and used the Greek word Sisyrinchion which was recorded by Theophrastus. The corm's covering resembles a sisyra, or a “shaggy goat's-hair coat.” Recently S. douglasii has been transferred to the Olsynium genus, a group in the Iris family mostly found in South America, but it's difficult for me to abandon a life-long name for something new. So the flower that I am afraid to step on is closely related to the “Huilmo” of Chile and the Olsynium filifolium found in the Falkland Islands. The word Olsyniumis derived from Greek ol meaning “a little” and synmeaning “joined,” referring to the stamens. Whatever the generic name, in previous years – late February to early March – the most fun was to spot an albino flower, literally one in a million, and I seemed to be particularly good at it. I don't know the origin of the common name – “widow's grass” – but perhaps when an old eastern-Oregon redneck was finally laid to rest the Sisyrinchium/Olsynium sprouted atop his grave.

Lomatium grayi

Lomatium columbianum

There are at least 13 species of Lomatium along the Columbia, but I've identified only two at Catherine Creek: grayi and columbianum. The grayi is commonly known as the “pungent desert parsley” and the columbianum is the "Columbia desert parsley." My grandfather Gerald and I each had a pot of the latter, but mine was tortured to death by overwatering at the nursery. His was planted in pure sand and receives little or no water and it thrives. He loves to point it out to me whenever I visit, suggesting that a real plantsman can keep it alive. L. columbianum is an impressive signature plant of the eastern Gorge, and it features ferny silver-gray foliage and purple flowers. L. grayi is also impressive and it blooms at the same time as L. columbianum. The perennial herb's tap root was harvested by Native Americans as a vegetable or pounded into sun-dried cakes, while the stems and leaves were eaten either raw or cooked. The word lomatium is from Greek lomation for “small border,” a diminutive of lomatloma for a “hem” or “fringe.”

Balsamorhiza sagittata

Balsamorhiza sagittata exists at Catherine Creek, though it is far more plentiful about 25 miles to the west on Dog Mountain (Washington side). It is in the Heliantheae tribe of the Asteraceae family, so basically it's a one-to-three foot sunflower, and native to only the western portions of the United States and Canada. As with the Lomatium, the balsam roots were harvested by Native Americans. I can't imagine the energy expended to dig out an 8' taproot in rocky soil. With a pick and shovel I think it would take me half a day, but maybe the Natives had a method to make it easier. The top of the plant is edible as well, though not very tasty, and its sap was used to treat wounds. It is staggering how the Natives related to the natural world – as a means to survive – compared to the disconnect of most Americans today. Of my five children, who I love and respect deeply, only Saya seems really interested in nature, but maybe that's because she loves to bond with me. Merriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition collected a specimen in 1806 and it was scientifically described by Englishman Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859). The word balsam is from Greek balsamon which is ultimately of Semitic origin, akin to Hebrew basham. It refers to a beneficial – and usually aromatic – sap that exudes from many plants. Rhiza is also Greek and means “root.”

Haruko on Dog Mountain

I mentioned earlier that Dog Mountain, rising about 3,000' next to the Columbia River, is a location where Balsamorhiza literally smothers the upper slopes. This is the place where west meets the east, and there's even a joke that the trail to the top is the boundary line, and that the rattlesnakes will not cross the trail to the western side. One time when I was descending I met a young couple on their ascent and they warned me that a rattlesnake was next to the trail about 3 or 4 switchbacks lower. They were a cute couple, dressed in their crisp REI shorts and boots, and the woman was very enthusiastic about saving my life from snakebite. I thanked her, and then I said, “By the way, you are standing in poison oak.” She gasped and instantly jumped out of it. I never did see her snake, though I was very careful, but I wondered if she developed a rash from the poison oak.

Crocidium multicaule

While the Balsamorhiza is large and splashy with color, Crocidium multicaule is tiny and fragile-looking, but its flower is a clear butter-yellow. It too is in the Asteraceae family, but its flowers are so dainty that they appear to float in air.* It is an annual with leaves on the ground, and the flowers sit atop foot-tall multiple (hence multicaule) gangly stems. Saya fell in love with the Crocidiums, nearly as much as she did with the Fritillaria pudica, and on the way home she kept repeating these botanic names, and then proceeded to brag about her exciting day to her mother and sister.

*Its common name is “Gold Stars.”

