New Plant pics: Holland 2012

Here is a quick pictorial of some of the new plants that I ran across on my last trip to the Netherlands. We saw some pretty cool plants. What do you like? 

Fairy Dance Abelia a dwarf with lots of flowers

 Flutterby Pink Buddleia - A new Butterfly Bush

Ivory Buzz Buddleia

Lo & Behold Lilac Chip Buddleia wins the best plant award

Denny Werner's Lo & Behold Ice Chip also won an award

Cercis Ruby Falls, a Denny Werner plant, wins a medal 

Calluna vulgaris (heather) Notre Dame

Blue Bunny - Carex laxiculmis 'Hobb'  - An American variety from Robert Head

Clematis Princess Kate

Clematis Fond Memories

Cornus kousa 'Summer Gold'

Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Frosted Flame'

A trio of colorful Hebes

Hydrangea a. petiolaris 'Silver Lining'

Heuchera 'Circus'

Flair and Flavours Hydrangea is called Tuff Stuff in North America

The flower color can be changed to purple-blue with Aluminum Sulfate

Tuff Stuff Hydrangea wins a Gold Medal

Incrediball Hydrangea and Jane's Hand on a truck

Hypericum nodorum Magical Triumph 

Mr. H.J.M. Kuijf with his new variety Happy Face Pink Paradise Potentilla 

Happy Face Pink Paradise Potentilla 

New in Flowering Shrubs

It's that time of year. The Spring Meadow (wholesale) catalog is hot off the press and in the mail.  For those of you not in the nursery business, growers across the U.S. and Canada look to Spring Meadow Nursery for small starter plants (liners) which they grow on to larger sizes. 

A tray or flat of shrub liners. We sell these starter plants to growers

Spring Meadow also specializes in new and improved shrub varieties. We breed new shrubs and we work with plant breeders from around the world. The very best of these plants are introduced under the Proven Winners brand which can be found at better garden centers. 

Look for the distinctive white container

To help you get a jump on what's new, I've included a presentation of the new Proven Winners flowering shrubs that will be available to wholesale growers next spring. Because we sell small, starter plants, it will take a year or two before they get to local retail garden centers.  How soon  it takes to get there depends upon how fast a variety grows and how it is received by growers, retailers and you.    

For a plant to become a Proven Winner selection, we spend a lot of time testing and trialing to identify the very best plants. From breeder to garden center, it typically takes 8-10 years for a new plant to get to market. It's a long process and very few plants make the cut. 

These are trialing fields where we test and evaluate potential new shrubs

First and foremost, we look for plants that perform in the garden. It is important to us that gardeners have success with our plants.  In addition to garden performance, there are other other qualities we look for in a shrub. We look for plants that provide more seasons of color. You'll notice that many of these shrubs have colorful or attractive foliage, as well as pretty flowers. Others offer more color with extended or repeat blooming. You see, shrubs can be as colorful as perennials. Actually shrubs are perennials, they just happen to have woody stems.  

Gardeners want plants that are easy to care for or that require less maintenance. That's why we look for and select dwarf or compact varieties. Compact shrubs require less pruning and care, which in turn makes your life easier. More color with less work is a great combination in a plant!

This dwarf butterfly bush requires less care than the larger ones

We also feel that of all products, plants should be ecologically friendly. For example, when testing new roses we never spray them. This helps us to identify those varieties that are resistant to blackspot and other diseases. We believe that landscape roses should be healthy and happy. The days of spraying roses is long gone. 

We've also developed seedless selections of species that might otherwise be invasive. This year we'll introduce three new butterfly bush hybrids that are seedless and noninvasive.  We believe that gardening is the best way to be green. 

Lo & Behold Butterfly Bushes are Non-Invasive

Enjoy the presentation. Please feel free to give me your comments and opinions. Your feedback is real important to me and to the whole process.  If you're a gardener, let your local garden center know what you like or want.  If you are a retailer, let your grower know what you like to buy. And if you're a grower, let me know what you think. We all have opinions and social media has given us all a voice. 

Note: After starting the presentation, you can make it larger by clicking on the bottom right hand corner of the video box.






    

The Czech Republic: A Plant Hunter Pictorial

Traveling to the Czech Republic to look for plants has been on my radar for a number of years.  It has a temperate continental climate not all that different from that of the Mid-West United States. In addition they have a long history and appreciation for ornamental gardening.  Yet every time I had planned a trip in the past, I had to cancel it. This summer it finally happened, and here is a visual summary of our trip.

Our first stop was Prague, the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic.  Prague is a beautiful mid-evil town and as it turns out the home of an old college friend. So after a tour of the famous Charles Bridge we met my friend in the town center for a cold Pils beer. 

Beer is another reason to get to the Czech Republic. As many of you well know I appreciate a good brew, so traveling to Bohemia, the home of the Pilsner, is like traveling to Mecca only better.      

It took me a bit of time and effort, but I did it. I found the best beer in Bohemia. This unfiltered, unpasteurized Gambrinus was mighty tasty. I highly recommend it to anyone that does not appreciate the high fructose corn syrup beverages so cleverly marketed as beer State-side.

