Flora Wonder Blog

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

Robin in the rain

Such a saucy fellow.

Robin in the rain

Mind your socks of yellow.

Running in the garden on your nimble feet,

Digging for your dinner with your long strong beak.

Robin in the rain,

You don't mind the weather

Showers always make you gay.

Bet the worms are wishing you would stay at home,

Robin on a rainy day – don't get your feet wet,

Robin on a rainy day!

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Last Saturday, 9/30/2017, I arrived at the nursery at 7 AM but I didn't report to anyone because no one was scheduled to work that weekend. Finally, two days to myself without employees or customers or delivery trucks...or problems, or complaints or broken equipment that would need repaired. Just me in a warm September drizzle. Our past summer was long and brutal with the irrigation team keeping the nursery vital almost every day of the week. Often I would have business to attend to in a certain greenhouse, but after a five-minute walk to the location I would discover the greenhouse engulfed with irrigation, and I would have to mentally reschedule my visit. Imagine the annoyance of trying to cut 25,000 maple scions – from 400 different cultivars – while dodging the damn sprinklers!

But today we're overcast and in the mid-60's for the high temperature. The earth exudes its petrichor*, the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Today it is baking and muggy in Baghdad and Calcutta but we are crisp and clean in western Oregon, and there is the temptation to shed my clothes and prance naked amongst the trees. Oooh– sorry for the visuals.

*“Petrichor” is from Greek petra meaning “stone” and ichor, referring to the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.

GH18

Acer palmatum 'Summer Gold'

I stick to the greenhouses to avoid the rain and my first stop is GH18 where we keep the maple grafts. I have visited at least once a day since July 17^th, our first day of grafting, and I like to flick off the half-inch petioles which after three weeks is an indication that the graft has taken. These will eventually fall off by themselves, especially when new growth appears at the fourth or fifth week on the scion, but I like to initiate the process. A year ago we achieved an excellent grafting percentage, but every season is different and I worry about the prospects for every one of the 25,000 that we did this summer. At least the Acer palmatum 'Summer Gold' grafts look good at this point.

Acer macrophyllum 'Mocha Rose'

Acer macrophyllum 'Golden Riddle'

Acer macrophyllum 'Santiam Snow'

The Acer macrophyllum cultivars are looking good as well. Not many companies produce forms of the “Big-leaf maple” because they're only hardy to -10 degrees (USDA zone 6) and because of their eventual size. A hundred grafts per year is enough for me, and this summer we divided the rootstock up for 'Mocha Rose', 'Golden Riddle' and 'Santiam Snow'. The intention will be to list them for sale at 4-5 years of age when they'll be about 8'-12' tall. I planted all three cultivars in full sun in the Quercus section at Flora Farm and eventually the canopies will mingle. I was especially pleased that the variegated 'Santiam Snow' held up without significant burning on our 106 degree day in July. The newly planted 'Golden Riddle' did burn – not surprising for an unestablished golden tree – but then new growth appeared in August and it withstood a number of 90 degree days. I guess that I mess around with these macrophyllums because the species is native to Oregon's woods and I have known the big monsters all of my life. It was introduced to Europe by Scotsman David Douglas in 1826 and scientifically described by the German-American botanist Frederick Pursh who was noted for studying the plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Davidia involucrata 'White Dust'

Davidia involucrata 'Aya nishiki'

Davidia involucrata 'Lady Sunshine'

Last year we grafted Davidia involucrata cultivars at the same time (August) as the maples with great success, so we're hoping for the same results again this year. We did a small number of 'White Dust' which we propagate about every third year...just to keep a few trees around the nursery. I don't really care for its white variegation but I am impressed with the reddish new growth. 'Aya nishiki' can be spectacular – like in Tokyo where the summers are humid – but Oregon's dry 106 degrees scorched the variegated leaves. Still, it's good to keep a few trees around. The bulk of our rootstocks are reserved for 'Lady Sunshine', a cultivar that is as spectacular as any variegated tree. It was discovered and introduced by Crispin Silva of Oregon, a plantsman with a small nursery, but notable for a large number of worthy plant introductions.

Stewartia monadelpha 'Pendula'

Last year we grafted about fifty Stewartia monadelpha 'Pendula' onto Stewartia pseudocamellia rootstocks. It was a 100% failure as zero grafts took. Hmm...was it because the crew spaced out and forgot to vent the poly on a very hot day? It was probably 150 degrees under the poly and the rootstock leaves burned, or did the grafts not take due to another reason or reasons? Stewartias are notoriously difficult to graft anyway, and one hates to scar the expensive rootstocks. With S. monadelpha as rootstock I achieved 15% success for 'Pendula' one winter with grafts placed on the hot pipe, and that has been my best result yet. I'm still growing these expensive trees on to a larger size before selling, and I will need a couple hundred dollars each before I can break even. I am unaware of anyone else in America who is producing this cultivar, with my start coming from Japan. I think it is a recent horticultural discovery, so the 'Pendula' name is not valid, and I would love to know what it is really called in Japan.

Cornus florida 'Autumn Gold'

Ok, that's enough time with new grafts in GH18 and I decided to wander into other greenhouses with more established plants. The end of September is an ugly time at the nursery with very little looking fresh, and not much yet in fall color. One exception was some containers of Cornus florida 'Autumn Gold', which normally turn a light golden color as the name implies. But as you can see (above) this year I am treated to some pink and purple leaves as well. 'Autumn Gold' flowers precociously, that is the cream-white blossoms (bracts) appear before the leaves, and then in fall the small red fruits blend spectacularly with golden foliage and golden-colored twigs. This wonderful dogwood is a selection from Don Shadow of Tennessee. We propagate by grafting onto Cornus kousa rootstock in winter on our hot-callus pipe.

Rhododendron luteum

In the same greenhouse I discovered that the deciduous Rhododendron luteum was displaying rich red autumn leaves, while a few old yellow flowers from summer were still clinging to the bush. R. luteum is known as the “yellow azalea” or “honeysuckle azalea,” and is a species native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia. The blossoms are strongly perfumed, too much really, and one year when I brought a bouquet into the house my wife threw it out in less than an hour. Besides, the nectar is toxic, and the Greeks knew as early as the 4^th century B.C. the dangers of R. luteum bee honey when supposedly 10,000 soldiers in the army of Xenophon became ill along the Black Sea coast of Turkey. R. luteum should not be confused with R. lutescens, the latter being evergreen and coming from southwest China.

Calocedrus decurrens 'Berrima Gold' at Arboretum Trompenburg

GH12 is a graft house where we heat it up in winter and produce various evergreen conifers. We've never had such a good take before on Calocedrus decurrens 'Berrima Gold' as last year and I think every one of the 500 grafts was successful. Due to last winter's abundance I decided to not purchase rootstock this year as 500 of any one conifer is quite a few for our small company. 'Berrima Gold' is especially attractive in the winter garden with its orange twigs and glowing golden foliage, and a mature specimen is particularly useful in the landscape due to its narrow habit. The largest tree that I have ever seen is growing at Arboretum Trompenburg in Rotterdam, just in front of the late Dick van Hoey Smith's house. The genus name is from Greek kalos for “beautiful” and cedrus for a “cedar tree,” and Calocedrus is a member of the Cupressaceae family.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Wissel's Saguaro'

GH12 also contains a nice crop of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Wissel's Saguaro' from last winter's grafting. All of them are borrowing the disease resistant lawson rootstock 'D.R.', and shame on any company that peddles a lawson cultivar on its own roots. Today's GH12 tour indicates that Buchholz Nursery will be well-stocked in the future with C. lawsoniana grafts as well as numerous Chamaecyparis obtusa cultivars grafted onto Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd'. We sell these trees as 1-year grafts all the way up to 25-year-old specimens – in other words there will be Buchholz trees for sale long after I am gone.

Acer ex rufinerve 'Winter Gold'

Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix'

A few years ago I purchased 50 trees of Acer ex rufinerve 'Winter Gold' and now they are 7-8' tall at the northeast corner of GH15. How fast they grew! When I placed my order I wasn't paying attention and I thought I was buying 'Winter Gold' itself. The “ex” before the name is a ploy that reveals you are buying seedlings with 'Winter Gold' as the mother tree. In any case they all look alike – you could say that they “came true” – and all are glowing with yellow-orange stems. I'll plant a couple out in the gardens and try to sell the remainder. Hopefully they'll be stronger than the one last Acer rufinerve 'Erythrocladum' that was 90% dead in the garden last winter, and that we finally tossed onto the burn pile. I wasn't sorry to see it go because horticulture doesn't need a rufinerve 'Erythrocladum' since we already have a pensylvanicum 'Erythrocladum'. Both cultivars are wimps, of “weak constitution” as Hillier puts it in his Manual of Trees and Shrubs. For winter-red bark we favor Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix'. The xconspicuum hybrid is Acer davidii x Acer pensylvanicum, with 'Phoenix' originating as a seedling of A. x. c. 'Silver Vein'.

Polystichum setiferum 'Bevis'

We are growing a frothy fern in GH23, Polystichum setiferum 'Bevis', and it is commonly called the “Bevis European soft shield fern.” This week I hope for a dry day and I'll put it in the garden where it belongs, as I only have the one and it's in a crowded greenhouse. As usual with ferns I turn to Sue Olsen's Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns, and she calls the “Bevis Group” “the cherished treasure among P. setiferum cultivars.” Sue relates that it was named for Mr. Bevis who was in charge of trimming hedge banks in Devon, England. He discovered it in 1876 and had the skill and presence of mind to recognize it as different. “It has been a great gift to horticulture ever since.” I have a perfect place for mine in the Display Garden in the shade of an Acer palmatum 'Sherwood Flame'.

Fagus sylvatica 'Bicolor Sartini'

Fagus sylvatica 'Albovariegata'

In the same house as the Bevis fern is Fagus sylvatica 'Bicolor Sartini', a cultivar with pale green leaves edged with yellow variegation. I grow one in full sun at Flora Farm, and although it doesn't burn it is largely a non-event in the Oregon heat. I imagine it is best in partial shade – but not too much! – especially with a backdrop of dark green evergreens. We also house Fagus sylvatica 'Albovariegata', but I insist the crew keeps them separate and far apart from 'Bicolor Sartini'. A word of cultural advice is to prune both cultivars into bushy shrubs, for the color is more apparent when looked at rather than up at.

Magnolia x 'March Till Frost'

What's that...at the end of the greenhouse? Ah, a Magnolia in bloom, and it turns out that it's the cultivar 'March Till Frost'. It's a complicated hybrid of (Magnolia liliiflora x M. cylindrica) x M. x'Ruby'. It was accomplished by August Kehr in 1997 and it really does bloom as the name implies. Another specimen now in flower is planted along the long road to my home, and I like to surprise my wife with these floral treats as she ferries the kids to school and runs a million other errands. 'March Till Frost' will not grow to a huge size, but I imagine it will get to at least 20' tall, judging by what I have seen so far.

Quercus alnifolia

I have one Quercus alnifolia at the nursery, gifted to me by Guy Meacham of PlantMad Nursery, a company known for “Growing Plants for the Fun of It!” I'm not positive but I think he produces the curious “Golden oak of Cyprus” from rooted cuttings. Its common name is due to its dark, glossy rounded leaves which are colored yellow beneath, and I never fail to lift up a leaf for visitors. Q. alnifolia can be found in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus so I don't know how hardy it is. Although Cypress[sic] is the third largest island in the Mediterranean, I suspect that 99% of USA high school graduates could never locate it on a world map. I'm not bragging because I can, but I mention it because the geography of plant origins has been my life-long hobby and some of the highlights of my life have been to visit them in the wild.

Acer mandshuricum

I thought I was done talking about maples, but I noticed that just out of the western door of GH23 we have a half dozen Acer mandshuricum. I couldn't miss them because they are currently adorned with royal purple-red foliage. The species is one of the first to color in autumn, but then it's also one of the first to leaf out in the spring. I have described the species sufficiently before, and I only mention it now because the leaves went from green to purple so suddenly. Also, a western shaft of sunlight has just pierced the overcast sky and is now shining upon them. I don't know why the species is spelled mandshuricumwhen it is commonly called the “Manchurian maple.” Anyway it is a wide-spread species that comes from much of eastern China...up to Korea and Russia. It is rarely seen in Western gardens because it leafs out so early and can be damaged by spring frosts. However, a nice specimen is growing at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston that is over 70 years old and is over 40' tall. It was still green early last October when I saw it – for some reason – because when I returned home my tree was in full autumn color.

Acer palmatum 'Purple Curl'

One last maple to describe is Acer palmatum 'Purple Curl', and the original tree is in GH15 with some other seedling selections. It's different, although I'm not really sure how much I like it. Also, I wonder if it contains any Acer shirasawanum blood in it, even though the seed mother was Acer palmatum 'Purple Ghost'. Yikes – old Buchholz sets aside large quantities of seedling selections, so expectedly quite a number of them don't really pan out. Will I drop 'Purple Curl' altogether or will I eventually produce thousands of them? As they say: “we'll see, time will tell...”

Calico Critters

My solo Saturday tour was...interesting but not great. I made mental notes about next week's work projects as is my wont. I reported that I had a “good day” when asked by my wife, but then any day alone is usually pretty good for me. When my daughter S. was 8 years old she descended to the basement alone to play with her toys. After an hour I went down to see her and I asked if she was ok or if she was unhappy to be alone. She responded, “I wasn't alone – I was with my Calico Critters so I'm pretty happy.”

Last week I received my 2017-2018 Gossler Farms Nursery retail catalog and I didn't have to pay the $2.00 like it says on the front cover. Roger Gossler visits and orders once or twice a year, which he has done since the beginning of time, and he “cherry picks” our best plants. Many nurseries hate it when customers attempt to do that, but at Buchholz Nursery we don't mind because we grow only the cherries anyway. Roger orders a wide array of plants from our three categories: 1) maples, 2) conifers and 3) everything else, but the common theme to his choices is that every plant is fun. Imagine that – making a living by peddling fun!

Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

Acer circinatum 'Baby Buttons'

Probably many of you Flora Wonder Blog readers already know about Gossler Nursery, but if you don't you are encouraged to head to gosslerfarms.com and get a catalog, even if he sticks you for the two bucks. Many listings come from my nursery, such as Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph', Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Sparkling Arrow', Ginkgo biloba 'Troll', Acer circinatum 'Baby Buttons', Acer palmatum 'Peve Starfish' and more, but in today's blog I will mention other choice plants that come from different sources, and you can be sure that I'll soon get my order in.

Berberis replicata

Gossler writes about Berberis replicata, “People always see this barberry and ask what it is and want it.” And why not, since it is a slow-growing evergreen shrub with narrow leaves colored rich purple on the new growth. Gossler states that his plant is 8' tall by 9' wide in 20 years, and in other areas it has proven hardy to -20 degrees F. Pale yellow flowers appear in May and black-purple berries adorn the shrub in fall and winter. The specific name is due to leaf margins turned backwards (i.e. replicated). It was introduced from Yunnan, China by George Forrest in 1917 and it received an Award of Merit in 1923.

Acer palmatum 'Shirazz'

Acer palmatum 'Geisha Gone Wild'

I used to grow a few Acer palmatum 'Shirazz', a New Zealand selection that originated as a sport on Acer palmatum 'Geisha'. 'Geisha' is notorious for reverting and sometimes the mutant growth can be attractive and a stronger garden performer than its parent. I know because my 'Geisha Gone Wild' discovery occurred at about the same time and in the same manner as 'Shirazz'. The only difference between the two is that 'Shirazz' is patented and mine is not, and my initial purpose to grow 'Shirazz' was to see if there was any difference, if one was maybe a little better than the other...but they're the same. Gossler is two-timing me with the 'Shirazz' listing since I don't grow it anymore, but maybe he likes the name better than 'Geisha Gone Wild'.

Arisaema flavum

Gossler lists Arisaema flavum which he calls, “Not a showstopper, but a fun plant in late summer when the red seeds appear.” I would agree with that. The yellow flowers are small and are hidden by the dark green leaves, but if you paw through the foliage to find them they are as interesting as any aroid. A. flavum is native to eastern Africa and southern Asia and it is somewhat edible and used as a famine food. You can get a 1 gallon pot from Gossler for only $15.00 which makes it a fairly inexpensive meal.

Arisaema sikokianum Silver foliage form

Gossler calls Arisaema sikokianum's Silver foliage form“simply amazing.” It is the Japanese “Jack in the Pulpit” and comes from the island of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Heronswood Globe'

I used to grow Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Heronswood Globe', in fact I provided grafts to the now defunct Heronswood Nursery for a couple of years. The photo above is of the original seedling – 15 years ago – in Washington state but I don't know if it currently exists. The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs lists it, surprisingly enough, calling it a “slow-growing bushy dwarf selection.” My experience was that it was vigorous, too vigorous, and that all grafts would eventually grow into upright trees. Another problem was that no one would buy my trees so I wasn't overly sad when my one last specimen was cut down for outgrowing its place in the garden. I attempted to root 'Heronswood Globe', for that would certainly reduce its rate of growth, but I never got any to strike root. Anyway, I'm not going to order one from Gossler; but I don't mean to be negative – you should if you have room.

Desfontainia spinosa

René Louiche Desfontaines

I might order a Desfontainia spinosa 'Heronswood', and I assume the cultivar epithet refers to its introduction from the aforementioned Heronswood Nursery. The spinosaspecies (“Chilean holly”) is one of three found in Central and South America and it was introduced by William Lobb from Costa Rica in 1843. The genus was named for the French botanist René Louiche Desfontaines (1750-1833). I would probably have to keep my plant inside a greenhouse as it is probably a USDA zone 8 plant, although I know one grows outdoors at the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden in Washington state (it always looks crappy though). One of D. spinosa's common names is Borrachero de Paramo or “intoxicator of the swamp,” and the Columbian shamans of the Kamsa tribe make a tea “to dream” or to see visions and diagnose diseases. Others report that the tea will “make you go crazy.” One thing is certain: you don't want your doctor to be drinking the concoction!

Daphne genkwa Hackenberry Group

Robert Fortune

Daphne genkwa is the “lilac daphne,” and it is a deciduous shrub from China, Taiwan and Korea. It was introduced from China in 1843 by Robert Fortune, the spy and thief who also stole tea plants and tea-processing information from the Chinese. Gossler offers the “show stopper” form called the Hackenberry Group, a clone or clones with lighter-colored flowers than the type, at least in our nursery. This “group” arose as seedlings raised by Don Hackenberry from seed originating in the wild in China, collected by the Beijing Botanic Garden.

Juniperus coxii

E.H.M. Cox

I notice that Gossler lists Juniperus recurva 'Coxii'. Most of the literature does not regard Coxii as a cultivar, but rather as a variety– so var. coxii with a small “c.” Hillier describes it as “An elegant small tree with gracefully drooping branchlets which are longer and more pendulous than the typical variety.” Just two weeks ago I saw a healthy gorgeous specimen at the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden. What a coincidence since I cut my oldest (25-year-old) tree down from the Upper Gardens the day before because I concluded that my arboretum is not a hospital for unattractive, struggling trees. My coxii suffered this past winter at near 0 degrees F, and in our brutal summer's heat it declined even further. Nothing is more unbecoming than a sickly old juniper, but still it was difficult to pull its plug. My old specimen was grafted onto Juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket'. I suppose Roger sells plants that are on their own roots – either from cuttings or from seedlings. In any case $24.00 is a steal for a 2-gallon pot, but only if you garden in a climate a little warmer than I do in Oregon. For what it's worth, Debreczy/Racz in Conifers Around the World (2011) gives coxii species rank, and state, “It is morphologically similar and has been considered a variety of J. recurva, but recent molecular studies support its treatment at species rank.” The name coxii is due to its discovery and introduction by E.H.M. Cox and Reginald Farrer from Upper Myanmar in 1920.

Magnolia 'Burncoose'

Gossler Farms Nursery has always specialized in magnolias, and the visitor to their Springfield, Oregon location will be treated to enormous flowering specimens in spring. In fact, our office Manager Eric Lucas has been growing magnolia from Gossler long before he came to work at Buchholz Nursery. Of Magnolia 'Burncoose' Roger states that “we got our original scionwood from Dr. Corbin's garden in Portland.” And so did I. Dr. Corbin received scionwood from various sources in the magnolia vanguard, then he would graft them onto the canopies of older established trees, thus having his new cultivar – such as 'Burncoose'– flower profusely in just a couple of years. The skinny doctor would climb into his trees at an advanced age to perform the graft...which was quite a sight. Naturally his wife fretted below, but the doctor loved to display his climbing prowess. Magnolia 'Burncoose' originated at the Burncoose Nurseries in Cornwall, England as a seedling from Magnolia sprengeri var. sprengeri 'Diva'.

Magnolia kobus var. stellata 'Jane Platt'

Gossler Nursery is famous for its introduction of Magnolia kobus var. stellata 'Jane Platt'. The late Mrs. Platt was well-known for her tasteful, artistically inspired garden in Portland, Oregon. In it was a magnolia grown as M. stellata 'Rosea', but Roger Gossler recognized it as being superior – a stronger pink – than the typical var. rosea. He writes, “One of the finest plants we have ever found. We named this glorious plant for our friend and mentor back in the 80's. This star magnolia can have 60 tepals that are a pretty light pink. We are thrilled that M. 'Jane Platt' received an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.” The flower color can vary somewhat from year to year, but I agree that this large shrub/small tree is one of the finest plants that one can grow. I purposely planted one along the driveway to my home and it is stunning when blooming in the afternoon light in late April.

Camellia 'Black Magic' on Omphalodes cappadocica 'Cherry Ingram'

Gossler lists Omphalodes 'Cherry Ingram' which is named for the English gardener Collingwood Ingram (of flowering cherry fame). I had to look up Omphalodes for I wasn't familiar with the genus. When Roger describes it as a low-growing perennial (1' tall) with brilliant blue flowers in March-April, then I recalled seeing it in his garden on early spring visits. I didn't know what it was then and I didn't think to ask. Now I think I would like one and he charges only $10.00 for a 1-gallon plant. I don't know how O. cappadocica 'Cherry Ingram' differs from the type but it did win an Award of Garden Merit. It is commonly called “navelwort” due to the shape of the seeds, as omphalos is the Greek word for “navel.” It is a cousin to the Forget-me-not and is also called Blue-eyed Mary.

Parthenocissus tricuspidata 'Fenway Park'

J.G. Veitch

Parthenocissus tricuspidata is known as “Boston ivy” even though the species is native to Japan, Korea and China. It was introduced from Japan by J.G. Veitch in 1862. Gossler offers 'Fenway Park', a gold-leaved form of the climber and says “Our plant is in full south facing sun and thrives.” It was discovered as a sport on the normally green ivy in 1988 by Peter Del Tredici of the Arnold Arboretum. And no, it wasn't found inFenway Park – home of baseball's Boston Red Sox – but rather on an apartment building near Fenway Park. I had seen it for sale in retail garden centers but never thought much of it, but after seeing 'Fenway Park' cover an entire building at Shadow Nursery in Tennessee a few years ago, I was impressed enough to get one for my plant collection. The botanic name is a mouthful, but comes from Greek parthenos meaning a “virgin” and kissosmeaning “ivy” while tricuspidata means “three-toothed” in reference to the leaves.

Quercus macrolepis 'Hemelrijk Silver'

The reason for a Gossler blog is because of the new catalog, but also by coincidence they picked up an order yesterday from us and Roger gifted me a Quercus macrolepis 'Hemelrijk Silver'. Hillier (2014) lets us know that the oak is now Q. ithaburensis ssp. macrolepis, "a small to medium-sized tree with grey-tomentose twigs."'Hemelrijk Silver' was grown from seed collected on the island of Rhodes by Robert and Jelena de Belder, a famous plant couple from Belgium, the late owners of Arboretum Kalmthout near Antwerp. Roger doesn't know the trees' eventual size, but assumes that it's not huge as his grows 6-12" per season. In any case I've got plenty of room at Flora Farm and I hope to get it in the ground next week.