Mahonia aquifolium

Also blooming yellow was Mahonia aquifolium, and it could be true or not, but it just seems that the yellows are more intense at the east end of the Gorge than at home. I have written about Mahonia aquifolium in the past so I won't drag out the story again, other than to repeat that the specific name has nothing to do with water – even though the foliage is glossy and looks “wet” – but rather because the leaves have a sharp downward-turning point which resembles an eagle's beak.*

*Aquila is Latin for eagle

Rodrigo at Multnomah Falls

Rodrigo at Horsetail Falls

Rodrigo and Saya

I should mention that the minute we arrived at Catherine Creek the rain stopped and the sun shined brightly, so I was a good boss after all. On return we crossed back to Oregon at the Dalles, and later exited the freeway to take the old historic Columbia River Highway. Rodrigo could experience the big difference between the flora of east vs. west which occurs in such a short distance. The Oregon side of the River features numerous waterfalls – hence the Cascade-name for the mountain range that divides west from east. The first waterfall we stopped at was Horsetail Falls and Rodrigo wanted his photo taken. I didn't know how to use his phone-camera, but Saya did, and that night he emailed photos to his family. While he initially thought that Horsetail Falls would be the highlight of his day, a few minutes later we arrived at the much larger Multnomah Falls, and he and Saya hiked up to the iconic bridge. One time a wedding was being conducted on the bridge when a huge boulder dislodged itself from the canyon wall and splashed into the pool below. No one was hurt but the entire wedding party got soaked. What a memorable wedding, and I hope that they are still happily married.

At Catherine Creek

A few words about Rodrigo. He comes to my company for a year via the International Farmers Aid Association, an organization that arranges for his visa. At first I was positive that I would not hire him based on his bio: He is 26 years old and has a masters degree in genetics and plant breeding. I have had “educated” Brazilian men before, and like most Americans with a college degree, they are useless in a wholesale nursery. I was assured by the program that he was different, that he would gladly accept any assignment, and importantly that he was no stranger to physical work. I doubted that, especially since he listed his weight at 187 lbs. but stood only 5' 8” tall. Nevertheless we made a Rodrigo Desordi sign and I drove to the airport. Imagine my surprise when a 6' 2” movie-star-good-looking man smiled from 20 steps away. He has been at work for about twenty days and he is more than holding his own with his co-workers. I am impressed by his aura of confidence that is tempered with humility – really a perfect combination.

Grandfather Gerald at Catherine Creek with Mt. Hood in the background

Washington and Oregon are wonderful states which are famous for their beauty of nature, and it is exemplified by the Columbia River Gorge. You have wildflowers, rangelands and lush forests, world-class waterfalls, and you can purchase fresh salmon from Native Americans. Also Metasequoia was once native, as evidenced by the fossil record. The Gorge has nurtured me, has made me who I am, and has furthered my botanical awareness – my connection to life – and I was so proud to show it off to my Brazilian friend, Rodrigo.

Wahkeena Falls

Our last waterfall was Wahkeena Falls, so-named for a beautiful Indian native. The parking lot was full so I idled in the car while Saya and Rodrigo crossed the highway to take a photo. They instinctively held hands both ways, each happily smiling; and later Saya told her mother that he was “so nice.”

P.S. Prior to Rodrigo's arrival we were at our farewell dinner for our previous intern, Takahiro Bito from Japan, and Bito-san showed me a Facebook photo of Rodrigo's girlfriend. I gasped at her breath-taking beauty – I couldn't help it – but it angered my almost teenage daughter, Harumi, for she thinks that I should only admire the beauty of her mother. As a wise course, the medical-student girlfriend is spending a year studying in Germany, while Rodrigo is away slaving for me in Oregon. My wife Haruko and I did the same while she finished her college degree in Tokyo, and I cheer that the Brazilians will have the same happy outcome that has blessed us.

The Blue Forest

I have a two acre garden called the Blue Forest, where once every plant was a blue, or bluish, conifer. I eventually tired of it and proceeded to plant other colors, and now I like it much better. No garden has to be organized around a theme, just as our lives don't necessarily have to be lived with a guiding purpose...well, other than food and sex. Sometimes a plant collection – ranging in size from a small home-owner's plot to a huge arboretum – attempts a theme, such as the “state” trail through Portland, Oregon's Hoyt Arboretum, where California was represented by its native Sequoiadendron and Washington by Tsuga heterophylla etc. I haven't been on that trail for years, but I thought it was an interesting concept, and no doubt they copied it from somewhere else.

The Hoyt Arboretum

The Hoyt once had a director who proposed that the couple-hundred-acre collection should be entirely rearranged, so that you would have a Himalayan section, an Australian section and a South American section and so on. Since the Hoyt is owned by the city of Portland, he was an official government employee, one of a perplexing group who proposes grand schemes regardless if money is available or not.* It is not, reallynot. Some of the native conifers are a hundred years old, the Sequoiadendron have calipers of four feet and the old Pinus bungeana has a girth of canopy making it impossible to dig and move. It seemed like this public employee had no grasp on the concept of financial prioritizing, so hey: just float a bond measure.

*The debt for the city of Portland is nearly four billion dollars...and growing, and no one seems to care. The same attitude exists at the state level, and do you really think that Obama loses one wink of sleep over our staggering national debt?