As far as finding new plants, we found a few. The Czech Republic is well known for it's conifer collectors and conifer nurseries and we visited quite a few. 

This particular grower was well known for sowing and growing witches broom seed, so just about every plant in his garden was a unique individual.    

The Czech Republic is a beautiful and picturesque country and the people are very friendly. After one of our nursery visits our host took us to a scared monastery a top this small mountain. My understanding is that Pilgrims climb the mountain to better appreciate the suffering of Christ. We took a van.

It's also my upstanding that the Czech people are allowed to ferment and distill a certain amount of plum brandy. And while I can attest that it's very strong, I was told it keeps you very healthy. The man that shared this bottle with us told us his mom drank it every day and lived to the ripe old age of 52. (Just kidding) She lived a very happy life to 100. 

As I said before everyone was so friendly. Everyone we met shared their plum wine and wished us a long and healthy life. 

There also appears to be a strong interest in rock gardening in the Czech Republic. We were fortunate enough to visit several beautiful, hillside rock gardens. One of the nurseries we visited  hybridizes and selects new rock garden plants like this beautiful Lewisia seen here.

Believe it or not we drank more than beer and plum brandy in the Czech Republic. One of our hosts made this delicious elder flower lime water. It was wonderfully refreshing.   

The food was also delicious. One of my favorites was the garlic soup. Yum!  

One thing that caught my eye while traveling was common use of Parthenocissus quinquefolia, our native American Virginia-creeper. It is a real easy way to create a green wall (or a red wall)  without any complicated infrastructure.   

The invention of the GPS has made our trips so much easier than they were just a few years ago. I highly recommend one that pronounces the street names. Notice the name of the street we're on and note that Dale seems to be veering off the road a bit. He must be passing someone.  

As for my trip (and for this blog post), all good things must come to an end. We had a wonderful trip to the Czech Republic. I am sorry (not really) if you were expecting me to write more about plants. But if you had taken the time to read my bio you would have learned that this blog is about plants, people, the places I visit and the food and drink I discover along the way. Thanks for coming along.   

Goodbye!   

Genetic Modification of Ornamental Shrubs

The phrase genetically modified has come to mean that the DNA of a plant or animal has been modified using recombinant DNA technology; gene splicing by means of a gene gun and a gene transporting viruse. To many it is a frightening prospect that man should play God, but people have been genetically modifying plants and animals since the dawn of agriculture, if not before. The simple act of collecting seeds for replanting has given us new and improved strains of heavier fruiting plants. For years we have been selecting, culling, isolating and transferring pollen, all which have changed the world in ways we rarely think about. 

Plant breeding using tradition methods, and the principles first developed by Gregor Johann Mendel, have served human-kind well. Our stomachs are full and our gardens are more colorful because man has genetically modified thousands of organisms. This is especially true in the world of ornamental garden plants.    

There is an orange forsythia, but I created these with Photoshop

Sure, there have been a few forays into transgenic ornamentals. I once saw an orange flowered forsythia in France. Beet genes had been inserted into its DNA, but not to worry, the plant is under lock and key and will never be released. The Japanese used gene transfer to created a blue rose, but It's only sold as a cut flower and not as a garden plant. These are rare examples of transgenic ornamentals. The truth be told, traditional breeding is easier and plenty powerful. We have just seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of traditional plant breeding. 

Take a look at the picture below. While most people would not recognize that it's a hydrangea, it is or native form of Hydrangea arborescens or smooth hydrangea. This is a plant I saw while hiking in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Not too spectacular, is it?

This unassuming plant is the starting point for many popular garden hydrangeas that you know and love. Through traditional breeding, it has been turned into a wide array beautiful garden plants. Just look at what has been has done with this shrub.

White Dome has very large lacy flowers

'Hayes Starburst'  was selected for its highly doubled flowers 

'Annabelle' is one of the most well known hydrangeas. It has large round blooms

Incrediball hydrangea is an improved 'Annabelle' with larger flowers and stronger stems 

Once in a while nature lends a hand in the breeding process. Annabelle was discovered in the wild as a naturally occurring mutation. There are three pink flowered variants of Hydrangea arborescens and I believe all were discovered in nature. 'Pink Pincushion', 'Eco Pink Puff' and 'Wesser Falls' all resemble the wild-type I showed you in the first picture, except that each has a bit of pink coloration in their flowers. While none of these selections are all that attractive, they were exactly what plant breeders needed to make the next big step.

Here are the crosses that lead to the creation of Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea

Two of these pink variants along with 'Annabelle' were used to create the plant labeled here a F1B. The breeder then crossed siblings in this generation to create the first ever pink Annabelle hydrangea called called Invincibelle 'Spirit'.  

Invincibelle 'Spirit' 

All of this genetic modification resulted by selecting, culling, isolating and traditional plant breeding techniques. Toss in a bit of natural occurring mutation and an unassuming shrub is changed in ways we could hardly image. And the great thing about this is that we have only just begun to see the power of traditional plant breeding.

Follow this link to see some of the very best hydrangeas ever developed