Rosa moyesii 'Geranium'

Last year Gossler gave me a Rosa moyesii 'Geranium', and in his catalog he claims, "This is the true R. moyesii 'Geranium' (there are many imposters). A 10-12' shrub with single red flowers (Red is only a general description. It is really different red). In late summer-fall the hips turn a glorious peachy orange." Hillier explains further that 'Geranium' is a hybrid of R. moyesii "which it resembles, but slightly more compact in habit..." Also the fruits are said to be slightly larger and smoother. "Raised at RHS Garden Wisley in 1938. AM 1950."

Rosa moyesii 'Regalia'

E.H. Wilson

R. moyesii is native to western China and it is commonly known as "Mandarin Rose." The American Rose Society wrongly claims that the species was discovered and introduced by E.H. Wilson, but it was first discovered in 1893 by A.E. Pratt, and then introduced by Wilson in 1903. Wilson was collecting for the Veitch Nursery firm, who first exhibited it in flower in June 1908. The specific name commemorates the Reverend J. Moyes, a missionary in China whose Protestant organization encouraged members to wear Chinese dress and sport pig-tails to impress the locals who were undergoing the conversion attempt.

Viburnum opulus 'Aureum'

I wouldn't want a Viburnum opulus 'Aureum' in the middle of my Display Garden, but I am most happy to have it growing in a semi-wild state down by the pond. Gossler says, "This Viburnum has golden leaves from April-October." The white lace-cap flowers are mainly lost in the golden foliage, and I know that many Junes have come and gone that I have missed them in bloom. Ah well, the rosy-red leaves are attractive in early fall, then they turn to absolute purple by November. If grown in shade the leaves will be lemon-green, but if placed in full sun they can burn (in Oregon) so wise siting is important. Viburnum opulus is commonly known as the "European cranberry bush" and sometimes as "cramp bark" as its medicine can help regulate cycles and relieve menstrual cramps. Yikes! – glad to be a guy.

Stewartia pseudocamellia 'Pewter'

Stewartia koreana

It's obvious by now that Gossler Farms Nursery offers a wide selection of choice garden trees and shrubs. One genus that is well represented is Stewartia, in fact some would go so far as to call them snob trees. They aren't cheap, but the species and cultivars offered must be considered. S. pseudocamellia 'Pewter' was discovered by Guy Meacham of PlantMad and it features green leaves with a silver sheen. S. pseudocamellia 'Pillar Bella' was discovered by Oregon's Crispin Silva and it's grown for its columnar form. Silva also discovered S. sinensis 'Gardens Guardian', and after 12 years the full bushy original is only 6' tall by 2' wide. You can also buy a Stewartia koreana, and a 50-year-old specimen in Eric Gossler's yard shows off its red autumn foliage that "can be seen for a quarter mile away." Hillier classifies it as Stewartia pseudocamellia Koreana Group and describes its bark as giving the "effect of beautifully marked snakeskin," and the species (or "variety" or "group") was introduced by E.H. Wilson on the Korean peninsula in 1917.

Besides offering great garden plants, Roger Gossler is known for his "garden coaching," for those who want assistance with their gardens, and if you bite you'll receive a 10% discounts on all plants purchased for the next month after the visit. The old geezer is probably worth your time, and I'll quote one of his happy customers:

Inviting Roger into our garden to be a "garden coach" was one of our best horticultural investments. He has an almost endless amount of information regarding plant growth and habit. His depth and knowledge on what to plant where, why, when and how was a great help to us. And, perhaps most important, it was wonderful fun. A visit from Roger would leave us quite excited about new plant possibilities. In a few words and wild hand gestures, he could turn an ugly shady corner bed into a colorful hydrangea planting that would be beautiful and hide the shed wall and fence. We will continue to use the garden coach service and we know that each visit from Roger will be enjoyable and full of new information.

Sincerely, N.B.

Surprisingly this year's catalog didn't make mention that you can also purchase Gossler's book, The Gossler Guide to the Best Hardy Shrubs Timber Press (2009), but I'm sure that they still have plenty of copies in their closets. This book goes far beyond my blog to reveal the Gossler experience, and I have read it word for word at least three times.

Roger Gossler

Running a nursery is a tough profession, but when you consider your plant friends, like Roger, it is a wonderful experience.

Elk Creek at Kelleygreen Nursery

Yesterday I travelled with Seth to southern Oregon, and while he drove I enjoyed the autumn color -- mostly yellow. Acer macrophyllum, Populus and Salix were all vying with each other for attention. The above photo was taken from the bridge at the entrance to Kelleygreen Nursery, fellow growers of maples. Thanks to Kevin and Jan for a nice visit, and besides I was able to bring home two new (for me) maples: Acer palmatums 'Scarlet Princess' and 'Baton Rouge'.

Aristotle

As far back as Aristotle* and perhaps beyond, the scientifically-inclined nerds of ancient days would cubbyhole plants and animals as a means to better understand them. In botany, more recently, plant families such as Rosaceae, Pinaceae and Leitneriaceae all end in aceae, and that is the Latin feminine plural of aceusmeaning "relating to, belonging to, having the nature of, or resembling." As with potātoes-potătoes, tomātoes-tomătoes, the pronunciation of aceae varies, and not wanting to humor anyone I use the suffix in written communication but it is not in my verbal diction.

*I recommend The Lagoon– How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi.

Leitneria floridana

Leitneria floridana("corkwood") is the sole member of Leitneriaceae*, a deciduous shrub or small tree found in the southeastern USA. The common name is because its extremely light wood is less dense than that of cork. It was named in honor of the German natural scientist E.F. Leitner (1812-1838) who botanized in Florida until his early demise (at age 25) in a skirmish with Seminole warriors.

*Recent genetic research suggests it could belong in the Simaroubaceae family in the Order of Sapindales (soapberries); i.e. it would be botanically related to the maples.

Asimina triloba

Being related is relative according to my uncle. For example the genus Asimina is the sole member of Annonaceae, and that would suggest that there's really not much else like it. By contrast it shouldn't surprise you that two members – out of many – in the Rosaceae family, Malus and Crataegus, are quite similar. It doesn't take a botanist to know that because even a child can see the fruits, flowers and trunks look alike. Asimina triloba is native to eastern North America and the common name "paw paw" is probably derived from Spanish papaya. With a sweet custard-tasting fruit it was a favorite dessert of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson planted it at Monticello, his home in Virginia. Before you gobble too many you should know that Asimina contains the neurotoxic chemical annonacin– hence the family name Annonaceae– which has been linked to palsy (PSP) and Parkinsonism.

Itea virginica 'Little Henry'

The genus Itea is also a sole member in its family, Iteacea, and it is a genus of deciduous and evergreen shrubs mainly from eastern Asia. One exception is I. virginica from America, a small deciduous shrub which produces long banana-shaped racemes of fragrant flowers in summer. I see a section of the dwarf 'Little Henry' at the neighbor's bankrupt nursery, and I have to admit that I'd like one for my garden. His should have been shipped this past spring but they still remain, and I don't know – maybe his price is too high. In their root-bound state they are already starting to color deep red-purple. The origin of the name itea is from Greek for "willow," and I guess the flowers on the neighbor's plants do resemble those of a willow (Salix).

Helwingia chinensis 'Big Leaf Form (male)'

Helwingia male and female forms

Helwingia chinensis 'Variegated'

Another interesting family with a sole genus – Helwingia – is Helwingiaceae. We grow H. chinensis, and though the flowers are unimpressive, they do grow epiphyllously (if that is a word), in other words they sit atop the mid-vein of the leaves. More than anything it is a curiosity and I like to point it out to visitors. "Plants can be weird, eh?" I grow two cultivars of the evergreen, 'Big Leaf Form (male)' and 'Narrow Leaf Form (female)', though I'm not certain if these are official cultivar names. They originated from a Dan Hinkley 1996 expedition to Sichuan, China. I keep my bushes in a greenhouse in winter as they have not proven hardy outdoors. I have seen a variegated form in Japan but I'm not certain if the variegation is stable, or even if this selection is in America yet, but I would buy one if I could find it. The genus was named for Georg Helwing (1666-1748), a Lutheran pastor and botanist, but I doubt if he ever saw the plant.

Ilex crenata 'Dwarf Pagoda'

Ilex aquifolium 'Night Glow'

Ilex serrata 'Koshobai'

You might suspect that the Aquifoliaceae family's name was coined for water-like or glossy foliage...that Mahonia aquifolium refers to its wet-looking or shiny foliage. But wrong. The aqui in these cases refer to the barbs on the leaves...that somewhat resemble the beak of an eagle. I have laid this out in previous blogs, and though an interesting subject I won't go into it again. In any case, it is surprising to me that the Ilex genus is the only member of Aquifoliaceae. Ilex – the "Hollies"– is a huge genus of about 400 species of evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs and we grow a number of them. Ilex crenata 'Dwarf Pagoda' is a wonderful evergreen (dark green) plant that won't outgrow its place in the garden. Ilex aquifolium 'Night Glow' never fails to amaze me for its luminosity, especially in winter. Ilex serrata 'Koshobai' (Japanese for "peppercorn") is a deciduous bush with the tiniest of red berries...borne in profusion, a perfect little potted treat for the Holiday dining table. Ilex– the Latin name first recorded in the 1500's – is the name for the "Holm oak," Quercus ilex, an evergreen from southern Europe that has foliage resembling that of the holly.

Corokia cotoneaster

The only member of the Argyrophyllaceaefamily is the Corokia genus. There are three species of Corokia, all from New Zealand, but I don't care for two of them. C. cotoneaster, however, is a fascinating shrub or small tree and we've been growing it for about 35 years. It is commonly called the "wire-netting bush" due to contorted branches and tiny silver leaves. Small yellow flowers appear in spring and orange fruits follow in autumn, but it is the curious branching that gives year-round appeal. The genus name is derived from Maori korokio while the family name refers to a group of plants with silver foliage.

Aristolochia durior

Aristolochia gigantea

Meerschaum Pipe

John Bartram

At some point the specific name of Aristolochia durior, in the Aristolochiaceae family, was changed to A. macrophylla. I'm not sure what prompted the change but now I have an added task to relabel my vine. It is a vigorous species that was introduced in 1763 from eastern North America by the early American botanist, horticulturist and explorer John Bartram.* The flowers are fun tubular things with a crook that give rise to the common name of "Dutchman's pipe." The family and genus name is derived from Greek aristos for "best" and locheia for "childbirth" or "childbed" due to its ancient use in childbirth.

Franklinia alatamaha 'Wintonbury'

*Linnaeus called him "the greatest natural botanist in the world." Bartram discovered and introduced a number of American plants including Kalmia, Magnolia, Rhododendrons and a wonderful flowering tree later named Franklinia alatamaha.

Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Red Fox'

Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Morioka Weeping' at Gossler Farms Nursery

I guess there is nothing else botanically similar to Cercidiphyllum, except that in appearancethere are many trees with round leaves (Cercis, Disanthus etc.). But Cercidiphyllum, or "Katsura tree," is unique to the Cercidiphyllaceae family. We grow a number of forms such as 'Red Fox' ('Rot Fuchs'), an upright with red-purple foliage and 'Morioka Weeping', a large-growing tree with pendulous branches. The latter might have an invalid name due to the combination of a Japanese name with an English name. 'Morioka Weeping' originated at the Ryugen Temple in Morioka city, and according to Hillier in the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs, the original tree is respected as a natural monument, and that, "Incredibly, this tree itself originated as a sucker in 1824 from the stump of a previous large tree." I wonder about that, that maybe a new seedling germinated on or near the previous dead tree. Anyway it's a good story and I would love to visit the temple. The next best thing is to travel to Springfield, Oregon and see the large specimen at Gossler Farms Nursery.

Ginkgo biloba

Ginkgo biloba fossil

No one even remotely involved with plants would suppose the Ginkgoaceae family to contain anything other than Ginkgo, and besides the Ginkgo is a monotypic genus as well. According to Hillier, "G. bilobais the sole survivor of an ancient family whose ancestors occurred in many parts of the world (incl. the British Isles) about 190 million years ago." I have a wonderful fossil from the Paleocene* Period, found in Morton County, North Dakota. I am a huge fan of Ginkgo and have grown cultivars my entire career. When my daughter H. was two-years-old we were walking hand-in-hand down a Portland, Oregon street. She spotted a single golden leaf on the sidewalk and announced, "Ginkgo biloba," then looked up at the tree's canopy. When my older children heard the story they were worried that perhaps I was brainwashing the poor child.

*The name Paleocene comes from ancient Greek for palaios for "old" and kainos for "new," referring to the fauna that arose then.

Ginkgo biloba

Engelbert Kaempfer

Conifer authors include Ginkgo in their conifer books, and Rushforth in Conifers suggests that, "Ginkgo has survived until modern times in two remote areas in China, one on the border between Zhejiang and Anhui provinces in the east and the other further west in Guizhou." Earlier in my career my understanding was that Ginkgo was extinct in the wild, so I'm happy to learn of its wild survival. It was Linnaeus who bestowed the name upon the genus. It is known in Japan as ginkyo or "silver apricot," and it was the German physician and naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) who visited Japan in 1691 and brought seeds back to Europe.

Sciadopitys verticillata

As with Ginkgo there is really nothing like a Sciadopitys, and you can't place it in the Pinaceaefamily even though it is commonly called the "Umbrella pine." Sciadopitys verticillata is a monotypic genus, the only member of the Sciadopityaceae family, and it is known as koyamaki in Japanese. The botanic name is derived from Greek sciadomeaning "shadow"* and pitysmeaning "pine," and of course the specific name verticillata refers to the needle whorls. Its native range is southeastern Japan at mid elevations with high rainfall and humidity, and so it is absolutely thrilled to grow in our greenhouses where it defies its reputation to be slow-growing. I invite you to look closely at a Sciadopitys because the needles that conduct photosynthesis are not technically the leaves; rather the true leaves are small scale-like growths that hug the branches. We grow a number of cultivars which I have featured over the years in the Flora Wonder Blog so I won't go into them now. Suffice to say that the straight species used to be in high demand twenty or thirty years ago, but not so much any more. My customers will pounce on any named cultivar, however, so you could say that the gardening elite has become more discerning.

*Another derivation is the Greek "skias" or "skiados" for "umbel." A few plantsmen pronounce Sciadopitys as "skee-a-dopitis" while most say "sigh-a-dopitis," and I include myself in the latter.

Euptelea pleiosperma

I grow a tree, Euptelea pleiosperma, but I have never once uttered its name. I bought 20 from a seedling grower who advertised that it was a root weevil magnet, that if you placed one in the middle of each greenhouse all of the weevils would reside near it, and then you would only have to spray one small area. I took the bait and put one in each greenhouse, but after a full season not a single leaf had been notched. It turns out that the Epilobium weed was much more of a magnet, for a couple of houses showed evidence that root weevils had munched on the weed. Anyway it took a few years before I was able to sell 18 of the trees, and then I planted the final two in the arboretum. Euptelea is no one's favorite tree and most would describe the genus as a BIO tree (Botanical Interest Only). In any case, it is the sole member of the Eupteleaceae family, and I guess you would pronounce its name as yoop tel ea. The generic name is derived from Greek eufor "well" or "handsome" and ptelea for the appearance of the fruits resembling the "elm." It comes from the eastern Himalaya and western China, and though it was introduced over 100 years ago, I challenge you to find even one in an American landscape or public park. BIOindeed.

Daphniphyllum himalaense ssp. macropodum

Karl Ludwig von Blume

Daphniphyllum looks like an evergreen cross between Salix magnifica ("Wilson's willow") and Rhododendron decorum, but it's distinct enough to be the only member of the Daphniphyllaceae family. Despite its name,* it doesn't even look like any Daphne that I know. The specific name used to be macropodum, then we were told that it's himalaense subsp. macropodum– which is a lot to fit onto a label – but now Hillier is content with just macropodum. It is said to thrive in half shade (Hillier) but at Flora Farm I have a number of them growing happily in full sun, and remember we reached 106 degrees F this past summer. I grow three distinct variegated forms of Daphniphyllum, and all three originated in Japan. Nevertheless the nomenclature is murky and I wish an expert would help me to straighten it out...in other words, what are their names in Japanese? One came to me as simply 'Variegated', but that can't be right.

*The generic name was coined by Karl Ludwig von Blume (1796-1862), a German Dutch botanist.

Paulownia fargesii

Paulownia fortunei 'Fast Blue'

I've never grown a Paulownia, the sole member of Paulowniaceae, and all of the photos above were taken at other botanic gardens. It was first described by Siebold (originally as Pavlovnia) and honors Anna Paulowna, queen consort of The Netherlands, and is commonly called the "princess tree" for that reason. The genus comes from eastern Asia and it is a common roadside tree in China.* In Japan P. tomentosa is known as kiri and my wife plays a koto instrument made out of Paulownia.

*If happy, it can grow up to 20' in one year when young.

One of the best parts of the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2014) is the glossary at the book's end. Also botanical names are described which Hillier calls "fascinating and rewarding." Another section is Genera Included by Family, and that's the part that inspired this blog, though I'm fully aware that contentious botanists in other publications do not always agree with Hillier.

To be sure some plant families contain genera that I have never heard of before, and it was a little bit of fun to look them up. For example Bupleurum in the Apiaceae family, Aextoxicom in the Aextoxicaceaefamily, Gelsemium in the Gelsemiaceae family and many others. Carpodetus is in the Rousseaceae family, and according to Hillier: "A small genus of 11 species of evergreen trees found in New Zealand and New Guinea." C. serratus is the "Marble leaf. A graceful, evergreen shrub or tree to 10 m with small, yellow mottled dark green leaves and small, white flowers, in cymose panicles in summer." Of course I had to look up the meaning of cymose, and I discover that it's "Having flowers in cymes." A cyme is "An inflorescence where the terminal flower opens first, particularly referring to flat-topped inflorescences."

One can go on-and-on about plants, and my wife wonders why I come to bed late. I regret, however, that by tomorrow I will have forgotten all about Carpodetus and most of the others.

I have probably stood on the exact same ground as David Douglas, the intrepid botanical explorer who was sent to the west coast of North America in 1827 by the Horticultural Society of London. He was a tough little Scotsman who was known to trek up to 50 miles per day...on forest paths in low-tech footwear. If one could trace 100% of his entire movements, and mine, surely we crossed paths somewhere, but I'll admit that after 10 miles per day I am entirely bushed.

Pseudotsuga menziesii

Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Compacta'

Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Fastigiata'

Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Glauca'

You could say that Douglas was in the right place at the right time for botanical discovery, and if he never existed someone else would have shortly thereafter made the discoveries. All plant explorers are competitive, and Douglas was forever worried if he would be given due credit for his labours, and the reason for his insecurity was because he was of a lower class than his high-pocket employers. I wish the paranoid Mr. Douglas could come back for a day, perhaps to visit me, so that I could assure him that history, especially horticultural history, holds him in a high place of honor. Take Pseudotsuga menziesii for example, the tree that is still called the “Douglas fir,” wouldn't he be amazed that nurserymen have selected dozens of forms – weeping, dwarf, narrow, extra blue etc.?

Pinus ponderosa

Pinus ponderosa 'Dixie'

William Hooker

Douglas introduced quite a number of conifers besides the Douglas fir, so many that he wrote to his patron Sir William Hooker, “You must think I manufacture pines at my pleasure.” It must have been a pleasure when he first saw Pinus ponderosa, now commonly called the “Western yellow pine,” but then it is the most widely distributed pine species in North America. He first encountered it in 1826 in eastern Washington near present-day Spokane, but it took Douglas three more years before he identified it as a new species (and not as Pinus resinosa). He coined the name P. ponderosa because of its heavy wood.* There are a number of subspecies, including the Pacific which are native west of the Cascade Mountains. A subspecies from the eastern portion of its range would not do well in western Oregon unless grafted onto a pine species such as P. sylvestris. There are “dwarf” cultivars of P. ponderosa but they seldom impress me – it seems they are forever shedding needles, and most eventually grow too large for garden use. On full-size specimens it is the trunk that is most impressive, with cinnamon and orange plates that are divided by black cracks, and a dry and sparse climate seems to produce the most colorful trunks.

*Also, the size of the species is ponderous. From pondus, the Latin word for “weight,” hence ponder, to “mentally weigh.”

Pinus lambertiana

Aylmer Bourke Lambert

Another great and ponderous Douglas discovery was Pinus lambertiana, the “Sugar pine.” Of course he wasn't the first to see it – that would be the native Americans – but he saw the large seed collected as food for trade. Native guides led him to a location in 1827 where he could see the actual trees, and as Douglas was shooting cones out of the canopies with his rifle he attracted a not-so-friendly band of Indians. After a tense stand-off Douglas grabbed his cones and ran for his life. The “Sugar pine” is so-named because a sweet liquid from the heartwood has been used in the past as a substitute for sugar. It is the tallest of all pines, up to 75 m. (246 feet) in the wild, and some of the tallest in the world grow in the same area as the giant redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum). I remember during my first visit to the Calaveras Grove in California that the pines actually diminished the grandeur of the redwoods. Not only is it the tallest, it is also the most massive of all pines, and its cones are the longest of any conifer. Douglas named the species in honor of English botanist Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842) who was one of the first fellows of the Linnean Society, the type of bigshot that Douglas felt compelled to impress.

Pinus sabiniana

Joseph Sabine

Dr. Forrest Bump

Pinus sabiniana, the “Digger pine,” was another Douglas introduction (1832), and he named it to honor another Englishman of importance, Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London. The common name came from the observation that native Americans “dug” around the base of the tree for its seeds. P. sabiniana is native to California from sea level to about 4,000' in elevation in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges foothills. It has adapted to dry hot summers, often in poor rocky soil, but it also thrives in the luxuriant confines of the Flora Wonder Arboretum. The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs(2014) describes it as “A remarkable pine....A medium-sized tree usually of gaunt open habit, with straggly branches.” I would agree with that description, but it's odd to read “remarkable” and “straggly” used together. One of my horticultural mentors, the late Dr. Bump of Forest Grove, Oregon, had a couple of old P. sabinianas in his wonderful garden. He described them as “perfect shade structures” for his extensive Rhododendron collection. The roots didn't demand too much moisture while the airy tops provided some respite from the blazing summer sun.

The former Pinus sabiniana

A nice P. sabiniana* was growing in the corner of Harleman Park, Cornelius, Oregon, only a couple of miles away from Flora Farm. One day last spring I drove past and noticed a crew and park department trucks parked next to it. The next day I was shocked that the healthy tree was entirely removed and the stump ground to sawdust. I immediately knew the reason, and later a call to city hall confirmed it, that the tree was cut down because it would eventually (but not yet) produce cones – heavy, yes – that would pose a danger to park-goers. I suggested that lightning posed an equal threat, but that wasn't the kind of citizen involvement that the government employees were looking for.

*Surprisingly Hillier and a few others spell the species sabineana which is a violation of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. In that Code, Recommendation 60.2c states that personal names that are already in Latin or Greek, or those that have a well-established Latinized form can remain Latinized in species epithets. In other words, Sabine's name is not "correctable" and therefore P. sabiniana is the proper name.

Pinus coulteri

Thomas Coulter

Pinus coulteri, the “Big cone pine,” is another California species that is related to P. sabiniana, except the former is a fuller tree with thicker needles. What both species have in common are their large, heavy (up to 2 kg) similarly-shaped cones. Isolated groves of P. coulteri occur from the San Francisco Bay area down to northern Baja, California. I have seen older trees in Portland, Oregon, in a climate one zone more benign than at my nursery where I have not succeeded. Other than the huge cones I find P. coulteri rather boring, kind of like an “Austrian pine,” Pinus nigra, but P. coulteri did win the RHS's Award of Garden Merit. It was Dr. Thomas Coulter (1793-1843), an Irish physician, botanist and explorer, who first discovered P. coulteri, but it was David Douglas who first introduced it to Europe. Scottish botanist David Don (1799-1841) was the first to describe and nameP. coulteri, as he did for other conifer discoveries at the time (Pinus bracteata, Abies bracteata, Abies grandis and Taxodium sempervirens – now Sequoia sempervirens – and more). It was also David Don who named the orchid genus Pleione in 1825.