Scilla peruviana var. hughii

Scilla peruviana

My own plant collection is as “disorganized” as anyone's, with the only theme being that I plant what I like, and hope to make money from some of them. Recently I bought a Scilla peruviana var. hughii which features white blossoms, but I have no intention to propagate and sell any. I just wanted a companion for my blue-flowered S. peruviana, so I was thinking about the plant more than myself I guess.

The Long Road Section at Buchholz Nursery

Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans Aurea'

To illustrate how disorganized my collection is, let's take a walk up the path in our Long Roadsection, a narrow rectangle at 385' in length and 40' in width. The anchor-tree at the west end is Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans Aurea'. It was once considered a “slow-growing dwarf conifer,” but my 36-year-old specimen is already over 40' with four main trunks, all well over a foot in diameter.

Picea orientalis 'Aureospicata'

The Cryptomeria vies in height with a Picea orientalis 'Aureospicata', and both are about the same age. The Picea is from northern Turkey and the Caucasus region, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. This area lies between the artificial boundary of Europe and Asia, and of course it defines pasty white guys like me.

Davidia involucrata 'White Dust'

Within a few steps of these two conifers is Davidia involucrata 'White Dust', a cultivar which was gifted to me by Akira Shibamichi of Japan. Shee ba mee chee– with a last name like that you don't really need a first name. Actually he has sent to me a number of quality new plants, and it's not because he thinks so highly of me, but rather because he was fascinated with my charming wife who is quite adept at flirting with older men. The variegation on 'White Dust' does not impress me greatly – white spots on green leaves – but the reddish new growth is quite nice.

Magnolia 'Kiki's Broom'

Kiki

Near the three previous trees is Magnolia 'Kiki's Broom', a slow-growing bushy selection that originated as a witch's broom mutation. The flowers appear to be that of a M. x soulangeana, and though smaller, they bloom prolifically atop the tree. I was originally given scions of it by Greg Williams of Vermont, but I believe that he discovered it in a warmer state. Mr. Williams became reclusive and it is nearly impossible to communicate with him. After growing the plant for years I finally propagated it, and had to call it something. Kiki was a cute animated girl from Japan who flew from adventure to adventure on a broom in Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 movie, Kiki's Delivery Service. Adults will enjoy this film as much as children, and I can guarantee that it is more fun than reading my blog.

Enkianthus campanulatus 'Showy Lantern'

So far I've discussed four trees hodge-podged in close proximity, but their only connection is that I make a living by selling their progeny. A nearby tree that I don't propagate anymore is Enkianthus campanulatus 'Showy Lantern', and that is because you stopped buying them. That's a shame, for it is a very beautiful shrub with its red-bell flowers in spring and spectacular autumn foliage. My specimen is eight feet tall and only four feet wide and it fits nicely amongst the maples and conifers, never demanding any care or attention.

Parrotia persica 'Vanessa'

Parrotia persica 'Persian Spire'

Ginkgo biloba 'Blue Cloud'

Two Parrotia persicas are in the Long Road section, 'Vanessa' and 'Persian Spire'. 'Vanessa' is considered the “columnar ironwood,” so it makes a good choice for smaller landscapes or near streets. While I still have one in the collection we don't propagate it anymore, and the reason is because 'Persian Spire' is far more narrow. It was discovered by John Lewis of JLPN Nursery from Salem, Oregon, and since it is patented I can only buy my starts from him. There's no incentive in him allowing me to propagate, and then pay the fees because my sales are too small to deal with the extra paperwork. I mention it because that situation affects the small nurseryman, that we're not large enough playersto buy growing rights, and we're also too small to patent our own stuff like my blue Ginkgo.

Magnolia x 'Vulcan'

But back to the trail. Magnolia x'Vulcan' was more spectacular this year than any before. The tree is about twenty years old and it produced hundreds of blossoms...which are now littering the ground, but it was fun while it lasted. 'Vulcan' was a hybrid of Magnolia campbellii ssp. mollicomata 'Lanarth' with M. liliiflora, and it is a sister to M. 'Apollo', another excellent selection. The Jurys of New Zealand are responsible for the hybrids, and the next generation is continuing the work. The only problem with them is the use of M. campbellii which is native to the lower elevations in Nepal, India, Bhutan and southwest China. In one out of every four or five years in Oregon the buds will blacken from a hard frost, but that's a small price to pay for a tree of such great beauty.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Harumi'

A nice Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Harumi' is in the Long Road. It originated as a cream-white mutation on the green C.o. 'Tsatsumi', and displays 'Tsatsumi's' thread-like foliage. It's not unusual to find these, but that doesn't guarantee that they will grow into stably-variegated plants. Harumi means “spring beauty” in Japanese, and I named it before I had any clue that I would marry a Japanese woman. I first encountered the name in the travelogue Pictures from the Water Trade, an evocative and at times erotic story about a Westerner's discovery of Japan. Haruko and I named our first child Harumi Claire, so if she grew up and didn't like the Japanese name she could go by Claire. Whenever I walk past the 'Harumi' hinoki I'm amazed about how the stars lined up so that I would have a daughter with the same name.

Acer palmatum 'Jiro shidare'

Acer palmatum 'Jiro shidare' was small when I planted it twenty years ago. I staked it for height, but for many years it looked ridiculous at best. Even though it was planted along our main road, I more or less forgot about it. Then one spring plantsman Don Shadow visited and enthused about the wonderful weeping maple by the road, but I didn't know what he was talking about. I went out with him and my gangly 'Jiro shidare' had blossomed into a real beauty, just as some skinny girls do. It's embarrassing to admit that I didn't notice her earlier, that it took a Tennessee nurseryman to point her out...on my property. 'Jiro shidare' was selected in Saitama Prefecture in 1968. Shidare means “cascading” while jiro refers to a “second son” (taro is “first son”). In the Vertrees/Gregory Japanese Maples it says that jiro means “white.” But not so, for shiro means “white.” By the way The Washington Post reviewed Vertrees' first edition, calling it “the ultimate book about the aristocrat of trees.” But there's no “ultimate” reference book, for it was already out of date when it was printed. It's a very usefulbook though.

Fagus sylvatica 'Purple Fountain

The Long Road contains an old specimen of Fagus sylvatica 'Purple Fountain'. After an initial stake, the cultivar will continue skyward on its own. Interestingly it does not remain balanced, for the north side is flat to the trunk while the sun-seeking south side stretches out. 'Purple Fountain' was raised from a seedling of 'Purpurea Pendula' in The Netherlands in about 1975. Even in the trade today, 'Purpurea Pendula' can be mixed up with 'Purple Fountain'. The former must be staked to develop height while the latter will do it on its own, but must be given adequate space in a larger garden or arboretum. Notice that the Dutch selection was not given a Dutch name, but rather an English name, and they usually do that as a European and American marketing ploy. Holland is all about the money, in fact it is said that copper wire was invented by two Dutchmen fighting over a penny.

Acer palmatum 'Spring Delight'

Geisha

Acer palmatum 'Spring Delight' has surprised me. I planted it as a 3-gallon pot with a one-foot spread about twenty years ago. For some reason it never gained any height like most that I grow. Now it is one foot tall by almost ten feet wide. At some point I'll have to prune to keep it from crossing the path. I am an “expert” on many plants, especially those that I introduce, but I continually find evidence that I don't really know what I am doing. I appear to be size-challenged, under-predicting how large a plant will get, and how quickly it will do so. There is nothing wrong with the older green laceleafs like 'Viridis' and 'Waterfall' etc., but 'Spring Delight' features leaves that are noticeably edged in red on the new growth. It is an added bonus to what is already a pleasing color. Similarly, a Japanese geishais an attractive woman with a certain skill or talent – a gei– for singing or playing a musical instrument or in conversation, and not just merely a pretty girl. It seems that 'Spring Delight' spontaneously originated, suddenly it was at my nursery and I frankly don't remember what I used as a mother tree for the seedling selection. I only remember that I was so busy building my nursery in my thirties that I had no time for details of its history, and I regret that much has been lost.

There, I have demonstrated that my garden has no theme, no organized principle, and that I just plant what I like. But everything in the Long Road section is beautiful, except probably not for the meth addicts and criminals in the neighborhood. I love it when plantspeople see the nursery for the first time, especially like now in the spring when everything is so fresh and vibrant.

Back to the state trail concept, the following is a list of some states with their government-approved tree, and the year it was officially decreed:

Pseudotsuga menziesii

Acer saccharum

Taxodium distichum

Picea pungens

Oregon 1939 Pseudotsuga menziesii

Alaska 1962 Picea sitchensis

Idaho 1935 Pinus monticola

Vermont 1949 Acer saccharum

New York 1956 Acer saccharum

Come on New York – you shouldn't copy another state!

Maine 1945 Pinus strobus

Michigan 1955 Pinus strobus

Ditto.

Montana 1949 Pinus ponderosa

Iowa 1961 Quercus rubra

Colorado 1939 Picea pungens

Louisiana 1963 Taxodium distichum

North Carolina 1963 Pine tree – no species given, although there are eight of them. The “Tar Heel State” name is due to the production of tar, pitch, rosin and turpentine during the Colonial era.

Pinus sylvestris

Araucaria araucana

Quercus suber

Olea europaea

While we're at it, the following lists some national trees:

Chile – Araucaria araucana

England – Quercus robur

North Korea – Pinus koraiensis (if there are any left)

Lebanon – Cedrus libani

Nepal – Rhododendron – no species, but there are many.

Pakistan – Cedrus deodara

Portugal – Quercus suber

Scotland – Pinus sylvestris

Vietnam – Bamboo

France – None

Switzerland – None

Sweden – Betula pendula 'Dalecarlica'

Greece – Olea europaea

Greece bird – Phoenix

Greece animal – Dolphin

United States – Quercus – No species indicated, but in April 2001 on National Arbor Day votes were cast and Quercus received 101,000 and Sequoiadendron giganteum came in second with 81,000. I don't recall receiving a ballot.