Tsuga heterophylla

Tsuga heterophylla 'Thorsen'

So, Dr. Coulter discovered P. coulteri, but David Douglas introduced it. In the case of Tsuga heterophylla, the “Western hemlock,” Douglas discovered it but another explorer, John Jeffrey, introduced it (in 1851). Discover, introduce? – who can keep track of all that? Well, one should give credit where credit is due. One of the most useful and spectacular of all conifer cultivars is Xanthocyparis nootkatensis 'Green Arrow'. It was discovered and named by Gordon Bentham, but I introduced it (only) because he died too soon. In the case of the Douglas fir, Archibald Menzies discovered it about 1792, but it took another 35 years before Douglas introduced it. What is interesting about the western hemlock is that the majority of gardeners and conifer collectors would consider it to be more beautiful than its East Coast counterpart, Tsuga canadensis, but there are only a handful of T. heterophylla cultivars and hundreds for T. canadensis.

Abies grandis

David Douglas was in the right place at the right time to discover and introduce a number of the true firs (Abies). Not surprisingly Abies grandis is the “Giant fir,” and it can grow to 70m (230 ft.) in height. Douglas collected it in 1831 from specimens along the Columbia River. I don't know how to describe the foliage other than to say the needles are dark green and lie flat along the twigs. If in doubt about its identity crush a needle and it will pleasantly smell of tangerines. We used A. grandis as a Christmas tree one year and I was enthused to quiz all friends and family to see if they could identify the odor. “Dish-washing soap” was one guess.

Abies amabilis 'Spreading Star'

Abies procera 'Glauca'

Two more West Coast species that Douglas found are A. amabilis (Latin for “beautiful”) and A. procera, the “Noble fir.” I can distinguish one from the other – usually – except when I can't, as when they hybridize. The noble fir makes an excellent Christmas tree due to its stiff blue branches and “alpine” look and it has been our tree of choice for many years. A. amabilis would work too, but it is less encountered for such purpose, and maybe that's because the needles don't remain as long. Anyway, both species have wonderful garden cultivars, or just plant out the full-sized trees if you have room. I have discussed Abies procera 'Glauca Prostrata' before, that my specimen became apically agitated and now soars to about 35' tall. According to Hillier their original grew low and flat, originating in their Shroner Wood Nursery in about 1895. Abies amabilis 'Procumbens' and 'Spreading Star' are two cultivars that behave themselves and stay low, and a specimen of the latter is about 8' wide by 2' tall in 30 years at the lower end of our Long Road section.

Arbutus menziesii

Archibald Menzies

Thus far I have championed David Douglas and his conifers, but he also collected evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs. As with the Douglas fir, Archibald Menzies discovered the “Pacific Madrone,” but it was Douglas who introduced it in 1827. Arbutus menziesii is a fantastic species in the wild – I have it on both of my properties – but it is difficult to establish in the garden. Nevertheless it won an Award of Merit in 1926. Its trunk rivals any Eucalyptus or Stewartia for beauty when the smooth reddish-brown bark peels in late summer to reveal green tones. White urn-shaped flowers are conspicuous in early summer and are then followed by orange berries. There is an area in Seattle called Magnolia, and it is its second largest neighborhood. Magnolia's name was a misnomer – a boner – which was named by Captain George Davidson of the U.S. Coast Survey in 1856 who mistook the madrona for true magnolias.

It has been one of my life-long observations that Arbutus menziesii trees are particularly susceptible to low-life vandalism, as males – women would never do it! – feel compelled to carve crude graffiti onto the trunks. We receive messages such as “Joey loves Crystal” inside a misshapen heart, “Skate or die” where I would encourage the latter or “Jimi Hendricks rocks!” – to which I would agree, but why disfigure the exquisite trunk? A couple of years ago I took a photo of a large, beautifully-barked madrona growing on a hill just 5 miles from the nursery. It was sitting along a gravel hick-road that services trailer houses and welfare residents before the road descends into the relative opulence of Cornelius, Oregon. When Seth was processing the photo for our plant library he detected something which I missed – and he zoomed in to discover that "Bill" had previously made his acquaintance with the tree.

Mahonia aquifolium

Bernard McMahon

Thomas Nuttall

David Douglas probably tripped many times as he scrambled through our woods filled with Mahonia aquifolium, indeed our “Pacific Northwest fetterbush.” The “Oregon grape” is ubiquitous and uneventful to denizens of this region, but it must have been a choice introduction when Douglas sent it to England in 1823. Of low habit with bright yellow flowers followed by (somewhat) edible purple-black fruits, it will thrive in many garden soils...whether grown in sun or shade. One of Buchholz Nursery's first cash crops was the cultivar (or form) 'Compacta' and we grew thousands of rooted cuttings for the local landscape market. At some point we discontinued, but I honestly don't remember why. I still see the selection used locally, like in the parking lots of malls and supermarkets and even in the “landscape” in front of my local bank in Forest Grove. Douglas introduced the species in 1823 and it was described and named by Thomas Nuttall, the English botanist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841. The genus name honors Bernard McMahon, an Irish-American horticulturist from Philadelphia who took care of plants collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

David Douglas

D. Douglas, T. Nuttall, B. McMahon are all mentioned in this blog, and though they were born foreigners – exotics – they all contributed greatly to American botany and horticulture. Though his life was rather short-lived, I'm thankful that Douglas had a chance to make his mark in America. Who knows how much more he would have accomplished had ne not fallen – or was pushed – into a bull pit in Hawaii at the age of 35 where he was gored to death. He fathered no children; his only known “romantic” encounter was when a local Northwest Indian chief provided his 14-year-old daughter to Douglas. The chief's ploy was to gain status amongst his chiefly peers by using his daughter to form an alliance with a white man. She visited his tent one night but left running away and screaming in terror five minutes later. No white man from the Douglas camp knew just what occurred. Douglas was certainly mum because he didn't want his serious scientific reputation sullied in England by consorting with the American natives, even though all of the other European men did it. It is a bittersweet story, and I suppose that I would have rather stayed in the Pacific Northwest, stewing fern fronds and picking huckleberries with my native maiden, and to hell with the pretentious lords back in London.

Noted British horticulturist Brian Humphrey, now in his 80's, is writing a book on propagation. We're not close friends – he has been to my nursery once (long ago when I was young) and I have been to his place once in East Anglia – but we used to trade plants when that was less troublesome, and we still correspond, most recently about plant propagation.

RHS President Elizabeth Banks awarding Brian Humphrey with the VMH

Mr. Humphrey was a 2012 recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH), and that's a big deal since only 63 horticulturists hold the VMH at one time, marking the length of Queen Victoria's reign. He trained at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and he has worked for Hillier Nurseries and Notcutts Nurseries before starting his own nursery, propagating and growing rare and unusual plants. He was also a founding member of the International Plant Propagators Society of Great Britain and Ireland and became its first President.

While working on a section about pine propagation he posed an interesting question:

Dear Talon,
In the course of a literature search on pines I have come across a report in a Dutch paper 1988-89 period, on how pines are grafted in Japan. Two surprising facts come out. One, perhaps not so surprising is that their grafting methods involve apical grafts, usually what we would call wedge or cleft, a few Europeans do that over here, but the second is that once grafted they are placed in complete darkness for 4 to 6 weeks. This would seem to break all the rules of pines requiring high light levels etc. etc.

Do you have any knowledge of this and whether or not it is still practised in Japan? On the face of it it seems to be a good way of guaranteeing zero takes but obviously this cannot be their experience. Also surprising is that they graft some of their five needled pines onto P. thunbergii for Bonsai production, this seems against all the rules as well.
Perhaps Haruko can comment?
Best wishes to you both,
Brian

Pinus thunbergii var. corticata

I responded as follows:

Haruko is familiar with pine grafting for bonsai, but she doesn't know anything about keeping the grafts in the dark, nor do I. Maybe I'll try a few this winter and see if anything lives.

I suppose the value of a wedge graft – versus the typical side graft – is to get the union as low as possible, and maybe the wedge portion heals less conspicuously than cutting off the rootstock stub on a side graft. Anyway I've never done a wedge graft for a pine, but again I think I'll do a couple this winter.

Pinus thunbergii var. corticata 'Tsukasa'

One reason for using P. thunbergii for rootstock is that it grows faster than 5-needle rootstocks, and the "flair" at the base of a bonsai specimen is highly valued. Of course a bonsai master has tricks and techniques to make it all look natural. P. parviflora is compatible with P. thunbergii and I have known growers in Oregon who have succeeded with it, and also with P. mugo as rootstock. The mugo is a better rootstock for a parviflora scion if plants are to be grown in containers. Also it is very hardy, more so than P. thunbergii. What these grafts look like 20 years later I can't say. Another problem with P. mugo is that it is difficult to get a straight section of trunk that is low in the pot.

My old Dutch nursery boss

I mention the old Dutchman I worked for from time to time. He assumed he knew everything horticultural because...well, he was Dutch. He told me once that you cannotgraft in a poly house – it must be in a glass house. Each night I would return home from my job with him and successfully graft in my poly houses. Also, when I brought up the subject of grafting 5-needle pine onto 2-needle rootstock he grew absolutely disgusted with me and my ignorance. "You cannot graft 5-needle onto two-needle!" he thundered.

The Dutchman died about 20 years ago and he was soon thereafter enshrined into the Oregon Nursery Hall of Fame. I never will be because I am considered too irreverent.

Haruko has the ability to google in Japanese and she came up with a few websites or YouTube videos that show Japanese bonsai masters in action. She prompted me to search and I watched a few in English, so you might find something yourself.

Haruko and I would love to travel and visit England again. The problem is that we are prisoners of our 14-year-old's professional ballet career. The competition is intense and she can't miss any time. She is too young to drive to classes and so Haruko is practically a full time chauffeur – at least 4 hours per day, six days a week.

You are always welcome to visit us in Oregon though, but you must promise to drive on the right side of the road!

Take care,

Talon Buchholz

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Dear Talon,

Many thanks to you and Haruko for your reply. How interesting that she too was not aware of this curious procedure. I am sure the Dutch have gleaned the right information from somewhere but they give no source. Japanese nurserymen are obviously keen on their wedge grafts, virtually everything we had at Hilliers or Notcutts as grafted material from Japan involved wedge grafted material, same can be said for the Chinese. I have a few Dutch (Boskoop) nurseryman friends and will see if they know of this system.

I have attached a PDF of the chapter on Pines for your interest. As always if you have time to add comments or criticism it is always welcome.

Brian Humphrey is one of the few people who actually reads the Flora Wonder Blog, and he's never been afraid to comment, criticize and correct me for my mistakes, a service which I actually appreciate, so I'll add a few comments about what he writes:

“As Pines are extremely difficult to induce to root from cuttings grafting procedures are necessary to produce most cultivars...”

Pinus mugo 'Jakobsen'

I would agree with the above summation except for the significant practice of rooting Pinus mugo cultivars. At least one Oregon Nursery roots mugos by the thousands with 'Slowmound' being very popular, and I have seen their impressive crops with my own eyes. I have attempted to root other cultivars myself, but I haven't been very successful, however my research into the matter indicates that particular cultivars are more inclined to root and that timing and hormone strength also factor into the results. Oregon State University was conducting experiments as early as the 1960's.

Pinus sylvestris

But in any case I prefer to graft mugo cultivars because I don't grow them by the thousands and the few that I produce are faster to market when grafted onto an established 3-year-old Pinus sylvestris rootstock. Humphrey mentions that at the Trial Station at Boskoop in Holland (Prefstation voor de Boomkwekerij), “Surprisingly P. sylvestris is suggested as a better rootstock than P. mugo for many P. mugo cultivars, a conclusion likely to be widely contested by many Dutch conifer grafters.” Again, I prefer sylvestris because it is difficult to find a straight section on a gnarly mugo trunk.

Chamaecyparis obtusa grafted on Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
showing long-term incompatibility

I have P. mugo cultivars that were grafted onto P. sylvestris nearly 40 years ago and the compatibility is not an issue. Nevertheless, I agree with Humphrey's conclusion:

It is hard to summarise the above results and conclusions. It seems to be the case that often long term incompatibility is masked by combinations inherently incompatible but which survive and grow with varying degrees of success for periods of time. Unfortunately nurserymen may be guilty of perpetuating misconceptions as apparently successful combinations survive nursery life only to fail at some point in the future. While the pines do not pose such a challenge in discovering the secrets of graft compatibility as some of the hardwood genera, they do present problems which may take many years of patient investigation to overcome.

I like the suggestion that “nurserymen may be guilty...” Of course! Nurserymen are oftenguilty.

In his introduction to Pinus (Pinaceae) Pines Humphrey refers to “A limited number [of pine species] produce edible seeds, sought after by gourmets but also in past times an important food source for some American Indian tribes.”

Pinus monophylla

I can think of 17 species that produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting, and there could be others that I am overlooking. They include:

P. pinea	patula
gerardiana	coulteri
koraiensis	torreyana
siberica	lambertiana
pumila	quadrifolia
bungeana	cembroides
cembra	edulis
sabiniana	culminicola
monophylla

Pinus pinea

Pine nuts produced in Europe mostly come from P. pinea which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 5,000 years, and harvested from wild trees for far longer. Greek authors mentioned pine nut trees as food producers as early as 300 B.C.. Roman soldiers took them (P. pinea) as campaign food when they raided Britain over 2,000 years ago. Pine nuts contain 10-34% of protein depending on species, with P. pinea having the highest content. Although a “nut” in a culinary sense, in the botanical sense pine nuts are “seeds.”

Pinus cembra 'Glauca'

European pine nuts are distinguished from Asian by their greater length versus width (Asian pine nuts are stubby like long kernels of corn). In Italy they are called pinoliand are an essential component of Italian pesto sauce. Pinoli cookies (biscotti ai pinoli) are made of almond flour and then topped with P. pinea nuts. In Catalonia a sweet (panellets) is made of small marzipan balls covered with pine nuts, then painted with egg and lightly cooked. In Middle Eastern cuisine pine nuts are used in various dishes and in desserts such as baklava. By the way Pinocchiois the Tuscan (Florentine) word for “pine nut,” from Latin pinuculus.

American pinyon pine production occurs between 6,000'-8,000' elevation with the ideal at 7,000'. Humidity encourages cone development, such as in shaded canyons. Where humidity remains constant throughout spring and summer the cones fully mature and produce the best seed.

Pinus edulis

Pinus edulis was harvested by the Navajo people and was once used as a means of commerce. In recent times the nuts are harvested and one can purchase them at roadside stands in the American Southwest. I think I remember paying $16.00 for a pound, which seems like a lot of money at first, but then not really when you think about it. For some American species the 2-year cone is harvested in late summer while still green, then they are placed in burlap bags and exposed to heat (like the sun). It takes about 20 days until the cone fully opens. Strike the burlap bag against a hard surface, then separate by hand the seed from the cone residue. I bought my pound from a Native American, but there was no way he could identify the species as he wasn't versed in Latin nomenclature. One treat that I remember in New Mexico was a pine nut coffee known as pinyon, but it was heavy and a spoon practically stood up in the cup.

Pinus armandii

If one orders a high-end salad that contains pine nuts, they probably came from China which is the largest supplier in the world. You are advised to nibble at a few at first to be sure that you don't suffer from PNS (pine nut syndrome) and indeed the labelling on a package I purchased recently for this blog warns “Some individuals may experience a reaction to eating pine nuts, characterized by a lingering bitter or metallic taste.” Some victims maintain that the “lingering” can remain up to a month. Some Chinese exporters admitted in the past to mixing the edible P. koraiensis with the inedible P. armandii. The latter are deemed “unfit for human consumption” by food safety experts at the European Commission. Most of us can't tell the difference between P. armandii and P. koraiensis – the trees, that is – but I remember seeing a pile of cones in Yunnan, China that were harvested as food from P. armandii or so I was told. Maybe that was the bad batch that caused the metal-mouth. To be fair to the Chinese, my recently purchased bag of Dry Toasted Pignolias from the Trader Joe's chain is listed as a product of Korea, Russia and Vietnam, although it was roasted in the USA. Nowhere on the bag is the species of pine mentioned, and I am probably the only person on earth who cares or would think to question.

Pinus koraiensis 'Morris Blue'

Pinus koraiensis 'Oculis Draconis'

So I assume that my nuts are from P. koraiensis, a northeast Asian species introduced by J.G. Veitch in 1861. Besides the nuts the species is valued as a hardy, soft-needled pine (needles in fascicles of five) with wonderful horticultural merit. Some of the cultivars include 'Silveray' and 'Morris Blue', selected for long bluish-green foliage. 'Dwarf' and 'Nana'– both terrible names – possess gray-green foliage and a more slow rate of growth. 'Jack Korbit' and 'Oculis Draconis' display yellow banding on the needles and are most evident when trees are grown in sparse growing conditions, at least more sparse than at Buchholz Nursery.

Panthera tigris altaica - By Appaloosa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8890924

“Korean pine is recorded in north-east Asia, from Korea, Manchuria and adjoining Pacific Russia” according to Rushforth in Conifers. He continues that “It has a valuable timber and also provides edible nuts. Unfortunately its habitat is being reduced by logging, both legal and illegal. And it's not only people who will suffer from over-logging. The mixed deciduous forests of northeast Asia that contain P. koraiensis are important for the Siberian (Amur) tiger – Panthera tigris altaica – because they sustain the tiger's prey. Pine nuts are a valuable source of food for deer and wild boar, the tiger's primary prey. I'll bet that modern Western gourmets never gave a thought that their tasty salads with pine nuts would endanger the magnificent tigers!”

So, there you have some of my rambling thoughts about Mr. Humphrey's upcoming book, which is probably not at all what he was hoping for. Maybe I am masking the fact that I don't really know too much – at least empirically – about pine propagation. Largely I have copied others in my career. I am further enlightened by the likes of Brian Humphrey, and I always learn something interesting from him.... But growing pine grafts in the dark? – that was a complete surprise.

Upcoming yardwork

Strong winds are buffeting the nursery today and greenhouse doors are Banging in the Breeze. I become unhinged because the crew is oblivious to the damage, forgetting that every year I lecture them to secure the doors with concrete blocks. Fallen leaves are swirling in the gardens and greenhouse floors are cluttered with foliage mostly brown. The fun colors of autumn are nearly gone and we are faced with days of cleanup. Maybe some day the planet will be covered with fake trees instead of the real, and they will be programmed to supply the atmosphere with its necessary gasses. Surely today's world can be improved, and we just need the mind-adjustment to accept a more efficient earth.

But hopefully the improvement can wait until I am gone because I was treated with a riot of colors this past month. How about a little contest to see if you can guess what I saw? I'll show you 50 photographs and you provide the plant name – genus and species only – don't worry about cultivar names.

For example:

#1 photo is Acer rubrum

#2 photo is Ginkgo biloba

etc. – you do the rest.

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

#18

#19

#20

#21

#22

#23

#24

#25

#26

#27

#28

#29

#30

#31

#32

#33

#34

#35

#36

#37

#38

#39

#40

#41

#42

#43

#44

#45

#46

#47

#48

#49

#50

Send your entry to us via our email info @ buchholznursery (dot) com (not as a comment on the blog!) and the individual with the most correct names will receive a fantastic plant prize.

C'mon don't be lazy. Make yourself some tea and cookies and get to work! We must receive your entry by Monday Nov 20^th, 2017 at 4pm. The winner will be announced on Tuesday Nov 21^st at 4pm.

Good luck!

“How many would you know, Talon, if you didn't take the photographs?”

Thanks to all who entered our Riot of Color Contest, and I know it wasn't an easy assignment. No doubt you confirmed many of your guesses by looking them up on our website photo library.

#49 Rhododendron luteum

#32 Enkianthus perulatus

Sok S. was the winner, missing only 7, and some by not much. For example #32 is Enkianthus perulatus, not campanulatus. #49 was Rhododendron luteumn, not Sok's guess of Franklinia alatamaha, but the similarity is striking. Anyway, we'll be in contact with Sok to receive a fantastic plant prize.

The correct photo identifications follow:

#1 Acer rubrum

#2 Ginkgo biloba

#3 Vitis coignetiae

#4 Hydrangea macrophylla

#5 Quercus rubra

#6 Cercidiphyllum magnificum

#7 Hakonechloa macra

#8 Cornus florida

#9 Lindera obtusiloba

#10 Acer nipponicum

#11 Populus wilsonii

#12 Salix magnifica

#13 Stewartia henryae

#14 Berberis replicata

#15 Nandina domestica

#16 Sassafras tsumu

#17 Acer maximowiczianum

#18 Betula nigra

#19 Zelkova serrata

#20 Viburnum opulus

#21 Syringa laciniata

#22 Daphne genkwa

#23 Hamamelis intermedia

#24 Spiraea japonica

#25 Sorbus commixta

#26 Schizophragma hydrangeoides

#27 Toxicodendron diversilobum

#28 Rhus typhina

#29 Acer buergerianum

#30 Quercus dentata

#31 Poncirus trifoliata

#32 Enkianthus perulatus

#33 Parrotia persica

#34 Viburnum furcatum

#35 Mukdenia rossii

#36 Nyssa sinensis

#37 Mahonia gracilipes

#38 Liquidambar styraciflua

#39 Leucothoe keiskei

#40 Geranium clarkei

#41 Fothergilla monticola

#42 Euonymus alatus

#43 Dipteronia sinensis

#44 Cotoneaster dammeri

#45 Morus alba

#46 Crataegus crusgalli

#47 Cotinus coggygria

#48 Carpinus fargesii

#49 Rhododendron luteum

#50 Magnolia macrophylla

Thank you, Flora, for allowing me to depict your creations.

I don't know about you, but I consider it to be winter already. Leaves have fallen from most deciduous trees and I am faced with a denuded garden, often in a bone-chilling fog and with apprehension over the prospects for the future. Did we store up enough nuts for winter? Will last summer's propagation result in plants to sell for the upcoming season? Will the greenhouses endure another record snow and withstand the howling winds of an Arctic blast? Can old Buchholz continue to summon the energy to orchestrate his troops so that they are not wandering in futile chaotic circles?

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Aurora'

Though it is tempting to go dormant, to lie down and curl up until next spring, I venture into the Display Garden this post-Thanksgiving morning to make a list of meaningful work projects – like raking, pruning, staking, tree-removal etc. – that will keep the crew occupied for the following week. Woah! For a moment the sun breaks through the gray gloom to reveal a golden scepter in the northeast section of the garden...which turns out to be the dwarf conifer Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Aurora'. It is beautifully named, as 'Aurora' is the Roman goddess of the dawn, and my plant rises to 8' tall by only 2' wide. Foliage is a rich yellow – not shining bright at all – and I had no idea when I collected my start 20 years ago...just what it would grow into. The cultivar originated around 1940 as a mutant branch on C. obt. 'Nana Gracilis' at the Koster & Sons Nursery in Boskoop, The Netherlands. No big deal, as most of us have found golden sports in hinokies, but what I find interesting is that my cutting-grown start assumed an obelisk form, where as most nurseries and arboreta describe it as at least as broad as tall. I haven't pruned my golden pillar and it just took off skyward on its own. C. obt. 'Aurora' will not appear as deliciously lemon-yellow as a rival cultivar, 'Nana Lutea', but then it won't sun burn as easily as the latter. I have 'Aurora' in production from both rooted cuttings and from grafts (onto Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd'), so it will be interesting to see how future generations will shape up.

One of the rock paths through the Display Garden reveals an interesting vignette where various leaves have gathered. The leftward-pointing orb is a Cornus kousa which probably came from a nearby row of the cultivar 'Ohkan'. To its right is clearly Acer palmatum...which must certainly be a leaf from my large specimen of 'Shojo nomura', a selection which I enjoy in the garden but which I no longer produce. The brown elliptical leaf is what remains of Corylopsis willmottiae 'Spring Purple', a winter-hazel noted for its plum-purple new growth and showy yellow flower racemes in March. This winter scene should garner some respect, especially when we consider what the trees once were, but I predict that the casual visitor would tromp upon them without any notice or concern.