"Why do you need a theme? Look, Talon, you must remember that I have bestowed all

plant life upon you. Beware: I giveth but I can taketh away."

Boy holding an enormous leaf

I would love to show you a photo of a young boy holding an enormous leaf of the “Oregon maple,” Acer macrophyllum, but it was in our Portland newspaper and therefore the photo is protected under copyright laws. The Oregonian does not freely share even though they have featured me twice for free: once for my “Ghost” series of Japanese maples, and the other for my botanical and horticultural book collection. There would be absolutely no harm in sharing this photo, but I already tip-toe along the nebulous line of plagiarism, and I do so in nearly every blog.

Acer macrophyllum 'Mocha Rose'

Acer macrophyllum 'Mocha Rose' in July

In any case it got me thinking about the three species of Acer native to Oregon: circinatum, macrophyllum and glabrum. I was also prompted by the flowering – for the first time – of the original A. macrophyllum 'Mocha Rose', a chance seedling that I discovered about 13 years ago. No credit should be given to me because it was impossible to miss the strongly pink foliage in a batch of green seedlings that were being grown for rootstock. I've even witnessed truck drivers, on more than one occasion, get out of their smelly cabs to inspect 'Mocha Rose' for it is planted near the loading dock. Maybe its wrong for me to stereotype truck drivers, but they seldom show any interest in our tree collection and what we stuff into their 53' trailers. 'Mocha Rose' is such an unusual color I guess – would salmon-pinkbe close? My grandfather Gerald's wife, Harriette, was visiting a few years ago, and I pointed out that the selection had no official cultivar name. She suggested Mocha Rose as the rose foliage in spring turns to a light brown. That is an unusual color too, but it has absolutely nothing to do with burning or death.

Acer macrophyllum 'Seattle Sentinel'

I have grown other cultivars of A. macrophyllum, such as 'Seattle Sentinel' and 'Kimballiae', but the USDA zone 6 (-10F) limits sales. Also I think that gardeners fear that the trees will become huge, and it's true that they do. 'Seattle Sentinel' was noticed, named and introduced by Brian Mulligan in 1951, then director of the Washington Park Arboretum. It was found on a street in Seattle, and I hope that it is still there. Please Seattle, help me find it. One of its propagules exists at the west side of the Arboretum near the parking lot of the Japanese Garden.

Acer macrophyllum 'Kimballiae'

Acer macrophyllum 'Kimballiae' is a more bushy form and the leaves are deeply cut to the base. It has been known since 1940 and the original is also in the Washington Park Arboretum.

Acer macrophyllum 'Santiam Snow'

Acer macrophyllum 'Mieke'

We have two variegated (green/white) forms of macrophyllum: 'Santiam Snow' and 'Mieke'. The former was found near the Santiam pass east of Salem, Oregon, and was discovered, named and introduced by Heritage Nursery of Oregon. I bought a few but I have yet to trial them out in the full sun. I blogged about 'Santiam Snow' last summer, and the next day friend and blog reader Dave Kemper was driving home – on a road he has taken thousands of times – when he spotted a variegated branch on a “Big Leaf maple.” He brought in a gnarly portion and we were successful with a few scions. At this point in April the light yellow color has not developed into white. I wonder that if I had not blogged about 'Santiam Snow', would ol' Kemper have ever noticed his variegated tree? It was named for the nick-name of his wife Marieke. Variegated macrophyllums have been known for a long time, and De Beaulieu in An Illustrated Guide to Maples lists 'Variegatium' from 1893 in Germany, and says, “Old specimens of this cultivar progressively lose their coloring.”

Acer macrophyllum 'Golden Riddle'

Not surprisingly there are golden forms of Acer macrophyllum, with Dancing Oaks Nursery of Oregon listing 'Aureum'. I have not seen it and don't know if it can withstand full sun. They also list 'Elynor's' but they have no photo and it is one that I have never heard of before today. I have another golden macrophyllum – 'Golden Riddle'– but it is also in the greenhouse, untested outside. Due to the shady nature of the greenhouse, its outdoor color remains unknown.

The former champion Acer macrophyllum

Acer macrophyllum is a friendly species that I know well – I have rested in their shade since childhood. I was embarrassed a couple of years ago when the world's champion was toppled in a windstorm.* It was only an hour's drive away from me, but I never knew that the whopper existed there. One Sunday I paid homage to the venerable giant, for it grew along the highway in the town of Jewell, Oregon, population about 100. At first I passed it without notice, but I recruited two mossy denizens for information. They scratched their heads in unison, then called up the town wag. Certainly Flo would know, and indeed she thrice shouted out loud, “It's along the road, right past the school.” I didn't require the boys to repeat, but they did anyway. I easily found it...sadly lying in the weeds, not so great anymore.

*The current national champion is located in Marion, Oregon. Its circumference is 25.4' (7.7m) and is 88' (27m) tall with a crown-spread of 104' (32m). Marion is not far from the location of the 'Santiam Snow' discovery'. This spring I will make a trip to Marion in an attempt to make amends for being late to the Jewell tree.

Acer macrophyllum 'Jewell'

Acer macrophyllum 'Holznagel Tree'

There are a number of impressive macs in the area of soggy Jewell, which is about 20 miles from the ocean and receives double the rain as my nursery. Sometimes they stand alone in a pasture, other times they hover over a two-story house. Just outside of town is the Holznagel tree, nicely fenced off. I don't know anything about H. or why a huge tree bears his name, and I didn't want to trouble Flo with more questions. Anyway the tree is certainly older than anyone in town, and it exists grandly no matter its name.

Archibald Menzies

David Douglas

The Acer macrophyllum species was first scientifically described by Archibald Menzies of the Vancouver expedition. Seed was later collected by Lewis and Clark, and in 1826 David Douglas introduced it to England. Hillier describes it as “A large tree with handsome, very large, shining, dark green leaves, which turn a bright orange in autumn.” I have never seen the bright orange color; in Oregon it can turn a fantastic yellow though. The major freeway west of Portland (Hwy 26) features a two-mile stretch of woods that is dominated by Acer macrophyllum with their yellow precocious spring blossoms and dramatic fall color. Then one enters into a long tunnel where the kids sing “Flamingooooooooo”...and then you are suddenly in Portland.

Acer macrophyllum

Polypodium glycyrrhiza

Polystichum munitum

While the route into Portland is awesome– a word I rarely use – I think my favorite location to wander among the macrophyllums is on Washington's Olympic Peninsula at the Hall of Mosses in the Hoh Rain Forest. A loop trail of about one mile is full of maples – circinatum and macrophyllum – and they are fantastically festooned with moss and ferns. The fern in the photo above is the “western sword fern,” Polystichum munitum, and it happily thrives on the moisture of the maple's bark. In dryer areas like the Columbia River Gorge, the macrophyllums host the “Licorice fern,” Polypodium glycyrrhiza.* You can easily pull a piece from the tree, then you clean the roots and nibble at them. You just nibble, and don't eat, and your taste buds will indulge in a strong licorice flavor that lasts for a few minutes. It is sad to ponder that the vast majority of Oregonians don't know about the treats in the woods, but I was sure to pass along the experience to my children, just as my father did for me.

*The genus name Polypodium is from Greek polypodiun for poly– “many” or “more” and pod pous– “foot.” Glycyrrhiza is from Greek glukurrhiza meaning “sweetroot,” as glukkus means “sweet” and rhiza means “root.” The candy known as licoriceis made from Glycyrrhiza glabra, an herbaceous perennial legume native to southern Europe and Asia. Licorice extracts are used in herbal and folk medications, and the Chinese considered it to be a stimulant; excessive consumption, however, can lead to adverse effects, so don't let your kids get carried away with the black ropes.

Acer circinatum

Acer circinatum received its specific name from Latin for “circular,” referring to the round-leaf shape. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California, and in places the “Vine maples” can grow in impenetrable stands. I have seen forests – with circinatum as an understory – ravaged by forest fire. Everything is burned to the ground, but the vine maples quickly resprout. During the summer the leaves are a preferred browse for deer and elk, while squirrels and chipmunks eat the leaves and seeds. We must trap for squirrels at the nursery because at night they can eat a good number of Japanese maple one-year grafts; that are already sold, I might add. A. circinatum is in the palmata Section along with A. shirasawanum, A. japonicum and A. palmatum, and they can all be used interchangeably when grafting. I found it curious that Vertrees in Japanese Maplesincluded the circinatums even though they are not “native” to Japan. His reason: “Although Acer circinatum is not a Japanese maple, it is included here for comparative purposes because it is a close relative of the Japanese species...” Masayoshi Yano in Book for Maples resists the temptation. Vertrees continues by suggesting that a land bridge “connecting Alaska with east Asia allowed plants and animals to migrate between the two continents.”