Acer buergerianum 'Miyasama yatsubusa'

Twenty steps later I encounter Acer buergerianum 'Miyasama yatsubusa' in its golden glory, a dwarf Japanese maple that has arisen to 12' tall at 30 years of age. It is the largest specimen that I have ever seen, but I would bet that one exists larger elsewhere. It is described by Vertrees in Japanese Maples as a “delightful dwarf,” but “rather rare in collections” because it is “slightly difficult to propagate.” Hmm...I would consider it rare in collections because it is so slow-growing that the poor nurseryman makes no profit from it, and it annoys me when our customers stumble upon a group – which are not for sale because they are so old and small – and expect that they'll be priced similar as our other dwarves. In truth, I have my one old specimen and nothing else larger than a few two-footers in pots. “Slightly” difficult to propagate would not be my experience, for I have previously considered it to be verydifficult to propagate. From rooted cuttings under mist in summer we achieve anywhere from 0% to 30%, and approximately the same from winter grafts. Then – surprisingly! – our last two summer's-grafted propagants mostly connected successfully, so I sold the majority of the little runts since I won't be around to see any attain the size of my original. In Yano's Book for Maples he indicates that the cultivar originated in 1975, presumably in Japan, and wouldn't it be fun to see the original tree!

Berberis x 'Red Jewel'

Barberries are never considered aristocrats in the garden, but then maybe the elites have never seen my specimen of x'Red Jewel', a cultivar encumbered with the specific epithet of hybrido-gagnepain, and sometimes more simply as x media. The former name honors French botanist Francois Gagnepain (1866-1952), but I don't know if he performed the cross or simply described it. Hillier in Manual of Trees and Shrubs claims the B. x media originated as a hybrid of B. x hybridogagnepainii 'Chenaultii'x B. thunbergii, and that 'Red Jewel' originated as a sport of 'Parkjuwell' in The Netherlands. Don't worry, because that is too much to remember, and what's important is that the red globe – though prickly – is moderately attractive in spring and summer, but in fall and winter it wonderfully glitters with orange and red foliage.

Acer palmatum 'Bloody Talons'

I passed GH1 and just inside the doorway the new cultivar, Acer palmatum 'Bloody Talons' was showing off. It originated as a seedling but I have no idea what cultivar was the seed parent. I tend to not keep track of parentage anymore because of my employees. It is a compromise that I regret, but most workers just don't get that a cultivar and a seedling offspring from a cultivar are not the same. Now, plants like A.p. 'Bloody Talons', A.p. 'Frosted Purple' and A.p. 'Yellow Threads' are orphans of no known parentage, but we have gathered them into our fold and have bestowed them with names. We can't keep everything – since we can't vet them all – and the outcasts, though very nice, are designated as Acer palmatum 'Rising Stars' Series which are sold at 1/3-1/2 the price as named cultivars.

Rhododendron pocophorum 'Cecil Nice'

It is easy to collect choice Rhododendron species, especially if one frequents the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden as I do in Washington state. The problem is that I have five or six plants to place in the garden, but I'm stymied by trying to find the perfect site. They would all benefit from PM shade, yet I need a spot where they will have enough room (at least in my lifetime) to grow. R. pocophorum 'Cecil Nice' awaits its place and I think that I'll ground it next Monday whether it's raining or not. The Species Garden calls it “A fantastic foliage plant – the deeply veined, dark glossy green leaves have a thick orange-brown indumentum beneath. Deep red bell-shaped flowers in early spring on this 1971 AM form. Very beautiful and very slow-growing – one of the classic 'collector's plants.'” I've never seen it in flower and I bought it for the foliage alone. It is native to northwest Yunnan, China, where I have been, but I never saw it in the wild.

Rhododendron thomsonii

Cecil Nice

I have Rhododendron thomsonii to plant out as well, a species which received an Award of Merit in 1973. The award was given to the species which is relatively uniform in the wild. The aforementioned R. pocophorum is variable in the wild, and so it was the 'Cecil Nice' clone that was given the AM, not the species in general. The latter was raised from Frank Kingdon Ward-collected seed, and he was famous for not only discovering and introducing species, but also for collecting the best garden forms. There also exists a Magnolia 'Cecil Nice' and Narcissus 'Cecil Nice' which honor the Head Gardener at Nymans who toiled from 1924 until his retirement in 1980, the last 27 years as Head.

Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

Chief Joseph

What an incredible phenomena of nature that certain drab-boring pines can evolve from green into brilliant golden beacons in the winter landscape. The transformation began about a month ago when various mugos, Scots, Japanese blacks etc. assumed a slight golden glow...which increases daily from a hint to the profound. The champion, absolutely, is Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph' which was discovered in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon by the late Doug Will of Sandy, Oregon. Eastern Oregon is vastly different from my home climate, and in the arid winter of the former 'Chief Joseph' shines brilliantly throughout fall, winter and early spring, but in Western Oregon our soggy humid winters cause the pine needles to crud up brownly in March. By April the cultivar can look dreadful – usually when nurseries ship their plants – but then by May the foliage changes to green and the tree is redeemed by fresh new growth. Its color-cycle is frustrating certainly but for the four months in its golden prime one can endure the brown needles of April and May. 'Chief Joseph' has a reputation to be difficult to propagate and so the value of young trees stays at a premium, but lately our grafts onto Pinus contorta rootstock have resulted in over 50% success, so we are able to sell one-year-grafts as well as to keep some to grow on as larger specimens. The pine was named for the remarkable Indian Chief of the Nez Perce (pierced-nose) tribe of eastern Oregon and Idaho.

Of course the pines change color, even beyond the exceptional cultivars that were selected for winter gold, because it is a normal process that they shed older needles. Often times the needles turn to pale yellow, then brown, before falling to the garden floor during winter. It is not bothersome to see this in the forest wild, but it is unsightly for the pines growing in containers and in a manicured landscape. I have even joked before, "I hate nature." Nature means crooked trees, shedding needles and death, and it's hard to make a living with that. To some degree nurserymen are fraudsters since we prune, stake and water our crops to make them more appealing. And that's the key word – crops– because nature herself has too many flaws. At some point I think that I'll go cold turkey and not be responsible for any plant. Record heat, frosts, winds and snowstorms won't bother me at all, just like when I was a child.

Iris species in the Display Garden

I like species Iris – I don't really care for the gaudy hybrids that you mostly see. Our Display Garden has a number of clumps that I've collected over the years, and they give me great joy in the spring and summer. Unfortunately I can't tell you the identity of any of them because their labels are gone – they were thrown away when we clean the garden of leaves and dead foliage every winter. The labels were made of metal and each one had a bamboo stake next to it so we could easily find the name. So why were they thrown out? My employees are hard workers and I think for the most part they care about the company, so I'm thankful for them. But it drives me mad when I see a plant – Iris, maples, conifers, anything – without the label it once had. After all of the years here, and the thousands of dollars that we've spent on labeling, why is there still a disconnect about their importance? A worker can toil in a nursery his entire life without really caring about a plant's name. I find that sad, but maybe I'm the one who is unusual.

Chamaecyparis obtusa

The garden visitor appreciates the conifers especially in winter, for even in the rain and gloom they preside as cheerful denizens in the landscape. I find myself focusing on the Chamaecyparis* genus, and by coincidence we are in the middle of propagating them. They are commonly known as the "false cypresses," although the scientific name is derived from the Greek chamai for "dwarf" or "low to the ground" and kyparissos for "cypress tree."

*The name was coined by the French botanist Edouard Spach (1801-1879). He was the son of a merchant in Strasbourg, but he spent his career at the French National Museum of Natural History. Spach's name in Middle High German means "dry" or "bone dry" or "a stick," a nickname for a thin person.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana

Chamaecyparis consists of just five species, since now we can skip nootkatensis which has been assigned to a new genus, Xanthocyparis with the recent discovery of a close relative in Vietnam (x. vietnamensis). There was nothing "low to the ground" about nootkatensis anyway, and neither is there for C. lawsoniana*, the "Lawson cypress" from western North America. C. lawsoniana was introduced into Britain in 1854 when seed was sent to P. Lawson & Son's Nursery in Edinburgh, hence the common name. The scientific epithet lawsoniana was coined by the Scottish botanist Andrew Dickson Murray, which seems rather arrogant to name an American native species after a Scot soil grubber. Murray apparently felt qualified because of the foundation of the Oregon Exploration Society when he became its first secretary.

*The champion tree rises to 239'.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana

The Hiller Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2014) describes lawsoniana as "A most useful and ornamental tree..." It is one of my least favorite conifer species, as older specimens can look dirty when the blue-green foliage is cluttered with male and female flowers. The trunks can be impressive, though, somewhat resembling those of "Western Red Cedar," Thuja plicata. C. lawsoniana's native range is in the western portion of southern Oregon and northern California, and to me they seem to have been misplaced among the spruces and pines, like nature tried to cram one-too-many conifer into the area. I have never seen a pure stand of C. lawsoniana however, if one indeed exists, but there is nothing majestic about them in the areas I have observed. Anyway it's my blog and that's how I feel.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Blue Surprise'

Many C. lawsoniana cultivars are worth growing, though, and we produce a few at Buchholz Nursery. In every case they are grafted onto C. lawsoniana 'D.R.' (Disease Resistant rootstock) due to the high susceptibility of plants on their own roots to the Phytophthora lateralis disease. One of my favorites is 'Blue Surprise', an upright columnar evergreen with dazzling blue foliage. It prefers full sun in well-drained soil and will grow to about 6' tall by 2' wide in 10 years. The largest specimen that I have ever seen was grown by me, and I cut it down because it began to grow too broad and it fell apart in a wet snow, so I don't consider 'Blue Surprise' to be a long-time resident in my landscape. I first saw the cultivar in England where the above photo was taken about 25 years ago. It originated as a seedling selected by Anthony de Beer of The Netherlands and was introduced to the trade about 1976.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Pygmaea Argentea'

The photo of C.l. 'Pygmaea Argentea' was also taken in England, at the Bedgebury Pinetum about ten years ago. I was told that it was about 100 years old, but maybe that was a joke. The selection was made by the James Backhouse and Son Nursery of York before 1891 and it received an Award of Merit in 1900, so maybe the "100 years" is accurate. The blue-green foliage rises up, and as Humphrey Welch says in Manual of Dwarf Conifers, "When the plant is growing strongly the foliage is almost white in early summer and the whole bush then has the appearance of having been turned upside down when wet into a barrel of flour." In Oregon it can burn in summer if not protected from afternoon sun, but Hillier in England describes it as, "Suitable for a rock garden. Perhaps the best dwarf, white variegated conifer."

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Imbricata Pendula'

Though I grow many other worthy Lawsons, I'll just mention one other – 'Imbricata Pendula'– and despite its cumbersome name it is one of the most elegant of all conifers. It is adorned with slender green (whipcord) foliage and a softly weeping habit. It is fast-growing and my largest 18' specimen is only 12 years old; fortunately it resides in the Upper Garden at Flora Farm where it has plenty of room. According to Hillier, "Raised from seed by R.E. Harrison in New Zealand about 1930 but not introduced until much later by D. Teese, Australia, as propagation is difficult." Nonsense to that, at least if scions are grafted(again onto Disease Resistant rootstock), and no one should be rooting it anyway. We list one and two-year grafts on our Liners Ready Now availability, and you really should order some if you are a grower.

Chamaecyparis formosensis - from Wikipedia

I used to grow Chamaecyparis formosensis, the "Taiwan cypress," but my trees perished in an Arctic blast when we reached 0 degrees F, and besides it wasn't hardy for 95% of my customers. It is a beautiful species, though, with flattened green sprays and a drooping habit. It wasn't particularly fun to propagate (though easy), and Hillier nails it when he says the foliage smells of seaweed when bruised. The wood doesn't smell bad, however, and it is valued in Taiwanese buildings like in temples and shrines. I could easily acquire C. formosensis again, but I resist since I don't need another fast-growing indoor conifer on my ark.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Gitte'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Baldwin's Variegated'

Chamaecyparis obtusa cultivars are a staple of the nursery, and I have amassed a collection of over 100, a few of which – for better or worse – are my own introductions. The obtusa species is hardy to about -20 degrees F, or USDA zone 5, but some of the cultivars are considerably more winter-tough than others. Cultivars arise as seedling selections or as mutant branch sports, so one can garden with all sizes, shapes and colors. You could call C. obtusa cultivars the "rainbow of conifers."

Rather than rehashing descriptions of obtusa cultivars, I'll refer you back to my April 13^th, 2012 Flora Wonder Blog, Heavens to Hinoki, and if nothing else you will learn the origin of the Japanese common name hinoki.

Chamaecyparis pisifera

Chamaecyparis pisifera is another non-low-growing (up to 165') species which was introduced from Japan in 1861 by Robert Fortune, the Chinese tea thief. The species name is from Latin pissum for "pea" and ferremeaning "to bear," referring to the small rounded cones. In botanical literature you will see that it was first described by Siebold & Zucc., and the latter is not short for zucchini but rather for Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797-1848). He was a German botanist who worked closely with Phillip von Siebold in describing plants from Japan, and collaborated closely on Siebold's Flora Japonica published in 1835. In Japan C. pisifera is known as "Sawara cypress" and it grows on the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. It is closely related to the aforementioned C. formosensis and also to an extinct species, Chamaecyparis eureka, known from fossils found on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's Arctic Ocean.

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Filifera'

While the C. pisifera species can grow to a large size, many cultivars are dwarf and stay relatively low-to-the-ground. The pisifera species was introduced (1861) by Fortune, as I said before, and so was the cultivar (or form) 'Filifera'. To some degree it appears like the whipcord-looking C.l. 'Imbricata Pendula', except for being more compact and slow-growing. 'Filifera' often grows as broad as tall with a weeping form, and despite being quite attractive, one seldom encounters it in American landscapes. For some reason, far more common are the golden whipcords which are grown by the thousands.

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Lemon Thread'

John Mitsch

One such is C.p. 'Lemon Thread', a glowing golden conifer that originated as a branch sport on C.p. 'Lutescens' at Mitsch Nursery in Aurora, Oregon in the mid 1980's. That's where I got my start, and the photo (above) is of one of my original trees that I grew in our Short Road section of the nursery, just fifty steps from the office. It was growing in full sun and the foliage burned when we reached 106 degrees F one summer. I grew impatient and we dug the specimen the following winter; I gave it one year in a wooden box to recover and then it was sold. We went from rooting about 2,000-3,000 each year to zero because sales had begun to wane, although there was no sound reason to discontinue it altogether. The fact is that anyone can root a C. pisifera and so we found ourselves competing with large nurseries that grew them by the thousands. Now I don't even have one 'Lemon Thread' on the place, but it was a worthy cultivar and I regret not keeping it here. A nurseryman can easily harbour bittersweet memories, but, as with past girlfriends, one must release, soldier on and find pleasure with what you currently grow.

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Harvard Gold'

Old John, from the same Mitsch Nursery as 'Lemon Thread', gave me another golden C. pisifera cultivar, one that was unnamed that came to him from someone at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. I grew it in a dry field in full sun and it burned like hell, so I dug it back up and grew it in a shaded greenhouse. There it thrived and customers/visitors kept asking about it, and if it was for sale. We began to propagate and soon after I sold the offspring as C.p. 'Mitsch Gold' and it proved to be popular. A few years later I relayed that fact to John – that it was well-received – but I wondered if he would bestow an official name instead of me. Ever humble, he bypassed 'Mitsch Gold' and suggested 'Harvard Gold'. Ok...but crap – I had to change all of my labels. Now I apologize to anyone still growing it as 'Mitsch Gold', and sorry for the confusion. Under the new name we sell tons of them now, and though it still burns in Oregon's summer sun it does well in the more humid mid and east coast of America. I don't have an old specimen here because it is a cultivar that I merely root, prune and sell in small sizes...and I wonder how much longer the 'Harvard Gold' party will continue.

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Baby Blue Ice'

Another pisifera of note is 'Baby Blue Ice'. It forms a squat pyramid in the garden and prefers full sun, and it is also used effectively as a container plant. It is easy to grow if given well-drained soil and is winter hardy to -40 degrees, USDA zone 3. It originated as a sport on C.p. 'Baby Blue' at Stanley and Sons Nursery in about 1998, and in fact Larry Stanley gave me my start of the plant. We propagate all of the pisiferas by rooted cuttings and it works equally well no matter if in summer (under mist) or in winter (under less mist).

I have a number of pisifera cultivars in the gardens, often old specimens that we no longer propagate. They had their day when I began the nursery 37 years ago, but I guess they just don't excite the modern gardener.

Chamaecyparis thyoides 'Variegata'

Chamaecyparis thyoides 'Quiana'

The same could be said for the fifth and final species, Chamaecyparis thyoides. It is the smallest of the Chamaecyparis, yet the nation's champion tree soars to 88' tall in New Jersey. The few cultivars we grew never sold well and frankly it is my least favorite of the Chamaecyparis species as a garden ornamental. The so-called "White Cedar" is also known as the "Swamp cypress," and I remember passing native stands as we sped along a toll road in New Jersey 20 years ago. They serviced as adequate greenery for trailer parks and I spotted a sketchy raccoon in the canopy next to a grocery-gas station enterprise. And really, how depressing to relate that it is the State Tree of New Jersey where it can grow in large pure colonies.

My last C. thyoides cultivar ('Red Star') was removed from the collection last year because I was in a cleansing period of my life where I decided to get rid of any tree if it wasn't healthy or didn't look good. I still have a ways to go because a number of so-so trees still remain. It's a subjective task, kind of like dealing with people; some days you see them for their positive traits and some days you can't stand them at all. A tour of the nursery and arboretum reveals that I'm most partial to the C. obtusa species, and like my wife it is my jewel from Japan.

Cryptomeria japonica

The Cryptomeria genus name was coined by Scottish botanist David Don (1799-1841) and it is derived from Greek krypto meaning “to hide” and merosmeaning “a part” in reference to the seed hidden within the cone. It is a genus of two species, one (japonica) native to Japan and the other (fortunei) to southern China. I have a collection of about 50 cultivars, and to my knowledge they are all from the japonica species. It (sugi) is the National Tree of Japan for better or worse: for better because it is fast-growing and beautiful and because the wood is most useful; for worse because many Japanese people suffer from hay-fever from its pollen. The ailment can be so bad that many Nihonjin schedule vacations in the spring to areas with few or no sugi trees.

Tianmu Mountain in China

Cryptomeria avenue in Nikko, Japan

Some argue that the Chinese Cryptomeria do not present a separate species as they are not significantly different from the Japanese, and perhaps they were introduced anyway. A stand on Tianmu Mountain contains trees nearly 1,000 years old, and it is supposed that that population originates from an introduction. The “Heavenly Eyes Mountain” is so-named for two ponds near the top at about 4,800', and the mountain is located in Zhejiang Province in Eastern China near the sea. I've not been to this Chinese population but I have seen the “Avenue of Sugi” in Nikko, Japan, where the trees are quite old. The story goes that a feudal lord was too poor to donate a stone lantern at the funeral of the Shogun, but requested instead to be allowed to plant an avenue of sugi to protect future visitors from the heat of the sun. The offer was accepted, and though I only walked a mile on it, it is said to run over 65 km (40 miles) long.

Cryptomeria japonica

I planted a 4-year-old sapling of a Cryptomeria japonica at my parent's property in Forest Grove, Oregon, in about 1972. There it still thrives, and I suppose it to be the largest sugi in town. That's not saying much, I know, but I challenge a local to point me to one older. There exists a myriad of Cryptomeria cultivars, but come to think of it, they too are not very plentiful in American landscapes, or at least in Oregon anyway. They are hardy to USDA zone 6 at least, and some to zone 5, but their paucity is due frankly to the fact that they are not all that exciting. That's not my opinion, for I grow and sell them, but I'm forced to accept that gardeners simply do not dash to the garden centers in droves to buy Cryptomeria.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Sekkan'

Cryptomeria japonica 'Barabit's Gold'

An exception to that statement might be with the medium-size 'Sekkan',* for at a young age it is most colorful. For years it was known in the trade as 'Sekkan sugi', but the sugi suffix is redundant redundant. It basically says Cryptomeria Sekkan Cryptomeria if you see what I mean. So none of the Cryptomeria cultivars need to have sugi attached to their name, yet Hillier (for one) in Manual of Trees and Shrubs(2014) lists 'Jindai-sugi', 'Tenzan-sugi', 'Sekkan-sugi' etc. I have found Hillier to be dash-happy when it comes to Japanese names, especially with Japanese maple cultivars, and I wonder what led to that practice. In any case, note that I say 'Sekkan' is colorful at a young age, and that is most evident in spring and summer when in active growth. In winter the cultivar fades some, and with old age it fades terribly so. My first 'Sekkan' was planted in the Display Garden at five years of age. Thirty years later I cut it down because it was no longer colorful – in fact it looked sickly, like a green tree that was about to die. From Europe we acquired 'Barabit's Gold' and it was supposed to be an improvement over 'Sekkan'. Eighteen years later I conclude that it is virtually indistinguishable from 'Sekkan', and certainly no “improvement.”

*In Japanese Sekkan means “snow crown.”

Cryptomeria japonica 'Little Champion'

Cryptomeria japonica 'Little Diamond'

From Holland comes 'Little Champion', a compact sphere with fresh green foliage that does not bronze very much in winter. It was discovered by Wout Huizer in Boskoop, The Netherlands, as a witch's broom on 'Gracilis' in 1985, and it was subsequently introduced in 1992 where it won the “Floriade” Gold Medal. I'm always nervous that my crew doesn't mix up 'Little Champion' with 'Little Diamond' which is quite similar. Both are “little,” and sometimes the employee brain goes no further, and if mixed up once you'll never be able to separate them out. The 'Little Diamond' is also a Dutch selection, from the Konijn Nursery, and it was also selected in the 1990's. I've even wondered if they are the same plant, with two squabbling Dutchmen vying for the marketing edge.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Caespitosa'

Cryptomeria japonica 'Globosa'

The photo above of 'Caespitosa' was taken at Hillier Nursery about 15 years ago, but strangely the cultivar is not listed in their 2014 Manual of Trees & Shrubs. As you can see it forms a compact pillar, and the Latin term caespitose refers to “growing in clusters or tufts.” I pulled some old conifer books off my shelf to see if I could find out a little more about 'Caespitosa' but came up blank. To produce a Flora Wonder Blog is often an exercise in futility, and I spend a lot of time in empty cul-de-sacs. On the other hand, I sometimes encounter a factoid of interest that I was not seeking. For example, from Krussmann in Manual of Cultivated Conifers I learn that “C. j. 'Globosa' stays lower than 'Globosa Nana'!” [Exclamation by Krussmann]. My one (old) 'Globosa' in the Long Road section is a space-hogging blob 14' tall with a 16' base, so I know I'll never want to mess with a 'Globosa Nana'.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Cristata'

Cryptomeria japonica 'Cristata Variegated'

I thought 'Cristata' was fascinating the first time I saw one, but at the time I didn't know much about the cristate phenomena among plants. The cockscombs are liberally produced on my large tree and one can occasionally discover one with cream-white variegation. The variegation has never proven stable with me however. I once heard that if you rooted 'Cristata's' fasciations – and indeed, pieces will root – that the offspring will produce more fasciations than if you root from normal wood. I found this to not be the case, as straight (normal) growth tends to sprout form all rooted fasciations...and then later you'll have a normal-looking 'Cristata' after all. Krussmann relates that the fasciations “become brown and die off” after a few years, implying that all do so. I know that some die off, but I haven't observed my tree close enough to say that they all do and by what age. One of my hobbies is to question and test what plant experts say, to see if I also find it true, and you should all be doing the same about me.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Elegans Aurea Nana'

I collected the cultivar photographed above as 'Elegans Aurea Nana' about 35 years ago, but I can only find 'Elegans Aurea' in the literature, and as you can see my specimen is not so “nana” anyway. This is not to be confused with 'Elegans Viridis', which both Hillier and Krussmann list, and which I used to grow years ago until they all died in an Arctic cold snap. Supposedly my 'Elegans Aurea Nana' originated in New Zealand, but the name could only be valid if it was introduced before the 1950's in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature. Many visitors admire my specimen, especially in winter, but it is no longer in production. A number of overturned buckets and concrete blocks lie scattered beneath it, for it is a preferred lunch spot for the male crew in summer.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Dense Jade'

I grow and sell 'Dense Jade' when I know full well that the rest of horticulture names it 'Rein's Dense Jade', after Rein Vanderwolf who used to manage Vermulen Nursery in New Jersey. I've decided that 'Dense Jade' is sufficient, and in any case it was discovered in the 1970's and propagated from a witch's broom on C. j. 'Lobii'. It is a vigorous and very useful conifer, but it grows so fast at Buchholz Nursery that sometimes it can receive damage from a wet, heavy snow. We don't have much success with rooting it, so instead we root (easily) the cultivar 'Yoshino' and then graft 'Dense Jade' onto that.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Yoshino'

Yoshinoyama in Japan, Wikipedia

It is appropriate, then, to now discuss 'Yoshino', probably the most widely grown of any Cryptomeria cultivar. Surprisingly, neither Hillier nor Krussmann lists it. I got my start from Mitsch Nursery about 25 years ago but we no longer sell it as a cultivar – because too many others do – and we only use it as a rootstock, as when grafting 'Dense Jade' or some of the dwarves on a standard. 'Yoshino' is considered the most hardy, or one of the most hardy cultivars of Japanese cedar, surviving to -20 degrees, USDA zone 5. According to the Missouri Botanical Garden website, “In comparison to the species, 'Yoshino' grows faster....” That's not the case at Buchholz Nursery, nor do I believe that 'Yoshino' will grow as large as the type. Yoshino is a popular name in Japan – as in Yoshino cherry, Yoshino River, Yoshino Town and Yoshino Mountain (Yoshinoyama) – and the latter is considered the dwelling place of all powerful spirit gods. Yoshino cherries were first planted along the slopes of the mountain more than 1,300 years ago, and today it is said to contain about 30,000 trees of many different varieties. Naturally it is a tourist destination.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Golden Promise'

One cultivar that we top-graft onto a 'Yoshino' trunk is the dwarf 'Golden Promise'. It forms a slow-growing dense globe with yellow foliage that is surprisingly sun-tolerant. If grown in the shade the foliage will be greenish and the plant will not be as tight. It is a fairly new cultivar, having been introduced by the Don Hatch Nursery, United Kingdom in 1998.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Ryoku gyoku'

One of my favorite of the dwarf Cryptomerias is 'Ryoku gyoku' which means “green ball” in Japanese. At least that's the translation from the late Edsal Wood who introduced the plant, although I've read elsewhere it means “green jewel dragon.” Mr. Wood of Oregon apparently found it as a witch's broom on C. j. 'Tansu' and he gave me my first plant. He was famous for numerous seedling discoveries, particularly with hemlocks, and was even more famous for his geniality and generosity. He gave me the original seedling of what was to be later named Acer japonicum 'Ao jutan' as well as a Pinus mugo miniature that I named 'Mr. Wood'. Plants don't live forever and neither do people, but I'll remember forever the twinkle in old Edsal's eyes when he shared with me one of his plant finds.