Acer circinatum 'Monroe'

Acer circinatum 'Burgundy Jewel'

There are a number of circinatum cultivars, but oddly the 2014 Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubslists only 'Monroe' which was found in the Willamette National Forest, Oregon in 1960. Somebody dumbly named it 'Monroe' for the finder Warner Monroe, a college professor of philosophy. My largest specimen is planted at the edge of the woods down by the creek, and it measure about 15' tall by 15' wide. Back to Hillier, the Manual is like a bible for me, but my main gripe is how the English can be so insular, kind of like the Chinese who assume that they are at the center of the Earth. Hillier's list (2014) of palmatum cultivars contains 'Dissectum Nigrum', 'Dissectum Ornatum', 'Dissectum Palmatifidum' and 'Dissectum Variegatum', most of which no one grows anymore. It would have been easy to copy from the Vertrees/Gregory 4^th edition. I was surprised that Acer circinatum 'Burgundy Jewel' was not included. I was one of the first to grow it and I sent it to England (Junker Nursery) a long time ago. It was even featured in The Garden, a monthly publication from the Royal Horticultural Society. 'Burgundy Jewel' was discovered by Gordy Halgren of Peacedale Nursery in Washington state, not in Oregon as stated by the Vertrees/Gregory book. We grow ours in full sun, as in shade the leaves remain greenish. It is a stout, vigorous cultivar which we propagate onto palmatum rootstock.

Acer circinatum 'Little Gem'

The first Vine maple cultivar that I acquired was 'Little Gem' which was discovered as a witch's broom mutation in Stanley Park, Vancouver B.C. by plantsman Alleyne Cook. He found at least one other mutation which simply went by the name 'Alleyne Cook'. I never met the man, but I bought a portion of his book collection, and inside of one of E.H. Wilson's books was a photo of Mr. Cook with a pretty girl. I wondered if she was his wife, or ?, but why was it hiding in an old plant book? Back to 'Little Gem', be sure to give it plenty of room. My 35-year-old specimen is planted in the Blue Forest, and it is now 7' tall by 12' wide, and yes it bulges into the road. I fear for its safety from the aforementioned knucklehead truck divers.

Acer circinatum 'Sunglow'

Acer circinatum 'Sunny Sister'

I suppose my best circinatum introduction is 'Sunglow'. Peter Gregory concludes his description of it, “It is very different from any other A. circinatum cultivar and is highly desirable.” Well, thank you Mr. Gregory, but there are six others much like it. Seven dwarf seedlings were discovered by the late Floyd McMullen of Portland, Oregon. He never named them, but I have two of the originals, so I introduced 'Sunglow' and 'Sunny Sister'. I never met Mr. McMullen, but he gave his seedlings away, two of them going to my Grandfather Gerald. I have never seen the remaining five, nor know where they are. 'Sunny Sister' is the more vigorous of the two, growing at about twice the rate of 'Sunglow', and the former withstands summer heat better as well. Every year 'Sunglow's' coloration is different, depending on how soon it gets hot, and I must confess that it can look dreadful by August – since mine is in full sun. I don't grow many 'Sunglows' anymore because they are susceptible to powdery mildew, a fungus named Podosphaera xanthii. I have read that milk, diluted with water at 1:10, is effective in the management of mildew, and it can be sprayed on the leaves at the first sign of infection, or as a preventative. Maybe I should get a cow.

Acer circinatum 'Baby Buttons'

The tiniest circinatum of all is 'Baby Buttons'; and ok, maybe it is the best of my Vine maple introductions. It too was of witch's broom origin, and its leaves are often only a half inch in diameter. As with 'Little Gem' and 'Sunglow', 'Baby Buttons' will be more vigorous in a greenhouse, leading the first-time visitor to conclude that it's not so dwarf after all. But plant one out and you will see. Our first propagated plants (about 2008) are only 18” tall by 18” wide, and they receive fertilizer. A cute specimen resides in a pot at the Rhododendron Species Foundation in Federal Way, Washington, gracing the front of the conservatory. At the nursery the plants are lushly green at the end of this April, and I pray that a late frost won't ruin the fun.

Acer circinatum at low elevation

Acer circinatum near summit

Acer circinatum is perhaps most famous for its vibrant autumn color, although in some countries – like England – they do not have the correct conditions for it to perform at its peak. The same can be said for the “Sugar maple,” Acer saccharum, which is largely a non-event in England. The fall color on circinatum can range from straw-yellow to orange, red and purple. A hike up Hamilton Mountain on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge illustrates the variation of color. At the bottom of the mountain the vines exist in lush soil conditions, especially along the stream. Their autumn color is a rich yellow. As one ascends, near the top the boney soil is more sparse in nutrients, and the circinatums glow with orange to red.

Acer glabrum ssp. douglasii at low elevations

Acer glabrum ssp. douglasii at summit

The same can be said with our final Oregon maple species, Acer glabrum ssp. douglasii. In lush conditions fall color will be yellow, but higher up on sparse soil the fall color is orange-to-red. This variation is most evident on Silver Star Mountain in Washington state. I have one tree in the collection at Flora Farm, and I planted it there out of a sense of obligation, that maple-man Buchholz should have all three of the Northwest species on his property, and it stands at the edge of the woods...and is totally unnoticeable. I know of no cultivars of glabrum, and I feel that most of the plant world wouldn't care if it disappeared altogether.