Cryptomeria japonica 'Rasen'

Soaring above the miniature 'Ryoku gyoku' is the speedy tall-growing cultivar 'Rasen'. In the stead of the 'Sekkan' which I mentioned that I cut down for looking sickly, I planted a 'Rasen', hoping that it would always be green and look healthy. It seems like only a few years ago that I put it into the ground, but it is now nearly 30' tall! 'Rasen's' main feature is that the leaves – or needles – spiral around the stem, and indeed the Japanese name translates as “barber pole.”

Cryptomeria japonica 'Spiralis'

J.G. Veitch

'Spiralis' is another cultivar with needles spiraling around the stems, and though vigorous and not at all dwarf, it is far more restrained in growth compared to 'Rasen'. My oldest 'Spiralis' is about 30' tall at 30 years age. It is commonly known in the trade as “grannie's ringlets” due to the curved needles, and I would say that I prefer it to the more rambunctious 'Rasen'. Hillier relates that 'Spiralis' was introduced from Japan in 1860, and if so it was probably acquired by J.G. Veitch who was laboring in the country then. What I find interesting is the concept that certain selections were being grown in Japan at that time, or did Veitch or some other westerner just happen to stumble upon the one abnormal plant? Veitch was also competing with Robert Fortune, and some of their booty even arrived in England on the same ship. For example, Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Aurea' was introduced by Fortune in 1860. Philipp von Siebold was also in on the act, for he introduced Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Filicoides' around 1860. I know that certain maple cultivars were grown prior to 1860, and it appears that so were conifers. I wonder if anyone has a list of cultivars encountered?

I alluded earlier that the Cryptomeria aren't the most exciting of plants, but they do play their plebian part in the landscape and are most noticeable in winter. As an exercise for this blog I drove slowly through an average residential area of nearby Forest Grove for about 15 minutes and I didn't encounter a single Cryptomeria. I don't know – I've produced thousands of them in my career – so I wonder where they all go.

Acer palmatum 'Fairy Hair'

When it comes to plants most of us will never name a genus or a species; we're too late for that. But a nurseryman can name a cultivar practically once a day if he chooses, and there's no law or code against it. Even at Buchholz Nursery's reduced size these days, we still process at least 50,000 seedlings annually – rootstocks mainly – and all of them are different to some extent and could be named and introduced into the trade as cultivated variants, cultivars. I have bestowed names on a few dozen myself, too many some would say, but I'll let the market be the ultimate judge.

Tsuga canadensis 'Pendula'

Abies magnifica 'Nana'

One hundred to one hundred fifty years ago the concept took hold to select ornamental plants and to name them for the fact that they differed from the type. The result was a lot of 'Pendula', 'Compacta', 'Nana' etc. Unfortunately some of the “pendula” didn't really weep, the “compacta” could still grow to enormous size and the “nana” could grow beyond your height in just ten years. In more recent years 'Little Gem', 'Lilliput' and 'Gnome' were more appropriate names, but even they are not always adequately descriptive.

Years ago I managed a farm for a large wholesale nursery, and I eventually supervised the daily activities of 100 men. Acres and acres of Rhododendrons were grown, and one summer day the conditions were perfect to clean the fields of weeds. I called on the radio to headquarters that we needed more hoes, as many as we could get, as it seemed like the necessary tools were always at the wrong farm. A half hour later a truck arrived with five garden hoses, certainly not the hoes I was looking for. We all chuckled about the mix up, and further that we could have received a truckload of prostitutes (ho's). The point is that names should be clear and not lead to any confusion.

Acer palmatum 'Yuki yama'

Anyway plant cultivar names are like people names, some seem appropriate or clever or catchy, while other times some strike you as incredibly stupid. 'SnowKitten', or even worse, 'Elmer', for the variegated Acer palmatum 'Mikawa yatsubusa' were unbearable names, and so we were all relieved when someone finally christened it 'Yuki yama' (“snow mountain”). The worst name ever was 'Donkey Dick'– for a Penis...er, a Pinus witch's broom – because it “just hung there” from the original tree, or so it was explained to me. I only had one plant of it, a Pinus nigra I think it was, a black pine, and I eventually threw it away and struck the name from our records.

Todd Forrest

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are great names for American presidents, Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur and Herbert Hoover are not. Todd Forrest – a bigshot at the New York Botanic Garden – is a great name for a plantsman, Talon Buchholz is not. 'Bloodgood' is a great name for a Japanese maple, 'Dr. Brown' is not.

Acer palmatum 'Autumn Fire'

Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum'

Acer cappadocicum 'Aureum'

Rhododendron aureum var. aureum

Acer palmatum 'Autumn Fire' is a good maple name, but it has been used for a green laceleaf and at least two different upright palmatums with outstanding autumn foliage. Furthermore a hybrid (A. palmatum x A. circinatum) was also named 'Autumn Fire', then changed to 'Autumn Flame' to avoid confusion. Yikes, fires and flames: who can keep that straight? I have to watch my employees carefully so that they don't confuse Acer palmatum 'Aureum' with Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' with Acer cappadocicum 'Aureum'. And I don't know if they could handle Rhododendron aureum var. aureum.

Acer palmatum 'Pixie'

Ilex aquifolium 'Pixie'

Picea glauca 'Pixie'

Pinus uncinata 'Pixie'

The best policy of course is to choose a cultivar name that has not been used for any other plant, especially if in the same genus. So Acer rufinerve 'Erythrocladum' should not have been used if we already have an Acer pensylvanicum 'Erythrocladum'. We shouldn't have an Acer palmatum 'Phoenix' and an Acer conspicuum 'Phoenix', though I'm not certain which name takes precedence. And even for different genera, I don't like that we have 'Pixie' for an Acer palmatum, an Ilex aquifolium, a Picea glauca and a Pinus uncinata. No more Pixies please.

I can think of quite a few plants that I have grown or seen that share cultivar names. There's nothing we can do about it now I guess. A list of some of them follows:

Tsuga mertensiana 'Blue Star'

Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star'

Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Gold Rush'

Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Gold Rush'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Gold Rush'

Picea abies 'Little Gem'

Acer circinatum 'Little Gem'

Acer palmatum 'Bonfire'

Acer saccharum 'Bonfire'

Acer palmatum 'Elizabeth'

Magnolia 'Elizabeth'

Acer palmatum 'Ever Red'

Rhododendron 'Ever Red'

Acer palmatum 'Fireball'

Euonymus alatus 'Fireball'

Pieris japonica 'Katsura'

Acer palmatum 'Katsura'

Pinus thunbergii 'Kotobuki'

Acer palmatum 'Kotobuki'

Acer palmatum 'Orion'

Geranium 'Orion'

Acer palmatum 'Rainbow'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Rainbow'

Acer palmatum 'Red Dragon'

Edgeworthia papyrifera 'Red Dragon'

Acer palmatum 'Summer Gold'

Cornus kousa 'Summer Gold'

Acer palmatum 'Van den Akker'

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Van den Akker'

Nyssa sylvatica 'Wildfire

Acer palmatum 'Wild Fire'

Abies concolor 'Wintergold'

Acer rufinerve 'Winter Gold'

Acer saccharum 'Apollo'

Mahonia 'Apollo'

Pinus thunbergii 'Ogon'

Bletilla striata 'Ogon'

Zelkova serrata 'Ogon'

Spiraea thunbergii 'Ogon'

Stephanandra incisa 'Crispa'

Anemone hupehensis 'Crispa'

Podocarpus elangatus 'Icee Blue'

Juniperus horizontalis 'Icee Blue'

Asarum splendens 'Quicksilver'

Eleagnus 'Quicksilver'

Tulipa humilis 'Lilliput'

Picea abies 'Lilliput'

Cornus 'Venus'

Calycanthus 'Venus'

Schizostylis coccinea 'Oregon Sunset'

Acer palmatum 'Oregon Sunset'

Berberis thunbergii 'Golden Nugget'

Sempervivum 'Chick Charms® Gold Nugget'

Whew! That's only half of them. At least the last two are spelled a little different, but it still doesn't help us to remember which name goes with which plant.

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Sparkling Arrow'

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Green Arrow'

I hope no one scrutinizes the names that I have given to plants because I don't always practice what I preach. I try to give plants catchy names which seem appropriate or tell a story. For example Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Sparkling Arrow' originated as a branch mutation on a C.n. 'Green Arrow'. I didn't discover or name the latter – even though I did introduce it to horticulture – but in any case I think both are great names.

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Laura Aurora'

Laura

I thought Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Laura Aurora' was a good name for a variegated “Alaskan cedar,” but I was chastised by the late van Hoey Smith of the Arboretum Trompenburg for combining the Latin aurora with the English Laura (my daughter). But I stand by the name because Laurais the feminine form of Latin Laurus which means “laurel.” Aurora originates from the name of the Roman goddess of dawn, and my daughter is bright and cheerful like the beginning of the day, and like the cedar. We're not supposed to use Latin names for plants any more, but I think that both Laura and Aurora are both sufficiently Anglicized by now.

I try to not be too goofy with names – no 'SnowKitten' for me – but some plantsmen have looked at me askance for naming Acer palmatum 'Ikandi', like I should have been above that. Probably the name that caused the most alarm was for Cannabis sativa 'Red Rocket' since I neither grow, possess or smoke marijuana. I thought about promoting it since the user could get “really high.” And for the stoner crowd it could replace the poinsettia for holiday decoration.

“Just stick to ornamentals, Talon.”

Rhododendron barbatum

Rhododendron macabeanum

Rhododendron montroseanum

I've mentioned before that I used to work for a large wholesale nursery, and there we grew thousands of Rhododendrons*, hardy hybrids mainly. I planted, pruned, fertilized, watered and harvested scads of plants, so to some degree I would have been considered an expert on Rhododendrons. But I never thought so, nor did I consider the nursery owner an expert either. We could crank out crop after crop of varieties that East Coast brokers told us to grow. I learned that 'Bow Bells' had a pretty blossom but was a naturally leggy plant, that 'Jean Marie de Montague' was brittle when you tied up the top to dig, and that 'Vulcan' would burn in full sun whenever the temperature soared into the hundreds. But I knew nothing about the origin of these hybrids, about who preformed the crosses and from what species.

*From Greek rhodon for “rose” and dendron for “tree.”

Rhododendron arboreum ssp. arboreum

All of this occurred in the early 1970's, and back then I dismissed the Rhododendron genus as a fairly boring group of shrubs. They were evergreen blobs that filled the landscape, and were redeemed for only a couple of weeks in spring and summer when they bloomed. Otherwise they were forgettable. All of that changed in 1979 when I temporarily quit the nursery business to explore in the Himalaya, and I remember walking under them – R. arboreum, the national flower of Nepal – and walking among the alpine scrubs at the higher elevations.

Reuben Hatch

Now I have a nice collection of Rhododendron species due to my membership in Washington state's Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden. Furthermore I befriended Reuben Hatch (my Grandfather) about thirty years ago, and he was a nurseryman who specialized in “Rhododendrons for the Discerning Gardener,” so I have dozens of starts from his collection. Now I appreciate the genus for the foliage as much as for any blossom. Even though I don't travel as much as I used to, one of the greatest delights is to witness trees in the wild in far-off places and then to also grow them yourself...thence the Flora Wonder Arboretum. Let's take a stroll through the grounds and I'll point out some of my favorites.

Abies forest in the Himalaya

Rhododendron kesangiae

R. kesangiae is a lofty tree-like species with large glossy-green leaves. Flowers can vary from purple, pink, to pure white and I have the var. album form. It is endemic to Bhutan and was named in honor of Kesang, the Queen Mother of Bhutan, and the suffix iae denotes a female as name recipient in botanical nomenclature. Even though it grows up to 10,000' in altitude in the eastern Himalayan foothills, its hardiness rating is only to 5 degrees F (-15 C), nevertheless my young plant survived to 3 degrees F last winter with no apparent damage. I first saw R. kesangiae as an understory tree in the fir forests about 25 years ago, but at the time I couldn't identify the species, and surprisingly – even though common – it was first described in only 1989 by D.G. Long and K. Rushforth.

Rhododendron strigillosum

E.H. Wilson

Dr. Frank Mossman

Rhododendron 'Taurus

R. strigillosum is a Chinese species with a slow rate of growth, or at least my one plant has been restrained. It is an attractive foliage plant – as long as you keep weevils off of it – due to long narrow leaves. Surrounding the flower buds the leaf petioles display noticeable reddish hairs, and it is known in China as mang ci dujuan, or “prickly Rhododendron.” The definition of strigillosum is that which has a strigil, an instrument with a curved blade, used by ancient Greeks and Romans for scraping the skin at the bath. Anyway R. strigillosum features blood-red flowers that bloom as early as March, so you'll see it planted in some of the world's top winter gardens. It was introduced into England by the famous plant explorer E.H. Wilson in 1904 when he was collecting for the Veitch Nursery firm. My start came from Reuben Hatch who has a nice form of the species, as variations in the wild occur and some plants bloom with a washed-out red blossom. R. strigillosum is a parent of some notable hybrids, my favorite being 'Taurus', bred with 'Jean Marie de Montague' by the late plantsman Frank Mossman of Vancouver, Washington.

Rhododendron orbiculare 'Edinburgh'

Rhododendron orbiculare 'Exbury'

No mention of my favorites can avoid R. orbiculare, and I have two from highly esteemed collections: one, from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh in Scotland, and the other the Exbury form from the famous garden in Hampshire, England which belongs to a branch of the Rothschild family. Believe me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with filthy wealth as long as it is spent on featuring our planet's floral best. R. orbiculare is so-named for its round leaves and it is a dense shrub that will grow to about three feet in ten years. The campanulate (bell-shaped) flowers are deep pink and appear in May, and at that time the Chinese species is everybody's favorite rhododendron. Even when not in bloom the green rounded leaves with a heart-shaped base have insured its popularity since its introduction in 1904, but it took until 2002 before the Royal Horticultural Society deemed it worthy of an Award of Garden Merit. I beat the RHS by at least 20 years when it gained the plebian Buchholz Award of Excellence in 1980 and it is currently being propagated and sold by our nursery.

Rhododendron campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum

Another bell-shaped bloomer is R. campanulatum ssp. aeruginosum, except that I wouldn't give a hoot if it never bloomed at all. [I had to re-read the preceding sentence carefully so that I didn't repeat what an enthused customer declared a few years ago at the nursery when he witnessed an R. camp. ssp. aer. in spring – “that's the most incredible thing I neversaw.”]. What is so incredible are the new blue leaves, for they perk up at attention like the fabulous Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears'. I have seen this rhododendron in the wild, or at least I think I have – remembering the blue metallic sheen – in the alpine regions of Nepal at about 13,000' elevation. I don't know, though, because every Himalayan plant in situ appears different than it does in a sea-level garden, and also because the explorer himself is giddy with much excitement about what he is observing. The ssp. aeruginosumname is a Latin word meaning “copper rust” due to the blue-green pigment.

Rhododendron augustinii 'Smoke'

Augustine Henry

Do you see that empty space in the garden? – it used to be home to R. augustinii 'Smoke' but I gave up on it for looking horrible after last year's cold winter. It survived and looked good after a couple of previous winters that dropped to even a few degrees more cold, but that can be the way with plants: they don't always reveal to you what they are going through. I've left the space open with the intention of refilling it with 'Smoke', or another cultivar of R. augustinii, but never found it available last year. Oh well, you don't always get a second chance with plants, and just be thankful that you had a few good years of a relationship. It was an example where the flowers impressed me and the foliage really never did; blooms could range in color form whitish blue to deep blue to a purplish blue, but I don't know if the variation was on account of different collections, or from seeing the same clone at different times and in different soils. What struck me most was the luminosity of the flowers which seemed to glow even on cloudy days. The R. augustinii species is from Sichuan and Hubei in China and was named for Augustine Henry (1857-1930), the Irish custom's inspector who became a noted plant discoverer in his adopted country. Henry sent over 15,000 dried specimens and seed to Kew Gardens as well as 500 plant samples, and is well-known for assisting plant collector E.H. Wilson in his quest to collect seed of Davidia involucrata.

Rhododendron boothii

Joseph Hooker

One of the gems in the conservatory at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden is R. boothii and thanks to them I have a small plant of it. The small yellow flowers in spring are nice but certainly not awesome, and it is the copper-red new growth on hairy leaves that I admire the most. It is probably hardy to only 10 degrees F, USDA zone 8, so I also keep my plant in a heated greenhouse. Collecting plants from the temperate rain forests of the Eastern Himalaya is an invitation to the plant gods to cause your greenhouse heater to fail – you know, to keep you humble – and I have suffered many such losses in the past. R. boothii was described by Thomas Nuttall and published in Hookers Journal of Botany, 1853, and the type was located in Bhutan at 5,000' elevation as epiphytic on oaks. The specific name honors the botanist T.J. Booth (1829-?). S. Hootman of the RSBG reports that it is very slow-growing and requires excellent drainage. Furthermore the only place where he has seen it “growing in the wild is on the sides of maple trees, rooted into the bark.” It is fascinating to know that the Director of the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden – in the 21^st century – along with his American cohorts (Far Reaches in Washington state) and the Coxes (from Glendoick in Scotland) are still discovering species and forms that Britain's Hooker and the other great plant explorers undertook one hundred and sixty-some years ago. Hopefully after Hootman et. al. grow long in the tooth there'll be replacements who will carry on in the spirit of plant exploration in our world's far-flung places.

Rhododendron bureavii

Louis Bureau

R. bureavii was one of my first acquisitions from plantsman Hatch. When my start was large enough I planted it out in the Display Garden in full sun where it scorched nearly to death the first summer. I dug it up and gave it two years to recover in a shaded greenhouse, then replanted it outside in a more shady location – or in a shadow as the Dutch say. Flowers are white to pink with purple spots inside; they are mildly attractive to me but it's surprising that R. bureavii received an Award of Merit for the flowers in 1939. The Award of Merit for the foliage took until 1972, but the foliage is the reason I grow it. Leaf undersides display a luxurious dose of reddish indumentum and as you can see the new growth is equally impressive. It is a compact shrub growing more broad than tall, and it comes from Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces in China at 9,186-14,763' (2800-4500m). It was introduced by E.H. Wilson and described by the botanist Adrien Franchet.* The specific name honors Louis Edouard Bureau (1830-1918), a French botanist and professor of taxonomic botany in Paris.

Adrien Franchet

*There are a lot of botanic names and descriptions given by Franchet (1834-1900). He was based at the Paris Museum of Natural History where he described the flora of China and Japan based on collections made by French Catholic missionaries such as Armand David, Pierre Delavay, Paul Farges, Jean-Andre Soulie and others. The Flora Wonder Arboretum contains plant samples from all of these missionaries.

Rhododendron faithiae

I first became enamoured with R. faithiae for its foliage, and not at all for its flower. New growth on many rhododendron species is actually more fantastic and colorful than the blossoms, and the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden is an excellent place to study their mature specimens. Their description claims that it is a “very rare species (known from only two or three locations in the wild).” They claim that it exhibits large, fragrant white flowers in mid-summer, but my plant hasn't bloomed yet. RSBG Director Steve Hootman writes, “One of the most exciting finds that Peter Cox and I have ever had together.” Furthermore, Cox says that it is the hardiest scented species. R. faithiae (da yun jin du juan in Chinese) was first described by Woon Young Chun in 1934, but I'm not certain who the “Faith” woman is who is honored with the name. All I could come up with is Faith Fyles (1875-1961), a Canadian botanist and plant illustrator, but I don't know if she had any connection with Chinese Chun.

Rhododendron morii

R. Hatch is my source for R. morii and hopefully my specimen is true to name. It is a Taiwan native first described by Hayata in 1913, and in cultivation since 1918. It was introduced by E.H. Wilson in 1917 when he was working for the Arnold Arboretum, and despite coming from Taiwan it has proven absolutely hardy for me. The flower blooms pure white with red spots inside, but when it first develops it is positively pink. I'm sure there is some variation in the species – and maybe a lot – but that's what I mean when I wonder if my plant is correctly named. Ideally the Flora Wonder Blog should be a relationship where you contribute something, so I invite a rhododendron know-it-all to weigh in.

Rhododendron exasperatum

The specific name for R. exasperatummight lead you to assume that there was confusion about where to place it botanically, but in fact it was named by Harry Tagg in 1930 for its rough-ribbed leaves. Exasperate is from the Latin verb exasperare which is based on asper for “rough.” It is a unique species that I can usually identify in a garden even from a distance. My only gripe is that it is barely hardy in Oregon, so I dug my one plant after a brutal winter and now keep it indoors in a pot. Flowers are deep red and attractive, but I especially admire the purplish new growth, then later leaves become dark green on hairy stems.

Rhododendron forrestii var. repens

George Forrest

We decided to propagate and offer liners of R. forrestii var. repens. This variety is more low-growing than the normal forrestii species, and most of the time it is designated as the Repens Group due to some variation. The creeper's habit is terrestrial but it can find purchase on mossy rocks and it thrives with PM shade. The flowers are bell-shaped and deep red in color, and they are all the more spectacular because they are relatively large compared to the tiny green leaves. Forrest's rhododendron is native to northwest Yunnan, southeastern Tibet and also upper Burma (Myanmar) between 10,000-14,000' elevation. Forrest discovered the species in the summer of 1905 in Yunnan, but a few weeks later he barely escaped with his life from a band of murderous lamas bent on killing all Westerners. Running barefoot through the forests all of his material was lost except for one small piece which was sent earlier to Britain and described by botanist Diels. Forrest was back in the same area again in 1914 and 1918, but the undersides of the leaves were of a different color than the original type sample. Later Frank Kingdon Ward discovered clones that were named 'Scarlet Runner', 'Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'Carmelita'. We also grow a related species, R. chamaethomsoni, in our shaded former-basketball court.