Acer glabrum ssp. douglasii

Amelanchier alnifolia

Acer glabrum is native to western North America, but it has a large range that extends east to Nebraska and south to Arizona and New Mexico. There are a number of varietiesor subspecies, and I have never understood the distinction between those two botanical terms. In any case Acer glabrum var. glabrum is the “Rocky Mountain maple,” but then so is Acer glabrum var. diffusum. Acer glabrum var. or ssp. torreyi is endemic to northern California. Acer glabrum var. or ssp. neomexicanum is native to New Mexico. You won't be tested on the above because neither of us knows anything about them, and all I have seen is ssp. douglasii which comes from Oregon and Washington and was seen by David Douglas. I don't really champion Acer glabrum as a landscape plant, but the shoots and seedlings can be collected and eaten fresh or cooked like asparagus. The “Douglas maple” was used by Native Americans to cure nausea, and the wood and bark were combined with Amelanchier alnifolia to improve the healing process of a woman following childbirth, and also used to increase lactation. That won't be of any benefit to me of course, and I'll remain content with my one specimen at the edge of the woods.

Saya at Wahkeena Falls

Attractive females are welcome to visit me in spring, summer or fall, and I can lead you to a place above Wahkeena Falls in the Columbia River Gorge where all three of Oregon's native maples thrive, literally touching leaf to leaf. To my knowledge they never hybridize, with circinatum in the section Palmata, macrophyllum in the section Lithocarpa, and glabrum in the section Glabra. All three are beautiful at their time, just as Wahkeena was known as a beautiful Indian maiden. All said, I wish to live in no other state more than Oregon.

Talon, you don't have to worry about showing the young boy with his huge maple leaf. I, I gave him the leaf, and I can depict whatever I want. Copyright laws do not apply to me.

It is not free when I take a photograph in the sense that I could be doing something else to benefit Buchholz Nursery. Then I pay Seth a boat-load to archive them, and believe me that he is a couple thousand behind, as photo projects are always second to the shipping of plants.

Seth is so consumed this month with shipping that when I mentioned another Flora Wonder Blog he picked up the scissors and came after me. Eric restrained him and eventually he calmed down. Later he apologized and allowed that we could squeeze out a blogette.

'Geisha Gone Wild'

'Rainbow'

'Sensu'

One former customer bought maples from me for many years, and I allowed her to use a few photos from our library, reasoning that if my photos could help her to sell maples then she would buy more from me. But she stopped buying from me altogether in 2009 because maples were being dumped at half price by other growers who were in financial trouble. I couldn't blame her; buy low, sell high. But then she had the audacity to request about 100 more photos...to help her sell other growers' plants. So after 20 years of accommodating her “special” requests, I banned her from Buchholz Nursery. There is no known cure for ignorance of her sort.

Often plant publications request to use our photographs. I'm always nervous because they can be depicted in ways beyond my control. Even the venerable Timber Press has screwed things up in the past. We finally came up with a photo policy where the publication had to sign off on our terms and conditions, one of which was that no photo can be cropped.

Fine Gardening's amputated photos

Fine Gardening magazine of Taunton Press, a bi-monthly publication of about 80 pages – which takes me about five minutes to digest – agreed to our terms for their “new plant” issue. They wanted to feature Sciadopitys verticillata 'Mr. Happy' and Acer palmatum 'Ikandi'. Well, what do you know? They broke their agreement by cropping both photos, even rendering the photo of 'Mr. Happy' as useless. My mind instantly went to my attorney, but he charges $350 per hour. I suggested to Fine Gardeningthat the least they could do was apologize and feature the full-sized photos in the next issue. They did not.

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Mr. Happy'

Acer palmatum 'Ikandi'

The correct size

Fine Gardening's editor, Steve Aitken, should be ashamed of himself, but I am sure he is smug in the assumption that he his bigger and more important than old soil-grubber Buchholz. I wrote to him, “Because of the breach of contract you are not allowed to use any of my photos ever again. Don't bother contacting us for future photo use since you cannot be trusted.”

Fine Gardening, like some worthless employees and customers, was not just canned but was shit-canned. Mistakes happen, I know, and I hold no one to perfection. But what defines you is what you do about it. Aitken's non-response reveals that he is limp of moral fiber. No one has ever told me that I cannot be trusted. By the way, their email is fg@taunton.com.

I still haven't ruled out my attorney's involvement.

“Wow Talon, you can really be an asshole! Leave the ignorant woman and limp Steve Aitken alone and spend your energy on the positive appreciation of plants.”

Buchholz Photo Contest Winner

The Variegated C-Section

A Cultivar Mystery

Treemendous Torsos

Keeping Floristically Fresh

My Contributories

Flowering Conifers

Bloom Time...Again

Undiminished Beauty

Guide to the Flowers of Western China

Making Babies

Deja Vu - All Over Again

Natives vs. Exotics

What Is It?

Answer to What Is It?

The Old Catalog Drawer

Catherine Creek

My Disorganized Garden

The Maples of Oregon

Shame On You