Rhododendron makinoi

Tomitaro Makino

I collected R. makinoi quite a few years ago and I was initially attracted by the long narrow leaves; and regular Flora Wonder Blog readers know that I am a fan of the skinny. I had it in the garden for at least ten years before I discovered that makinoi is a Japanese name and that it was indeed native to Japan (central Honshu). Flower color can range from pink to off-white, and thankfully I have a strong pink form from the Hatch garden. The specific name honors Tomitaro Makinoi (1862-1957), a Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work. He has been called the Father of Japanese Botany, and in addition he did overtime work in the bedroom and fathered 13 children. Makinoi named over 2,500 plants including 1,000 new species and 1,500 new varieties, and his birthday (April 21) is celebrated in Japan as Botany Day. I would love to visit the Makinoi Botanic Garden located in his hometown of Sakawa in Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku Island.

Frank Kingdon Ward

So that's less than 20% of the interesting rhododendron species in the Flora Wonder Arboretum. A lot of my factoids for this blog come thanks to the internet, and again I wouldn't consider myself an expert on the genus. I'll close with what the great plant explorer and writer, Frank Kingdon Ward, wrote: “The genus Rhododendron carries the universal hallmark of excellence.”

The Buchholz family is relatively low key when it comes to New Year's Eve celebration. I lit a bonfire and the kids made s'mores while the adults sipped on Oregon's famed pinot noir. When toasting, Americans say “cheers.”

In Japan kanpai

Spain salud

Korea gun bae

Italy cin cin

Vietnam do

Portugal saude

Romania noroc

Germany prost

Sweden skal

France sante

Finland kippis

Thailand chokdee

Israel l'chaim

The next morning, on New Year's Day, I was greeted with a beautiful sunrise which hopefully bodes for a happy future.

Good luck to all, let's not kill each other this year.

I don't have a problem with Chinese products for sale in America; obviously no one forces us to buy them. I did perk to attention, however, about ten years ago when Japanese maples began showing up in Oregon nurseries. Ultimately I think their market fizzled because our economy was beginning to gasp for breath at that time and there was a significant oversupply of maples. Maybe there was simultaneously some American governmental regulations that stymied the Chinese, such as in The Netherlands when bad bugs were discovered in maple shipments. Another problem for the Chinese was that they were peddling maples that were not true to name, and I saw a group of these for myself at another nursery.

Maybe the Chinese plant producers will eventually establish themselves in America – I wouldn't be surprised to see cheap maples in the box stores for example, where poor quality and shoddy identification are trumped by low price. In 2017 I had two different Chinese companies visit my nursery with a desire to purchase starts of nearly everything: “for our domestic market, for our domestic market only.” Yeah, right. I declined but added that they could have everything they wanted, but they would have to purchase the entire nursery. “Oooh.” In both cases they stumbled onto the Buchholz website where we appear highly prominent, in spite of the reality of our small size. They travelled to Oregon primarily to do business with Buchholz Nursery, and left feeling surprised by rejection.

The problem with our website – in particular the photo library – is that plantsmen world-wide peruse it with the assumption that all plants depicted are in production and for sale. Rong! When one clicks onto Our Plants they are warned in lurid red type: Although our Plant Library contains thousands of interesting and hard to find plants, please understand that we do not necessarily offer all of these for sale. Please consult our availability listings for current stock. The library is a record of all that I have seen, my autobiography as I have stated before. The majority of plants contained are not even grown at Buchholz Nursery. Sorry for the confusion, but pay attention.

Recently I received a plant request email from Korea, from a Mr. Kim Pungkil of the Milim Botanic Garden. No doubt he spent hours looking at my photos and making a desire list. I groaned because even though I'm not opposed to helping his institution, I don't have many of the plants, and besides: the logistics of international plant sales are time consuming and daunting. We keep an inventory of all plants on our sales list, but not for all the plants in our collection. Pretty much I am the only one here with a clue as to their whereabouts, so it's a task that I cannot delegate. I'm well occupied with keeping the nursery afloat, with my duties as father and husband, and with being an awesome employer for my crew, and it would take hours trying to find plants or scionwood from his list. I don't know what I'll do – maybe try to find a few things to send to him. By the way, this Mr. Kim Pungkil is undoubtedly responsible for the superb Acer palmatum cultivar of the same name.

After first scoffing and grunting and tossing away Kim's list, I picked it back up to analyze his requests one by one.

Acer 'Red Flamingo'

Acer 'Silver Cardinal'

Acer 'Red Flamingo'– we used to propagate it by rooted cuttings in the summer under mist. It was a pretty selection but sales were weak because it wasn't very hardy. One winter the trunks were damaged on my stock plants which were in an unheated poly house. Eventually I tired of looking at them and they were dumped...and I immediately felt better. The nomenclature was murky with 'Red Flamingo' anyway. In the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs it is described as an Acer xconspicuum (A. davidii xA pensylvanicum) which should be hardy in Oregon. It is said to have originated as a sport of A. 'Silver Cardinal' which Hillier also lists as A. xconspicuum. Then Hillier backtracks by suggesting that 'Silver Cardinal'– which we also grew and discontinued – “is said to be a seedling of A. pensylvanicum but appears close to A. rubescens.” This A. rubescens Hayatawas formerly listed as A. morrisonense Li, therefore a native to Taiwan, so no wonder my plants were not hardy. Maple authority De Beaulieu doesn't acknowledge the A. rubescens species, nor does he with A. morrisonense. Anyway, no 'Red Flamingo' for Pungkil.

Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix'

Hmm...Acer xconspicuum 'Phoenix' probably is a true A. davidii xA. pensylvanicum hybrid, and over the years we have grown a few thousand of them. One can propagate it by grafting onto any stripe-bark maple such as A. davidii (USDA zone 5), A. tegmentosum (USDA zone 4), A. rufinerve (USDA zone 5) etc. It has been called “tricky” to propagate (Blue Bell Nursery, England) but we do fairly well with winter grafts when the scionwood is sufficiently hardened. I was interested to discover about 15 years ago that another Oregon nursery was offering plants propagated by tissue culture. Did these produce the same red winter bark, were they as hardy on their own presumptive roots, would the trees grow as vigorously etc.? I haven't heard anything further about those questions...so I just continue producing mine the old fashioned way, and we have no trouble selling out our inventory. A nurseryman mustn't grow too complacent, however, because there are always companies more intelligent and industrious than you, and you might suddenly find yourself in the slow-lane of commerce.

Acer palmatum 'Beni kawa'

Acer palmatum 'Japanese Sunrise'

Acer palmatum 'Beni kawa' (“red bark”): I have some plants around but we haven't grafted it for a few years so I don't have anything but scionwood to send. 'Beni kawa' is another one of the 'Sango kaku' look-alikes along with 'Japanese Sunrise' and 'Red Wood'. Various maple growers and collectors prefer one over the others on the basis of more hardiness, or for more red bark, or for leafing out later etc. I don't know – I can't tell any of them apart without their labels – but for some reason we have singled out 'Japanese Sunrise' for our production.

Nyssa sylvatica 'Autumn Cascade'

Nyssa sylvatica 'Autumn Cascade' was selected as a seedling at Yamina Rare Plants in Australia by Arnold Teese. It is a vigorous, strongly weeping cultivar and we prune the top and bottom annually to keep it in bounds. Fall color varies between yellow, orange and red, and leaves are attractively shiny green in summer. My one specimen resides happily along the main road into the nursery but we have never propagated it. Pungkil says “I order it as a plants[sic]. If it is out of stock please give me a scion wood.” Does he really have rootstock ready to receive anything from his list as scionwood? I just wonder...who he is, who is he?

Nyssa sylvatica 'Zydeco Twist'

The reason I don't propagate Nyssa is because they are a tough sell, even for an attractive weeper I'm supposing. One exception to that is N.s. 'Zydeco Twist' which is odd enough to command a market. For me it is a compact bush with ebee-jebee twisting stems that give the grafter a fit to find a straight section. The origin of the word zydecois not certain, but possibly from Creole French pronunciation of French les haricots(“the beans”), part of the title of a popular dance tune, Les haricots ne sont pas sales. When spoken in the Louisiana Creole French it sounds like “leh-zy-dee-co nuh sohn pay salay.” Literally it means “the snap beans aren't salty” which implies “I have no spicy news for you,” due to the speaker's lack of energy. There are other theories, but zydeco music (Swamp pop) involves a swaying movement like the plant's stems.

Cupressus glabra 'Picasso'

Cupressus glabra 'Chaparral'

Pungkil wants three different cultivars of Cupressus glabra: 'Picasso', 'Raywood's Weeping' and 'Chaparral'. The 'Picasso' plant I don't have and the photo was taken elsewhere. I remember it as an ugly plant not worth pursuing. 'Chaparral' was nice, but again the photo was taken elsewhere and I've never had one. 'Raywood's Weeping' I could do – I have one tree left in the arboretum. I discontinued it years ago because the tops of the grafts grow too fast and the less vigorous roots could never keep up. What will Pungkil graft onto anyway? Does he have Cupressus glabra – or the closely related Cupressus arizonica – rootstock? Other rootstock can be used, such as Thuja, Juniperus and xCupressocyparis but the graft unions will be unsightly as the top outgrows the bottom.

Quercus cerris 'Variegata'

Pungkil wants a Quercus cerris 'Variegata', sometimes known as 'Argenteovariegata', and I'd like one too. The photo of the “Variegated Turkey oak” was taken at Arboretum Trompenburg in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and I have never seen it offered for sale in an American nursery. Q. cerris is a large deciduous tree that is common and has naturalized in much of Europe. The word cerrisis from Latin cerruswhich is probably from Proto-Indo-European karmeaning “hard.” The wood may be hard, but since it is prone to cracking and splitting it is not preferred for building.

Parrotia persica 'Vanessa'

Parrotia persica 'Lamplighter'

Parrotia persica in Iran

A genus also noted for hard wood (Ironwood) is Parrotia persica, and the cultivars 'Vanessa' and 'Lamplight' [sic] were on his wish list. 'Lamplighter' is the correct name for the variegated selection but I don't grow it because it frequently reverts. I have some large 'Vanessa' in the landscape, a form with a more narrow and compact habit than the type. It was a seedling selection from The Netherlands and was introduced in 1975. We discontinued it in favor of an even more narrow Parrotia, 'Persian Spire'. The genus name honors F.W. Parrot, a German naturalist who visited Persia (Iran) in the early 1800's. While there he climbed Mt. Ararat (16,854') in 1829 which was the first recorded ascent, but some insist that Noah's Ark was parked there long before. The photo to the right was taken in Iran where Parrotia is used to fence in livestock.

Parrotia persica 'Pendula' in Europe

Parrotia persica 'Pendula' from the Arnold Arboretum

Parrotia persica 'Pendula'– I have a form of it but mine is not nearly as pendulous as what I have seen in Europe, or maybe it's that my form is the same as in Europe but just too rambunctious in my garden. We used to root and grow it staked to about 6'. There it was topped, but not much evident weeping ever occurred, and I don't care for any 'Pendula' that doesn't weep at a reasonable age so we discontinued it. My start came from the Arnold Arboretum of Boston, an institution noted for correct nomenclature.

Liquidambar styraciflua 'Slender Silhouette' (First propagule on the left)

Don Shadow

Camels

Also on the list is Nyssa sylvatica 'Slender Silhouette', but certainly he means Liquidambar styraciflua. The splendidly narrow “Sweet gum” is my imagination of the perfect landscape tree, especially for the smaller garden. The species features green maple-like leaves but the genus is in the Hamamelidaceae family. Autumn color is amazing for 'Slender Silhouette' as it is for the entire species, ranging from yellow to orange to burgundy, and the leaves persist for weeks. This fantastic cultivar was discovered and introduced by the noted plantsman Don Shadow of Tennessee, and thankfully he never got around to patenting it. Strangely – or not? – the mother tree was cut down, and one wonders if someone was trying to corner the market by eliminating future propagules. I have seen the first graft of this cultivar at Shadow's home landscape, so that's as close as I'll get to see the original. Besides plant introductions Shadow is famous as a zoologist who keeps about 800 exotic animals from 60 different animal species. Don drove me through the southern Tennessee countryside where I could see wild donkeys, emus, tapirs, camels etc. on his extensive properties. When someone asked him what was his favorite – plants or animals? – he responded that it wasplants when the new grafts were growing, but animalswhen a camel was giving birth. Actually I hate animals, the stinky creatures, though I'm willing to see them in a zoo or under someone else's care. Plants occupy a more elevated realm in my opinion, for they are more quiet and elegant and their copulations are more discreet.

Quercus robur 'Butterbee'

Pungkil wants a start of Quercus robur 'Butterbee', and it was the second request this week; that's odd because one can go years, decades even, before anyone shows any interest in some of our plants. The other 'Butterbee' request earlier in the week was from someone in the Oak Society and I sent him a couple of scions. It was supposed by this society member that, while similar to the better known golden cultivar, 'Concordia', 'Butterbee' displayed better color and was less prone to sun burn. I don't think it is better at all, except for maybe a more fun name, but I sure was hopeful when I first discovered it as a random seedling. The reason we discontinued Quercus production is because both 'Butterbee' and 'Concordia' don't shape very well (for us) in containers. And, in the field, they both burn the first few years; and besides the growth rates vary with field-grown plants where some take off and prosper while others linger as runts their whole life. I suspect that chip-budding in the field would produce better crops versus planting out the side-grafts that we do, but the problem is that I have no employee left in the company who has ever performed a chip bud. I have done a few with other species so maybe I'll try it.

Pinus bungeana at the University of Tennessee Botanic Gardens

Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem'

In trying to research Kim Pungkil the internet was of no use, though one can connect on Facebook with Jesus Pungkil, a teacher at the University of the Philippines. Also the Milim Botanic Garden on his letterhead leads to nothing from the internet. I do have Kim's email, so maybe I'll contact him and we can send some plants to an address in America and they can figure out how to get them to Korea. Or I could just drop it and not respond, but that would be lazy and maybe even bad karma. The success of Buchholz Nursery is due to the hard work of my employees, but also due to the generosity with plant starts from other growers and collectors. I've never been to Korea, but who knows: maybe one day I can visit and see my plants there. A few years ago I was visiting the University of Tennessee Botanic Garden and I was surprised – but very pleased – to see my introduction of Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem'. I didn't send it to them but somehow it got there.

Back to the Chinese visitors who I wouldn't accommodate, if they would have asked for just a few plants I would have agreed. Or buy the entire nursery – it's always for sale.

My first blog of the 2018 new year noted that Americans and the British toast by saying “cheers.” In Japan they say “kanpai,” in Portugal “saude,” in Thailand “chokdee” etc. Biagioli Alessandro greeted me with, “Buon anno Talon!!” which was easy to decipher. Petra wished for me Boldog uj evet or “Happy New Year.” She wrote in Magyaral, egeszsegedre which I think translates in Hungarian... “To your health.” Magyar is “Hungarian,” a member of the dominant people of Hungary.

Thank you Petra. I started to look up Hungarian words, and one slang (szleng) phrase I liked is from kolbaszfor “sausage,” and that phrase is kolbaszolni meaning literally “to sausage,” to be “walking around in a place with no specific destination.” Tokolniis from tok for “pumpkin,” and tokolni is "to pumpkin,” or “to be pumpkining” which means “to waste time.” Tejelni is from tejfor “milk,” and tejelni is literally “to milk,” or “to be milking” which means “to pay money.”

When I started my nursery 38 years ago – and had very little money – I didn't buy a full piece of shade cloth for one of my first greenhouses. The shade was attached from the bottom at the south side and went only two-thirds the way over to the north side. My ex-wife demanded to know why, certain that I was making a big error. I responded that the sun was never in the north. She was incredulous, certain that I was either crazy or just wanted to make an argument. She was a college graduate in horticulture from California, but had never tracked the placement of the sun. Indeed, if the sun ever shows up in the north sky I will hurry to a mental institution.

Kelet

With that in mind, the Hungarian word for “north” is eszak (from ej(szaka) for “night,”) as the sun never shines from the north. “South” is del (“noon”) as the sun shines from the south at noon. “East” is kelet (“rise”) for the sun rises in the east. “West” is nyugat (“set”) because the sun sets in the west.

Acer crataegifolium 'Eiga nishiki'

Norm Jacobs from Arbutus Garden Arts (arbutusgarden.com) – buy something from him! – gifted me a plant of Acer crataegifolium 'Mueri no ofu', a variegated form of the “Hawthorn maple.” He warned me, however, that the cultivar name was probably misspelled.* I presented the challenge to my Japanese wife to figure out the correct name, and out of a sense of national pride she accepted th task and grabbed her smart phone with access to the Japanese language. I had looked previously in Yano's Book for Maples and in Vertrees/Gregory's Japanese Maples, but neither had a listing of 'Mueri no ofu'. Hmm... Haruko said the name was “almost” Japanese, but definitely not. She left the room and headed to the kitchen to start dinner, and all the while I could hear her muttering to herself. Ten minutes later she returned, “Ha! I have it. It should be 'Meuri' ofu' (not Mueri) and the “no” [of] is not necessary.” She claims that meuri is the Japanese name for the crataegifolium species, so in a sense it is redundant to have it follow Acer crataegifolium. Ofu means “big variegated.” As Norm describes, “Hawthorn shaped leaves display striking variegation in green, light green, white and pink...” So, big and variegated then, but I told Haruko that the species' leaves are relatively small. Was it big leaves that are variegated, or was it perhaps a big amount of leaves that are variegated? She, somewhat deflated, retired to her purpose in the kitchen, and I almost regretted receiving the damn maple at all.

*For that matter, “misspelled” is frequently “mispelled.”

Acer crataegifolium 'Awa uri nishiki'

The crataegifolium species is known as the “uri maple” (urikaede), meaning “melon maple” due to the bark pattern resembling the skin of a melon. This “snakebark” can be rooted or grown from seed, and also can be grafted onto any snakebark species such as A. davidii, A. rufinerve, A. tegmentosum etc. It is native to the mountain forests of central and southern Japan, usually as a small tree or shrub, and was introduced by Charles Maries in 1879. The species is supposedly hardy to USDA zones 5-6 (-20 degrees to -10 degrees) but I doubt that the cute variegated cultivars would be as hardy. It was Siebold and Zuccarini, both Germans, who coined the “hawthorn-like” specific name, but then the leaves resemble only somespecies of Crataegus, so I'm partial to the “melon maple” name.

Liquidambar styraciflua 'Slender Silhouette'

Last week I mentioned a great plant, Liquidambar styraciflua 'Slender Silhouette', although that's a lot of letters to cram onto a label. It was Linnaeus – who's real name was Von Linne, but he chose to Latinize it to Linnaeus – who provided the generic and specific name of the American “Sweet gum.” For some reason both names refer to the liquid sap of the tree so I feel he could have been more creative, or to have scientifically referred to another feature of the tree. The cultivar name 'Slender Silhouette' was given by plantsman Don Shadow of Tennessee for his narrow-growing discovery. Slender it is, but a silhouette not really. A silhouette is the image of a person or object, usually black, which is featureless in the interior, and it is presented against a white background. The word originates from the French finance minister, Etienne de Silhouette, who was forced to impose severe economic burdens on the French people due to a credit crisis during the Seven Years War. Therefore anything done cheaply, such as a silhouette profile, is traced back to his name and policies. As children we have all probably put on a shadow play, with some kids being very creative with making finger animals. In photography one can create a silhouette image, especially when there's not enough light to do anything else.

The word slender is from Middle English sclendre or slendre, and that from Anglo-French esclendre. A skinny person is one without anything extra, and “the skinny” or “what's the skinny” or “that's the skinny” means the simple truth without any extra spin. During the Great Depression the skinny was slang for ten cents, as in “one thin dime.” If you go skinny dipping you go with only yourself and no clothes, unless others go also, and that's the naked truth.

Illicium parviflorum 'Florida Sunshine'

Springerle

Anise is a Mediterranean umbelliferous plant, Pimpinella anisum, which blooms with clusters of yellowish-white flowers which produce licorice-tasting seeds. The aniseword is ultimately from Greek anison. Coincidentally anise– no jokes here – is a specific name for an evergreen genus with aromatic leaves and fruits in the Schisandraceae family, as with Illicium anisatum, a Japanese aromatic shrub. Illicium verum is from northeast Vietnam and southwest China, and it is commonly called the “star anise.” The spice is obtained from the fruits which produce an oil used in cooking and for a number of other uses (like toothpaste). The fruits often contain eight points, thus its Chinese name is literally “eight horns.” One shouldn't cook with just any Illicium species for some are highly toxic, such as I. anisatum and I. parviflorum from southeast USA. It was Linnaeus who chose the generic name Illicium, from Latin illicio meaning “entice.” We grow Illicium parviflorum 'Florida Sunshine', obtained from Plant Delights Nursery, and I bought it based on their lively description of “Screaming yellow” leaves. Can an Illiciumplant be illicious– like something badly delicious? Very goodlydelicious are/were springerle– they were quite licious(permissible) – a German anise Christmas cookie baked by my Grandmother that puffed up into dusty-white rectangular pillows.

Pinus cembra 'Glauca'

Pinus cembra is a welcome species in the Flora Wonder Arboretum, and we have, or have had, about thirty different cultivars. It is a slow-growing 5-needle species from high altitudes in central and eastern Europe. It is an edible nut pine, but the cones never open without the intervention of man. Birds and other critters eat the nuts (seed) when the scales rot. Sadly I have never seen it in the wild, but in the garden the larger cultivars (like 'Glauca') grow into formal pillars and gleam with silver-blue needles. The species was named by Linnaeus, but I'm not certain if he ever travelled to find them in the wild. I don't know how the locals pronounce the species but in America we say “scem bra.” Cembra is a municipality in Trentino in northern Italy, and one common name is Arolla pine, and that is a village in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.

Pseudolarix amabilis

Specific plant epithets were given for a variety of reasons: for example for geographical locations, for honoring people, for describing plant growth habit etc. I like some happy names where the botanist was obviously in a good mood. Amabilis means “lovely,” and some examples are Abies amabilis, Kolkwitzia amabilis and Pseudolarix amabilis. I don't care for the generic name of the latter, though, which means “false larch.” If its so lovely why must it be named in context with another genus? In fact I think Pseudolarix is far more beautiful and interesting than any larch. Its name is a curse which actually limits plant sales because the uninitiated assume that it will grow into a big ugly deciduous tree. It isdeciduous, but not big and ugly.

Alnus formosana

Lilium formosanum

Leycesteria formosana

Pleione formosana

Corydalis 'Blue Panda'

Formosa is a happy name too, and it means “beautiful.” We grow a lot of formosa or formosana such as Alnus formosana, Lilium formosanum, Juniperus formosana, Leycesteria formosa, Pleione formosana and Corydalis formosa. The generic name of the latter is due to the spurred flowers, from Greek korudos for “crested lark,” from korus for “helmet” or “crest.” I first became aware of the Corydalis genus because my Grandfather smuggled out a plant of it – maybe C. flexuosa – from the Panda Reserve in China, long before the Chinese wised up to the potential to reap millions from the pandas. He would divide from the original and sell plants to his retail customers. Later a cad with a penchant for tissue culture propagation patented* the selection and has since sold many thousands. I grow it too but I don't honor the inappropriate patent, so if you buy them from me I encourage you to divide and disseminate as many as you want.

*You cannot patent a plant unless you have full control of it, and 'Blue Panda' was on the market for at least five years previous. And, I don't think you can patent a plant that was collected from the wild.

Abies procera 'Silver'

Alfred Rehder

David Douglas discovered the “Noble fir” in 1825, then five years later he collected seed to send to England. To him the true firs were considered “pines,” and so was his Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii. I like to pull out my 1858 copy of George Gordon's The Pinetum to see how things were classified in the old days – and that's part of their interesting history. Synonyms to Douglas's Pinus nobilis are Picea nobilis Loudon and Abies nobilis Lindley. By 1900 Veitch's Manual of the Coniferae lists it as Abies nobilis. At some point Alfred Rehder (1863-1949) of the Arnold Arboretum changed the specific name to Abies procera, but I wasn't around then to argue about it. Why didn't the Douglas name stick? I have not discovered the scientific paper that Rehder certainly must have presented to accomplish the name change. At least the common name is still in use. What does procera mean anyway? One guess is that it might have something to do with the needle arrangement. Or perhaps due to the large erect cones. Rong. Procera (or procerum or procerus) simply means “very tall,” so that's not a very exciting epithet. To Rehder's credit Abies procera is the tallest of all Abies, and one specimen in Washington state soared to 278' (85m). That was in the 1960's, but the area around it was clear cut and it still stands on the edge, but in decline. It lost its top by 50' and I hope the loggers are ashamed at what they did.

Juniperus procera

Another tall conifer is Juniperus procera, the “East African juniper.” Yes! – a tall juniper from the mountains of Africa – who would have thought? This is the only juniper that extends into the Southern Hemisphere and obviously it is not very winter hardy. Look at the map – it's native from Saudi Arabia to Zimbabwe. You can see from the photo above that the green leaves are awl-shaped on juvenile plants. Generally speaking I am not a juniper aficionado, so if J. procera was native to China or America, or somewhere like that, I wouldn't mention it at all.

I'll never see these junipers in the wild because I'll never step foot on the continent, although South Africa is tempting. You see I have a premonition that Africa would be my demise: a lion would eat me, or more likely a snake would bite me to death...or maybe a 13 year old with a machine gun would twitch his trigger finger and blow me away. Oops, sorry.

The name Africa was used by the Romans for “land of the Afri,” but they were only familiar with the northern portion, so the Afri were possibly a Berber tribe. Another theory is that it is derived from the Greek word aphrike which means “without cold.”

Juniperus cedrus

If I do have a favorite juniper I suppose it is J. cedrus, a species native to the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa; and yes, it really does look like a Cedrus. I have a few specimens in the Flora Wonder Arboretum and they have survived winters at near 0 degrees F. I propagate by grafting onto J. scopulorum 'Skyrocket' so maybe that assists with sufficient hardiness. J. cedrus is a fast-growing upright conifer with silvery weeping branches, and it makes for a very graceful landscape tree which is especially attractive in winter.

The narrative has wandered from Hungarian slang to African junipers, with words, name and languages the only theme. Sorry if we've been pumpkining.

Pinus parviflora 'Cleary'

We're in the middle of our 5-needle pine grafting with Pinus parviflora cultivars being propagated in the greatest numbers (by far). Pinus strobus is our preferred rootstock and I buy them already potted, graded and ready to graft from Jason Hupp of Western Evergreen Nursery of Silverton, Oregon. His quality is good and his prices are fair, and even though I could probably grow my own for less money, I like the idea of supporting a young nurseryman who is raising a family and working full time for his grandparent's nursery while he gets his own enterprise off the ground. I too started a nursery with zero money and a mortgage and a full-time job with a couple of other nurseries, so I can relate to Jason's efforts.

Pinus parviflora 'Goldilocks'

For years I kept separated and propagated three parviflora cultivars that always looked alike – 'Goldylocks', 'Dr. Landis' and 'Tenysu kazu'. I heard a couple of times that they were one and the same with 'Tenysu kazu' being the original name (from Japan). It was supposedly imported into North America by the late Dr. Henry Landis of Ontario, Canada, and was called (at times) 'Dr. Landis Gold' since the needle tips are cream-yellow in color. Upon Landis's death some of his plants were purchased by Verkade Nursery of New Jersey and they wrongly named the plant 'Tensu kasu'. Later someone else renamed the selection 'Goldylocks'– spelled deliberately wrong. The American Conifer Society states, “With that, the ACS will recognize the 'Tenyzu*-Kazu'– [thanks, but why the dash in the name?] – the original Japanese name, as the proper cultivar name with 'Goldylocks', 'Dr. Landis' and 'Dr. Landis Gold' relegated to AKA status, while 'Tensu kazu' and 'Goldilocks' are left as misspellings of other names.” But, of course, the previous sentence from the ACS should not capitalize the kazu part.

*Even the Conifer Society spells it Tenysu and Tenyzu in the same description.

You get the story again if you google Pinus parviflora 'Goldylocks' on the ACS website, where it is written that “This cultivar has a complex history and illustrates why taxonomists can be difficult to be around.” Then, a David Olszyk stridently comments, “It's becoming more well-known that 'Tenysu-kazu' is the correct cultivar name for this selection. The rules of nomenclature require that the original name be used for academic study with commercial names relegated to AKA status.” That's why, for example, that the misspelled Acer pensylvanicum stands, when the correct spelling of pennsylvanicum should have been used. So thank you, David O., for your nomenclatural expertise.

Pinus parviflora 'Tenysu kazu'?

But wait a minute. What if the good Dr. Landis screwed up in the first place with the spelling of 'Tenysu kazu'? Tensu kazu or Tansu kazu seem to be legitimate Japanese names, but Tenysu does not. I'm certainly not a Japanese linguistics expert, but at this point in my life...with using Japanese plant names for 45 years, and then being married to a wife with two daughters who chirp constantly in Japanese, I can positively tell you that tenysu is not Japanese. Wife – Haruko – confirmed my suspicion and said definitely not. So there.

Pinus parviflora 'Tanima no yuki'

Remember – it was Haruko Buchholz who cleared up the nomenclature of another Japanese parviflora pine – 'Tanima no yuki' which was screwed up into 'Tani mano uki', and even today some prominent nurseries still have it wrong, and so even does the Royal Horticultural Society of England. While a number of individuals take credit for the correct spelling – as in they have “researched” into the matter – it was actually Haruko who first solved the mystery 17 years ago. We were walking through the Display Garden and I asked her the meaning of the Japanese name. I said, “They say that the name means snow on the mountain.” Wrong. She corrected the spelling to “snow in the valley” by rearranging the letters into “Tanima no yuki.” Furthermore – she blushed – “tanima (or valley) is slang that bad boys use to refer to a woman's cleavage.” I reminded her that I was a “bad boy” too.

Osaka Castle

Anyway, back to the Tenyzu or Tenysu kazu question, Haruko says kazu means “number” so I don't know why that would be in a plant name. She wonders if the correct name is 'Tenshu kaku', an architectural typology commonly known as a castle keep (donjon), which is usually the central tower located within a castle. Note the tower of the famous Osaka castle – maybe that looks a little bit like the variegated P. parviflora. That's a long-shot name and explanation, and one would have to consult an old Japanese conifer connoisseur I suppose, but I don't know of anyone. In the meantime we'll continue to label and sell our trees as 'Goldilocks' because I don't like the “y” in either Goldylocks or Tenysu. In fact the latter sounds like “tennis shoe.” For what it's worth the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs goes with 'Tenysu-kazu'.

Pinus parviflora 'Regenhold Broom'

Pinus parviflora 'Kinpo'

Another dwarf P. parviflora that's in production is 'Regenhold Broom'. It came to me named as such, but later I saw it at another nursery labeled as only 'Regenhold'. That sounded better, without the “Broom,” so I changed the labels. Then a couple of years ago I read that it is indeed proper to include the Broom with the name, as that was the intention of the Regenholds when they discovered the mutation on a specimen of Pinus parviflora 'Glauca'. In any case it's a great little dwarf suitable for the rock garden or trough. My oldest plant has spent its entire life in a container, and it is so slow and compact that at 15 years old it is only about 18” tall by 30” wide. Similar to 'Regenhold Broom' is 'Kinpo'*, and we absolutely keep the two separated in the containers (with differently colored labels).

*Haruko doesn't have a clue what “kinpo” means, and wonders if it is Korean.

Pinus parviflora 'Aoi'

Pinus parviflora 'Aoi'– pronounced like a little kid describing his hurt finger – came to me many years ago from Susan Martin, formerly of the National Arboretum. She has since moved on and I have lost track of her, but I remember her as one of the few “normal” people in charge of an arboretum department (conifers). In fact she arranged for my daughter to do an internship there one summer. Anyway 'Aoi' is another slow-growing cultivar, and my oldest specimen is the photo above, growing more wide than tall. In other cases, though, it can grow more narrow and irregular. Aoi means “blue” in Japanese, which can be confusing because Ao means “green.”

Pinus parviflora 'Bonny'

Pinus parviflora 'Bonny' is a cute miniature, but it should not be confused with the faster-growing 'Bonnie Bergman'. 'Bonny' features short gray-blue needles that curve around the stems, and the tree only grows a couple of inches per year. I don't know who the Bonny is who is honored with the name but the British word means “attractive, fine” or “excellent,” and is perhaps derived from Anglo-French bon for “good,” and that from Latin bonusmeaning “good.” My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

Pinus parviflora 'Ogon'

I initially dismissed P. p. 'Ogon' as scions were sent to me and I never saw an older specimen. The problem was that 'Ogon'– which means “gold” – was just not gold enough. In smaller sizes it looked sickly, especially in spring and summer. Now I have 15-year-old specimens in the ground and this winter they are glowing splendidly. Also it can withstand full sun if adequately watered in summer, and remember we can reach 106 degrees F with very little humidity. There are a number of “Ogon” cultivar names in horticulture, like Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Ogon' ('Korean Gold'), Metasequoia glyptostroboides 'Ogon' ('Gold Rush'), Bletilla striata 'Ogon', Pinus thunbergii 'Ogon' and others, so please no more!

Pinus parviflora 'Bonnie Bergman'

At first I was going to title this blog A Passion for Parvifloras but I think “passion” is too strong a word. It takes more than a pine for me to be passionate. Besides there are a lot of parviflora or parvifolia in botany, the word coming from Latin parvus for “small” and flos for “flower.” I've never measured the flowers of P. parviflora to see if indeed they are smaller than other pine flowers, and what would we measure anyway: the male or the female flower? Two Germans, Siebold and Zuccarini, are responsible for the specific epithet, and they're both kind of boring with plant names judging by others they have coined. P. parviflora is native to Korea as well as Japan, and in Korea it is known as the Ulleungdo pine, named for a beautiful island east of the Korean Peninsula. In America we know it as “Japanese White Pine,” and in Japan it is goyomatsu or “five-needle pine.”

Matsuo Basho

The Pine Tree of Shiogoshi – Matsuo Basho

The pine tree of shiogoshi

Trickles all night long

Shiny drops of moonlight

If you give a child a piece of paper and a box of crayons and ask the tyke to draw a happy picture that includes the sun, our star will be of course rendered in yellow. If you asked an adult person to depict an old hag suffering from jaundice, the yellow crayon would be used for that too. Yellowwas used in the past to describe negroes with light skin, and before that (since 1787) for the skin-color of Asiatics. Believe me, I have scrutinized every inch of my wife's beautiful Japanese body but I discern nothing “yellow” thereon. I don't know how to describe her “color,” except that it beats the hell out of the pasty skin of most Americans and half of you Europeans too, but it is absolutely not yellow.

Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy'

Lascaux painting

Vincent van Gogh - Lausanne Sunflowers

We know that yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of visible light, and that it is considered a “primary” color – like what is used in painting. It is carotenoids that cause the color of corn, lemons, buttercups and the Ginkgo leaves in autumn. Artists love yellow, and 17,000 years ago an artist used it to paint a horse in the Lascaux cave in France. In early Christianity yellow was the pope's preferred color, and it symbolized the golden keys of the Kingdom, while in China it could only be worn by the Emperor (although special guests were welcomed on a yellow carpet). It's interesting that in both the Western world and in China the yellow color is associated with happiness, harmony, gentleness and humor, but that it is also used for cowardice. Not for the bicycle riders in the Tour de France, though – he who wears the yellow jersey is the rider with access to the most potent performance enhancing substances.

Hamamelis 'Boskoop'

The word yellow comes from Old English geolwe and that from Proto-Germanic gelwaz. The Scots say yella, the east and west Frisians jeel and giel, the Dutch geel, the Germans gelb and the Swedes gul. In any case the color is abundant in horticulture, both with plant foliage and in flower color. Today we'll examine the latter – yellow flowers – and that's prompted because at this time my Hamamelis are blooming profusely. Even the cultivar that I forgot I had, Hamamelis 'Boskoop', is showing off from across the landscape. This Dutch selection is described by Esveld Nursery of Boskoop: “De bloemkleur is geel. Deze plant is zeer winterhard. De bloeiperiode is januari-februari.” Wow! – We're all suddenly fluent in Dutch, and wasn't that easy?

Hamamelis intermedia 'Sunburst'

Hamamelis intermedia 'Angelly'

'Boskoop' is considered to be a member of the vernalis species and not in the x intermedia (H. japonica x H. mollis) tribe, like my other Hamamelis currently in flower. It is commonly known as the “Ozark witch hazel” and is native to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. (Natives of Missouri love to tell you that they're from the state of misery, ha, ha, ha). Anyway the specific name vernalis refers to the fact that it blooms in the spring, but that was a poor name because we're still in the dead of winter. The generic name Hamamelisis from the Greek words hama meaning “at the same time” and melon meaning “apple or fruit” because the flower and the older fruits occur at the same time. I grow a few other yellow-bellied witch hazels, but I have discontinued the passé old 'Arnold Promise' in favor of the more clear and bright 'Sunburst' and 'Angelly'. Wonderfully, 'Sunburst' is early to bloom, and then when it begins to decline 'Angelly' bursts forth. Sadly these “hazels” can be bypassed in the garden center at the main buying time (April-May) because they have finished blooming, but remember that they, like all members of the Hamamelidaceae family, offer fantastic yellow, orange, red and purple fall foliage color.

Helianthus annuus

Nothing bespeaks the color yellow more than the “sunflower,” Helianthus annuus. The beautiful name is derived from the Greek Helios for “sun” and anthosfor “flower,” and the genus of seventy-or-so species is placed in the Asteraceae family. These wonderful creatures produce rounded terminal capitulas (flower heads) with stunning yellow ray florets. The flowers are certainly sun-like in appearance, but the notion that they track the sun across the sky was found false by the English botanist John Gerard. He grew sunflowers in his herbal garden and wrote in 1597: “Some have reported it to turn with the Sun, the which I could never observe, although I have endeavored to find out the truth of it.” Actually the immature flower buds follow the sun, but at maturity they all face east. Me too – I don't like looking into the afternoon sun. It is believed that the first domesticated sunflower occurred in Mexico around 2600 B.C., and naturally it was a symbol of sun worship for native peoples.

Fritillaria pudica

While the sunflowers are bold and brash, the cute little Fritillaria pudica blooms with a nodding head, and indeed the specific name is Latin for “shy.”* 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 Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. My favorite place to see it is at Catherine Creek at the dryer eastern-end of the Columbia River Gorge, and I've never tried growing it at the nursery because I don't think our conditions would be suitable.

*The flowers are hermaphrodite – they have both male and female parts.

Lindera obtusiloba

Cornus mas 'Variegata'

Soon our Lindera obtusiloba and Cornus mas will both be in flower, and annually I cut a twig from each to quiz as many people as possible about their identity. Over the years I find fewer people willing to play my game. I get comments like, “Yeah, yeah – we did this last year, remember?” Both bloom precociously (before the leaves appear) but Lindera is in the Lauraceae family while Cornus mas is of course in the Cornaceae family. The dogwood produces red drupes which are edible, but you need to wait for them to fully ripen by falling from the tree, and even then they're not so great. C. mas has a heavy wood and like me it sinks in water. Since ancient times Greeks made weapons like spears and bows, and craftsmen considered it to be the best of all wood. Lindera obtusiloba is native to Japan, Korea and China and it features sassafras-like glossy aromatic leaves. I have a 35-year-old specimen in the Display Garden and its golden moment occurs in autumn without fail; the butter-yellow leaves are as dependable and brilliant as any Ginkgo. Lindera are dioecious with male and female flowers on separate trees and mine is a male. We used to root L. obtusiloba, but at no size was it very popular with our customers. I'm not on a mission to convert anyone to any plant, but if I was I might start with this wonderful spicebush.

Daphne jezoensis

Daphne jezoensis can be found in a few collectors' gardens but the Japanese species certainly is not widespread. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) it is a very dwarf shrub and 2) it goes dormant (deciduous) in summer. When I acquired my one bush about 30 years ago I was certain that it had died. I was so busy then taking care of my living plants that I had no time to pull the Daphne out; and behold, later that year it was resurrected. Today it is blooming, but it's cold and nasty out so I'll have to wait for a sunny day for the pleasant odour. My bush was planted in the Waterfall section behind some large X. nootkatensis 'Pendula'– kind of in a hidden area – and I'm glad that it's not more visible because it has always been rather scrappy. The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs reveals that D. jezoensis was introduced in about 1960 and won an Award of Merit in 1985, so it's likely that British growers have more success with it than I do. The Daphne was first described by Carl Maximowicz a hundred years previous so I don't know why it took so long for its introduction.

Ainu people

The meaning of the word jezoensis is for that which comes from jezo (or yezo), for lands to the north of Honshu. So it included Hokkaido and other lands such as Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Hokkaido's name was changed from Ezo in 1869, and Ezo can also refer to the people – as it means “foreigner” – which are known as the Ainupeople. Ainu means “human,” but they have been given short shrift by the Japanese throughout history. It is estimated that fewer than 100 speakers of the language remain, but one of their legends tells that the Ainu lived in their place a hundred thousand years before the “Children of the Sun” came.

Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Gold Rush'

Edgeworthia chrysantha is related to Daphne in the Thymelaeaceae family. I once saw a 12' tall and wide specimen in the Himalayan foothills at about 9,000'. It was in an open pasture next to a village so apparently the goats leave it alone. It is commonly called the “Oriental paperbush” or “Mitsumata” in Japan. Mitsumata is used for banknotes because of the paper's durability among other uses. The genus name (by Lindley) honors Michael Edgeworth (1812-1881), an Irish-born amateur botanist who worked for the East India Company. There is a red-flowered form of E. chrysantha, 'Red Dragon' that I have grown for several years, but before I could acquire it I asked Kelly at Far Reaches Farms if he had the red-flower form of Edgeworthia. He strode off energetically to another greenhouse and returned and handed me a Rhododendron edgeworthia...which also flowers red. I kept my mouth shut and accepted the Rhododendron, and I was delighted for a few years with its flower color and deep fragrance, but sadly it perished in a cold winter. For a golden-flowered Edgeworthia cultivar, we produce 'Gold Rush', although it doesn't appear much different from the type. Our plants are grown in the greenhouse and they'll be blooming in a week or two, and when they are in flower on a sunny day you can smell them 100' away from the greenhouse door, in a house known as our “French” house.

Rhododendron macabeanum

There are quite a number of Rhododendron species and hybrids with yellow flowers. I like R. macabeanum, a tree-like species with large shiny leaves and a purple blotch inside the yellow blossom. It is hardy in Oregon, but barely, and I have had some damage on my old specimen after a brutal winter. It was planted in a cold pocket at the bottom of the nursery, so I dug it up a couple of years ago to recover in a greenhouse. This spring it will be shipped to Flora Farm where I can site it in the shade of some large conifers. No wonder it's not very hardy as it is native to Assam and the very northeast of India in Manipur.* Frank Kingdon-Ward introduced R. macabeanum (1928), but to get to Rhododendron country he had to slog through swamps with leeches and mosquitos, and encountered tribal people with uncertain intentions. The specific epithet honors Mr. McCabe who was Deputy Commissioner for the Naga Hills, Assam and Manipur. I don't know if McCabe was botanically inclined or if he just assisted Kingdon-Ward in his travels.

*Even though I hate horses, Manipur is credited with introducing polo to Europeans.

Corylopsis spicata 'Golden Spring'

The Corylopsis genus consists of several species and they are collectively known as “winterhazels.” The leaves are hazel-like, but the more common hazel is Corylus in the Betulaceae family while Corylopsis is in the Hamamelidaceae family. One of the common Corylopsis species found in horticulture is spicata, introduced by Robert Fortune from its native Japan in 1860, and I'm partial to the cultivar 'Golden Spring' which displays rich yellow leaves. I don't know if it has a Japanese name – it should – because it originated from the Yamaguchi Nursery in about 1990. We root 'Golden Spring' from softwood cuttings in June under mist, and within three years they become salable in 1 gallon pots. They do require PM shade in Oregon or the leaves will burn, but if grown in deep shade the leaves will be light green. All of the Corylopsis species bloom (before the leaves appear) in dangling racemes of light yellow flowers, but even if 'Golden Spring' never bloomed it would still be worth growing.

Pleione x confusa 'Golden Gate'

I have had Pleione forrestii a couple of times but always lose it after two or three years. It does have a reputation to be difficult but it is one of the most beautiful of all yellow flowers. Fortunately there is a natural hybrid from northwestern Yunnan, China between forrestii and albiflorathat is not so touchy, and it features light yellow blossoms with a maroon-red throat. For some reason the hybrid was named P. x confusa– perhaps the botanists weren't certain if they had a species different from forrestii or not. We grow the cultivar 'Golden Gate', but I don't see how it differs from the type. I suppose it's like with maples - everybody wants to name something, and who knows? – maybe it was bred in San Francisco. The earliest use of the name Pleione in horticulture was from John Lindley (1799-1865) who was both a botanist and a horticulturist, a rare combination. The word is ultimately Greek – perhaps meaning “to sail” – and is the name of the mother of the Pleiades.

Spartium junceum

I'll finish my praise of yellow flowers with the bombastic Spartium junceum, a sweet-smelling pea broom; and I'd like to acquire it again after losing my (supposedly) zone 7 plants a few winters ago. Only two are shown above, but three of them lined the eastern border at Flora Farm. All three turned brown when we reached 85 degrees F on an April day, so I guess they had been already dead for a few months. Spartium junceum is a monotypic genus from the Mediterranean regions and it is commonly called “Spanish broom.” I am not a fan of Cytisus at all, though I can tolerate Genista – both relatives to Spartium – but I always considered the Spanish broom to be a fun plant. The name spartium is from Greek spartos meaning “broom,” and the junceum name is due to resemblance to the Juncus genus commonly known as rushes. It was Linnaeus who bestowed the name.

This was just a broad sampling of yellow flowers that I have encountered, though I have admitted that some of the plants are no longer with me. Maybe in the future I can do blue, white, red etc., for horticulture is fecund with color.

I have owned a wholesale nursery for 38 years, which is unusual since I am only 39 years old. Over the course of the years we propagate by grafting in both summer and winter...and here we are: well into February and I'm trying to wrap up my 38^thwinter season. These "years" don't consider that I previously grafted for other companies, so ok, I confess that I'm older than 39. What to graft, how many to graft, what rootstocks are available at the correct size??? – nobody in the company has a clue what to do if I'm not here. Believe me, I'm not trying to boast about my importance; and really I am stating the sad fact that I have created a company that cannot operate without me...which is not a comforting prospect for this old geezer.

Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix' in August

Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix' in January

Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix'

We've had a mild winter and soon spring will engulf us. Before it's too late I committed to grafting our stripe-bark (AKA snake-bark) maples. Acer x conspicuum 'Phoenix' is the cultivar in greatest demand, so it took up the majority of the rootstock (on A. davidii). I have a love/hate attitude towards 'Phoenix'– I love the winter bark of course, but in summer my oldest specimen planted next to the house looks dreadful after a 100 degree day. It's not that the leaves burn, but rather all of the green is bleached away and so I have to look at a yellow tree from July through October. Some years the autumn foliage is vibrant, but most of the time it goes from yellow-to-brown. If you grow 'Phoenix' in shade the leaves will be protected, but then the winter bark color will be dulled. I gave up growing 'Phoenix' as a field crop, and now all of our plants are produced in a greenhouse under white poly. They grow too fast that way, so we prune the new growth in half around August. The x conspicuum hybrid is Acer davidii x Acer pensylvanicum which would be hardy to -20 degrees F, USDA zone 5, however the 'Phoenix' cultivar is probably less hardy, which is usually the case for such freaks of nature.

Acer pensylvanicum 'Erythrocladum'

Elaeagnus 'Quicksilver'

Speaking of freaks, nothing can be moreso than Acer pensylvanicum 'Erythrocladum', a maple that I consider to be more problematic than A. x conspicuum 'Phoenix'. In the Hillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs (2014) 'Erythrocladum is called, "A lovely form with brilliant candy-pink, white-striated young shoots in winter." Lovely indeed, unless the shoots are black from death. I grafted 50 anyway since they are so easy to sell, but they'll spend their formative years in our greenhouse, and never see the outdoors until they are in somebody's garden center. 'Erythrocladum' received the Award of Merit in 1976, but I can't imagine that it performs better in wet foggy England than in Oregon. In my career I have questioned quite a number of Awards of Merit, and I actually wonder if money is changing hands under the table. Take Elaeagnus 'Quicksilver' which received the AM in 1978: It took a few years and a lot of effort to get rid of mine; it was looking scrappy so I cut it down, but 50 feet away the suckers kept popping up. 'Quicksilver's' place might be at the edge of a woodlot, but certainly not in a "garden."

Acer pectinatum 'Mozart'

Anyway, back to maples. We grafted 50 Acer pectinatum 'Mozart' (which some list as a conspicuumcross). It takes full sun in Oregon and so far has proven hardy. In winter the bark is purplish-red with white vertical stripes. I have seen photos inside an enormous Dutch greenhouse operation where thousands of 'Mozart' were being grown from rooted cuttings, but I wondered how hardy they would be. According to De Beaulieu in An Illustrated Guide to Maples, Acer pectinatum is native to the southern Himalaya, from Nepal, Bhutan, northern Myanmar to Yunnan, China. That doesn't sound very hardy. The subspecies forrestiiis from Yunnan Province in the Yulong Mountains and is perhaps more hardy. It is said (Hillier) that 'Mozart' was "Raised from seed wild-collected by Peter Vanlaerhoven." If that is the case, then it certainly can't be an x conspicuum hybrid (A. davidii xA. pensylvanicum). Most of my maple market is in regions more cold than Oregon, so the botanic status is very important. DeB. continues: "In 1977, Murray regrouped four species – Acer forrestii, A. laxiflorum, A. maximowiczii, and A. taronense – under A. pectinatum, which is the oldest valid name among them." Note that A. maximowiczii is not the same as A. maximowiczianum (formerly A. nikoense). The former is in the Macrantha section and the latter is in the Trifoliatasection (with A. griseum) and they are completely different.

Acer caudatifolium 'Variegata'

I also grafted a few Acer caudatifolium 'Variegata', a pretty thing even though its cultivar name can't be valid. This is another case where the botanists are not friendly with the gardener, because care must be taken to not confuse the A. caudatifolium species with A. caudatum. The former is in the Macrantha section and the latter in the Parviflorasection. A. caudatifolium (formerly A. kawakamii, A. morrisonense) is from mountain forests in Japan, while A. caudatum is from China and Manchuria. Remember, we are talking about stripe-bark grafting, and A. caudatum is not a stripe-bark. I grafted only five scions of the A. caudatifolium 'Variegata' to be sure I keep it on the Ark when I plant the mother tree into the arboretum. I don't know if it will prove hardy enough, but what else can you do when its canopy is pushing into the top of the greenhouse?

Acer davidii 'George Forrest'

Acer forrestii

Nomenclatural confusion continues when you consider Acer davidii 'George Forrest' and A. forrestii, and though both are stripe-barks they are not one and the same according to Hillier. 'George Forrest' ('Horizontale') is "An open tree of loose habit with vigorous, spreading branches and large, dark green leaves with rhubarb-red stalks. This is the form most commonly met with in cultivation." This "cultivar" was introduced by George Forrest from Yunnan in 1921-22. Acer forrestii was also introduced from Yunnan by Forrest in 1906. Are these really two separate species? The photos of 'George Forrest' were taken in England 15 years ago, while the photos of A. forrestii were taken recently at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden in Washington state.

Acer davidii 'Serpentine'

I have been growing Acer davidii 'Serpentine' for a long time, although I only propagate about every third year. It is a fast-growing cultivar and I suppose with time it would get huge. The colorful bark is most evident on young shoots, so it is probably better grown as a bush rather than as a large upright tree. That's another way of saying that sales are not so hot for fast-growing stripe-barks.

Acer tegmentosum 'Joe Witt'

I attended a Maple Society conference in Belgium six or seven years ago and the most eminent Acer botanist of our time declared that Acer tegmentosum comes true from seed, and that there is absolutely no variation and therefore no cultivars of the species. Immediately a half dozen hands shot up to protest the know-it-all, and everybody said, "What about A. tegmentosum 'Joe Witt'? The botanist conceded nothing, and to this day is sure that 'Joe Witt' is undoubtedly a hybrid. Maybe it is. It was raised from seed by Mr. Witt, curator at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. He planted it at his home where it grew fast and strong, and was one day noticed by visiting plantsman Dan Hinkley. Hinkley thought it was remarkable for its chalk-white bark, so he named and introduced it. 'Joe Witt' can be grafted onto any stripe-bark maple, and we have even rooted it with summer cuttings under mist.

Acer davidii 'Serendipity'

Joe Witt passed away a number of years ago, and by chance his daughter worked at Buchholz Nursery for a few years. When her mother aged the decision was made to sell the family home, but I wonder if the new occupants recognize and prize their famous maple. On the property was a companion to the Acer tegmentosum – it was an Acer davidii seedling, also from the Arboretum. Witt's daughter asked if we could propagate the davidii as a memory to her father. She named the selection 'Serendipity' for a reason that I cannot remember. If anybody would like a start of that, or of the tegmentosum 'Joe Witt', just let me know.

Acer pensylvanicum 'Silver Fox'

The final stripe-bark that I'll mention is Acer pensylvanicum 'Silver Fox', a selection from Crispin Silva of Oregon. The "Moosewood" maple is the only native American stripe-bark, and 'Silver Fox' displays a trunk that commands attention. As with the others I've written about, I don't propagate many nor do I do it every year because my customers prefer exotics versus native American species.

The exotic maples we propagate in greatest number are of course Acer palmatum cultivars, but about 95% of them are grafted in summer when the heat is free. In the winter we place the grafts on our hot-callus pipe, and though the heated water in the pipes is certainly not free, last year virtually every graft "took" so I hope for the same this year. I know the risks, for the Gods of propagation like to toy with you to keep you humble. If they all live again this year I should probably buy a lottery ticket.

Acer palmatum 'Marlo'

Acer palmatum 'Taylor'

Some palmatum cultivars are too thin and soft in the summer, so these are the candidates that we winter graft. A.p. 'Marlo' is relatively new (for me) and it is very colorful, and it has effectively replaced the patented A.p. 'Taylor' because the latter is more prone to mildew. I received my start of both cultivars from Holland, and while I know that 'Taylor' is a Dick van der Maat selection, I don't know about the 'Marlo'. Anyway 'Marlo' grows as a bush about as wide as tall. It needs some protection form the sun in Oregon, in fact I consider it to be a patio plant in a container where it will also receive winter protection. 'Marlo'– I think named for a girl – is like a high-maintenance woman: very pretty when happy, but the guy has to decide if she's worth the effort.

Acer palmatum 'Tattoo'

While I was searching for another maple in the greenhouse I noticed my original start of A.p. 'Tattoo', a compact miniature spreading bun. I noted dozens of one-inch shoots that I had somehow overlooked in summer, and these little twigs were promptly dispatched to Juana in the propagation room. She makes every graft successful it seems, no matter how small or difficult the scion. I don't know the origin of 'Tattoo', or of its curious name, but if someone claims that it was a seedling or a mutation from A.p. 'Mikawa yatsubusa', that would be believable. A fantasy plant that I can imagine would be a red-leaved 'Tattoo', but I've never seen seed on my green specimen. For a while there was a false 'Tattoo' in the trade; I had it and it wasn't very impressive. Then the late D. Dodge of Bethlehem Nursery in CT – well, before he was "late"– gave me my start of the real deal. Mr. Dodge operated a small nursery, but one with a choice collection of maples, ginkgo and conifers, and my source records indicate that I received over fifty wonderful plants from him. So, in that sense he lives on...and I should do likewise.

Acer palmatum 'Wild Fire'

Basically, winter maple propagation involves me walking around the nursery with plastic bags and a pair of felcoes. I cut what I encounter and I can make an excuse for most everything. Such is the case with A.p. 'Wild Fire', and with the leaves out of the way it is more simple to choose good scionwood. I remember back a few months ago that I was impressed with its bright yellow fall leaves. Now the stem colors range from yellow to orange to red at the tips, and really it is more interesting than the ubiquitous 'Sango kaku' ("coral tower") which we stopped growing altogether.

Acer palmatum 'Bihou'

Another coral bark A. palmatum is 'Gold Digger', and it displays green leaves that evolve from yellow to red in autumn. The summer shoots stay yellow on my young plants, and I'm curious how evident this will be as the trees age. Both 'Gold Digger' and 'Wild Fire' can probably tolerate more cold temperatures than the popular Acer palmatum 'Bihou', but we sell a lot of the latter in Oregon, Washington and California.

Acer palmatum 'Peve Starfish'

Acer palmatum 'Japanese Princess'

I try to keep my propagating numbers reasonable, meaning that it is better to sell out of a cultivar down the road than to have too many. My customers are fickle for the most part, and it is their right to be. We could have propagated twice as many Acer palmatum 'Peve Starfish', a plant currently in great demand, and at least five times as many 'Japanese Princess', which is also in great demand, but I resisted the temptation to graft more. I remember in 2007, a year before our great recession, that a large Oregon wholesale nursery limited their customers on maples to only 30% of their total order. Some of their customers were trying to order maples only, and then buy their Hydrangeas and Alberta spruce elsewhere where the price was better. I found that amusing, to try to force your customers into supporting your other plant material. My customers can order whatever they want, and I'm pleased to be able to supply them, and it's my job to mind-read their future wants when I propagate. Feel free to "cherry-pick" at Buchholz Nursery; after all we only grow the cherries.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Splitrock'

Pinus mugo 'Mr. Wood'

Abies veitchii 'Glauca'

Ginkgo biloba 'Blue Cloud'

John Lindley

Imagine the botanists of yore sitting in their studies at their universities or botanical gardens: they would be happy to know the study of botany continues in the 21^stcentury, in fact it is more wonderfully revealing than ever. But what about horticulture? They must have known that before them the ancient cultures had intervened with nature to produce better olives, apples and grains. Could they have imagined that one day normally green species would have horticulturists discover and promote blue variants? Do you think that Siebold and Zuccarini, two German botanists who first described Chamaecyparis obtusa, could predict that we would be planting a blue hinoki like 'Splitrock'? I'll bet that Antonio Turra (1730-1796), the Italian botanist who first described Pinus mugo, would never have guessed that conifer aficionados would one day covet the miniature blue 'Mr. Wood'. When John Gould Veitch introduced the green Abies veitchii from Japan, it was first described by the English botanist John Lindley. Now I have the silver-blue 'Glauca' in my collection. And when Linnaeus first described Ginkgo biloba in his publications he certainly could not have foreseen the Buchholz Nursery introduction of 'Blue Cloud', allegedly.

Everyone admires blue, maybe because we react happily to blue skies. In polls in both Europe and America blue is considered peoples' favorite color. Even though the Japanese flag is red and white, my wife Haruko also supposes that blue is the favorite color in Japan. I don't know about ancient Greece, though, for they classified colors by whether they were light or dark and not by their hue. Kyaneos for “dark blue” could also be used for dark green, black or brown. “Light blue” or glaukos, could also mean light green, gray or yellow.

Acer japonicum 'Ao jutan'

Pinus parviflora 'Aoi'

Haruko tried to explain for me again (10^th time) how the Japanese word ao can be used for both green and blue, and that aoi is an adjective – or was it the noun? All I know is that the maple Acer japonicum 'Ao jutan' has green leaves and that Pinus parviflora 'Aoi' is a blue-needled pine. I get agitated by her vague language, or so it seems to me, but it's not worth a marital fight, and I have to accept that her explanation is beyond me. Anyway, blue is a fun color, so let's have a look at some blue conifers.

Picea pungens 'The Blues'

I have grown Picea pungens 'The Blues' for quite a few years and I think it has one of the best cultivar names in horticulture. It originated at Stanley & Sons Nursery, Oregon as a more-weeping and silver-blue mutation on the old Picea pungens 'Glauca Pendula'. Larry Stanley was/is a keen plantsman and when he noticed the mutation he thought he might have something wonderful; in a large or more plebian nursery the potential might have been overlooked. The photo above is at Stanley's Nursery and I take it to be the original, or one of the original grafts from the mutation. It is grown by the thousands now, but sadly Stanley doesn't get a dime whenever one is sold. 'The Blues' has a stout leader and you could probably grow it to a considerable height, but I warn you that if you turn your back on it for even a short time the leader will begin to wander sideways and you cannot resurrect it.

Cedrus deodara 'Feelin' Blue'

Another weeper with a great name is Cedrus deodara 'Feelin' Blue', but its color is more gray-blue than the shiner 'The Blues'. Monrovia Nursery describes it as “the lowest of the dwarf cedars...” but it is not* and they should get out more. It can certainly be grown low but we prefer to stake ours into small upright weeping trees, and in 10 years we can achieve about 8' in height when grafted onto C. deodara rootstock. The growth rate is slower if propagated on its own roots. I got my start of 'Feelin' Blue' from Kools Nursery in Holland, and no wonder because it was discovered (seedling origin) in Boskoop, Holland in the 1980's. The C. deodara species is native to the western Himalaya and I have seen old specimens in northern India at about 10,000'. The botanical name is derived from the Sanskrit devadaru which combines deva for “god” and daru for “wood” or “tree.” C. deodara is the national tree of Pakistan, but the most cold-hardy** selections come from the Paktia Province in Afghanistan.

Cedrus deodara 'Vaneta'

*C. deodara 'Vaneta' is much more dwarf and low. So is C. libani 'Whitehouse WB'.

**I have grown some of these: 'Karl Fuchs', 'Polar Winter', 'Eiswinter' and others that are hardy from -15 F to -22 F, but I would considered 'Feelin' Blue' to be no more hardy than -10 degrees F.

Juniperus horizontalis 'Icee Blue'

There are at least two conifer cultivars named 'Icee Blue': one is a Podocarpus elongatus and the other a Juniperus horizontalis. I don't know which was named first, but it was bad form to have likewise named the second one. The J. horizontalis species is native to northeastern North America where it can be found growing in rocky soil and over cliffs. 'Icee Blue' forms a low-growing dense mat that stays less than a few inches tall, but it can be problematic in Oregon winters where the constant rain can cause shoot die-back. Maybe the problem is my own, for I have happy soil with plenty of irrigation, and perhaps my long new growth is too soft to withstand the winter.

Podocarpus elongatus 'Icee Blue'

Podocarpus elongatus is commonly known as the “Breede River yellowwood” from South Africa which grows into a multibranched bush, and it is the national tree of that country. The specific name is due to relatively elongated leaves in comparison to many other Podocarpus.* The type features blue-gray leaves but 'Icee Blue' is much deeper in color. It should be grown in full sun for best color, but unfortunately is only hardy to USDA zone 9 (20 degrees F).

Podocarpus henkelii

*P. henkelii has much longer leaves, but it wasn't discovered until P. elongatus was already named. Oops.

Cupressus arizonica var. glabra 'Blue Ice'

I don't know – or really want to know – the difference between Cupressus arizonica and C. arizonica var. glabra, but in the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2014) it states that the var. glabra is more common in cultivation. A cultivar with stunning blue foliage is 'Blue Ice' which grows into a small conical tree. According to Hillier it originated in New Zealand about 1984. Shortly thereafter the now bankrupt firm of Duncan & Davies sent samples of 'Blue Ice' and Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Fernspray Gold' to the large wholesale nursery where I toiled. My employer showed the samples to me, but stated, “What am I going to do with these?” His nursery was frankly a boring place with mugo pines, Alberta spruce and Rhododendrons by the many thousands. I found the two conifers to be fascinating and I offered to buy them. I was starting my own nursery then so he gave them to me gratis, and after a few years I had both in production, probably the first company in North America to offer them. 'Blue Ice' is fast growing and I took a 6' specimen to our Farwest Nursery Show where it was an instant hit. At one point we propagated about 5,000 grafts and sold them as lining-out-stock...which is funny because we don't produce even one now. The problem is that the plants weren't hardy enough for most of my liner customers' customers. When they were dug from the field the stress caused them to produce unsightly gray male pollen, and if they were grown in containers they would flop around and require a stake. On their own roots – which I was never very successful at – they grow thin and feeble. Worst of all the grafted tops would grow too fast in the field and the roots (on Cupressus arizonica) couldn't keep up, so after a rainy windstorm the field of 'Blue Ice' would all be leaning at a 45 degree angle. We had about a 12-year run with it, but now nobody even asks.

Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Baby Blue Ice'

You get it by now that the word “ice” or “icee” sounds catchy with the word “blue,” and another conifer is Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Baby Blue Ice'*, which I admit is a fun name to say. It forms a compact pyramid grown either in a container or in the ground, and my oldest specimen (above) is now 6 or 7' tall. The pisifera species (Latin for “pea bearing” due to the size and shape of the seed cone) strikes readily from cuttings at just about any time of the year. The various cultivars are hardy to -30 degrees F and are relatively problem free; my only trouble is a wet snow that makes me want to dump my outside plants, but by the following summer they look good and compact again. 'Baby Blue Ice' was discovered by Stanley & Sons Nursery, the same company that found Picea pungens 'The Blues', in 1998 as a dwarf mutation on C.p. 'Baby Blue', the latter a cultivar nobody grows any more.

Picea pungens 'Baby Blue Eyes'

*Baby Blue Iceis a cute name. There also exists a 'Baby Blue Eyes' for a Picea pungens cultivar, and I grow one in the Flora Wonder Arboretum.

Picea engelmannii 'Blue Magoo'

When I began my nursery years ago I grew a lot of conifers from seed. The resulting seedlings might yield something interesting, but if they didn't you could either throw them away or perhaps use them as rootstock (which I still do with Japanese maples). In the mid 1980's I germinated a few hundred Picea engelmannii, and three years later I set aside about five of them that were the most blue. These were grown in the field, and one became my favorite, so I propagated and named it 'Blue Magoo'. The branches did not weep at all, but the new shoots drooped in spring giving the tree a graceful appearance. I sold a fair number because others agreed, and the western North American species is hardy and relatively easy to grow. Well – easy – except the species is prone (along with Picea pungens) to attack by a dreaded moth which lays eggs in the terminal leaders, and as the larvae develop they kill the spruce tops. Dwarf and miniature cultivars of P. engelmannii are not targets for the moth for they prefer to infest the succulent leader at the top of taller trees. Rather than a battle with the creatures with chemical control, I just don't grow them anymore. Buchholz Nursery is too small and diverse with affected trees in many locations, so preventative measures are inconvenient and costly. You win some, you lose some.

Picea pungens 'Blue Pearl'

Picea pungens 'Pali'

Picea pungens 'Herman Naue'

Picea pungens 'Procumbens'

I asked Seth what was his favorite blue conifer and he responded Picea pungens 'Margarite'. Yep, that's a good one, but I don't have a photo to prove it. But there has been a long debate about what is the “best” Colorado blue spruce...which can't be determined until we all agree on what best means. As I mentioned with Picea engelmannii cultivars, I now steer clear of the large-growing pyramidal cultivars such as 'Hoopsii' which was very popular at the beginning of my career. 'Thompsen' (from Denmark) was just as silver-blue but it too was prone to moth attack. Even the more-dwarf and compact 'Sester's Dwarf' suffered some damage, and there's nothing worse than a formal pyramidal tree without its top. On account of that we grow the miniatures like 'Blue Pearl' and 'Pali' Others that are slow-growing – but not “miniature” – include 'Early Cones', 'Ruby Teardrops' and 'Herman Naue'. These cuties produce erect purple cones in the spring, and as summer progresses the cones turn blonde-brown and dangle downward. None of these coners are very profitable for the nurseryman, but then they are easy to sell. Two clones that creep low and at a faster rate include 'Procumbens' and 'Dietz Prostrate', and they are very effective when planted in front of upright golden conifers like Pinus sylvestris 'Gold Medal'.

Juniperus deppeana 'Ohmy Blue'

Juniperus deppeana is the “Alligator bark juniper,” a species from dry areas in central and northern Mexico...up to Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. Other than the interesting checkerbark I find the species to be mostly ugly. Botanists still haggle if there are five distinct varieties: var. deppeana, var. robusta, var. sperryi, var. zacatecensis– the four of which don't interest me. The fifth variety is pachyphlaea and it is known for stunning blue foliage with white resin spots. Thirty years ago I was visiting the garden of the late Dr. Bump of Forest Grove, Oregon, and he led me to a seedling tree of J. d. var. p. I uttered “My God, that's blue.” He invited me to take cuttings if I wanted, and I did. To keep track of it I had to give it a name, and I couldn't call it 'My God That's Blue' so I chose 'Ohmy Blue'. It wouldn't root for me, but I did graft a few onto Juniperus scopulorum 'Skyrocket'. Over the years the grafts onto 'Skyrocket' were not usually successful, besides sales were weak because I was apparently charging too much for a merejuniper. I haven't propagated it in ten years but I do keep a nice specimen in the collection. The specific name deppeana honors Ferdinand Deppe (? - 1861), a German botanist who had given the species a name previously used for another species; which is not allowed so it was changed to deppeana. The variety name pachyphlaea is from Greek pachy for “thick, dense, large, massive,” and I don't know phlaea unless it refers to the bark.

Pinus cembra 'Blue Mound'

Pinus cembra 'Blue Mound' is a dwarf dense tree, and the finder of it – I forget who he was – told me that the original seedling did indeed grow into a “mound” shape. He conceded though, that despite its name all grafted propagules will eventually assume a pyramidal shape. This most garden-worthy “Swiss stone pine” can eventually reach 10' in height – mine is already 8' tall at 30 years old. Horticulture is replete with name tags – like the Podocarpus elongata that I mentioned earlier – that can seem quite inappropriate down the road.

Ephedra equisitina 'Blue Stem'

Even people who are familiar with horticulture are surprised to hear that the Ginkgo genus is (somewhat) classified as a conifer, or at least in the Hillier Manual it is listed with the conifers. Even more strange, I think, is when I first discovered the Ephedra genus included with conifers in Krussmann's Manual of Cultivated Conifers, a comprehensive reference book that I began using at the beginning of my career. Hillier doesn't go so far, and Ephedra in the Ephedraceaefamily is included in the Trees and Shrubs section. Hillier concedes, however, that Ephedra is, "A genus of great botanical interest, providing a link between flowering plants and conifers." Conifers "flower" too of course, but theirs are not considered true flowers....another example of a gray area in botanical classification. Anyway, I doubt that either Krussmann or Hillier ever encountered E. equisitina 'Blue Stem', whether we call it a conifer or not. Our website describes it as "An interesting conifer-related shrub with slender rush-like powder blue stems. Small orange-red berries sparkle delightfully in the blue foliage. Wonderful addition to a rock garden."

The adjective wonderful...again. Regular readers of the blog know that I use, and probably overuse the word. But I am sincere every time. Blue is wonderful, and the color is no stranger to the Flora Wonder Blog.

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Time to Order from Gossler Farms Nursery

A Visit to Southern Oregon

Plant Families with Sole Members

David Douglas in America

Pine Commentary

A Riot of Color Contest

A Riot of Color Contest Winner

Autumn Long Gone

The Chamaecyparis Five

Cryptic Conifer

Shared Plant Names

Favorite Rhododendron Species in the Flora Wonder Arboretum

Happy New Year

Sharing Plants

Words, Names and Languages...

Partial to Pinus parviflora

In Praise of Yellow

Winter Maple Propagation

Conifer Blue