Conifers Part 1: The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs, 9th Edition

Yesterday I received my new 9^th edition (2019) of The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs. In 2014 the 8^th edition was published, but now just five years later it has been "revised and updated with 1,200 new plants" according to the title blurb. English plant personality and former Hillier employee, Roy Lancaster, writes in the preface:

"When the previous (8^th) edition of this manual with its 13,000 entries was published, some gardeners might have thought that it would remain relevant and representative for many years to come. They were wrong. Five years down the line, and we are pleased to present this updated edition containing over a thousand new entries covering a wealth of exciting and ornamental woody plants, from Mexican oaks and Chinese mahonias to Himalayan Sorbus and sumptuous magnolias."

 

First, I'll get one gripe out of the way about the new book: its size, for one must grapple with a publication that has become unwieldly, because while it remains at the same length and width, it is now over 100 pages thicker (to 637) and you have to wrestle to keep it open on a certain page. Certainly at some point you have to divide it into separate, more manageable volumes, as Krussmann and Bean did, to make it more user friendly. The bulk of the publication hinders me with my research, especially when I am comparing the previous edition with the current one. I feel like I need four arms and five hands to manage the 9^th, but making the type smaller with fewer pages would be a greater disaster.

 

Picea engelmannii 'Blue Magoo'

Picea engelmannii 'Blue Magoo'

A new inclusion in the manual is a hardiness rating for every plant. When I turned at random to Picea engelmannii it said H7, and I thought to myself, "wait a minute – it's more hardy than that!" Then I realized that this was some British invention so I turned to the section How To Use The Manual and discovered that the degrees were in Celsius and where strangely an H1 was "Heated greenhouse – tropical" and H7 was "Very hardy," the opposite of our USDA system. The description of Picea engelmannii in the 9^th copies that of the 8^th, but then further notes that the aforementioned Roy Lancaster "recalls a never-to-be-forgotten winter walk in the Canadian Rockies above Banff through forests almost entirely dominated by this species and P. glauca, with the occasional Tsuga mertensiana and Larix layallii adding variety."

Picea breweriana

Picea breweriana

Roy Lancaster garners a number of inclusions in the manual, and besides his winter walkthrough a

Picea engelmannii forest, the prior description of Picea breweriana mentions that RL saw it [P. breweriana] "in 2009 in the Siskiyou Mountains growing with Abies magnifica var. shastensis, Lithocarpus densiflorus, Arctostaphylos canescens, A. nevadensis and Quercus sadleriana." I actually enjoy these chatty asides which binds people with plants and which breathes greater life into, and helps to moisten an otherwise dry scientific manual. I can easily connect with the career of Roy Lancaster as I probably stood at the very place where he witnessed the Picea breweriana in the Siskiyous and also in Nepal in the 1970s which led to his classic Plant Hunting in Nepal, and perhaps in the latter locale we both drank Himalayan chang from the same dirty cups in the same filthy Sherpa tea house. I've met Lancaster only once, in a Gloucestershire pub in the evening before a plant society meeting regarding maples, and indeed he is still the President of the Maple Society, though now in his 80s. He has been called "One of Nature's Gentlemen," and he is one of those rare botanists who also has dirt under his fingernails and who probably eats his breakfast with a trowel, anxious to get outside and plant something.

 

Picea farreri

In the Hillier 9^th the species listed after Picea breweriana, then Picea engelmannii, is Picea farreri which is fairly new to broad cultivation. The photo above is a specimen from an English garden, and it's a conifer notable for pendulous green foliage. Hillier cites it as H4 hardiness, so let's go back to the Guide and see what that means for me. Hmm...-10 to -5 C, which in southern England means "hardy-average winter," but not hardy for me as that translates to USDA zone 8b/9a. We get colder than that every winter, so my one tiny plant is destined to spend its entire life in a protective greenhouse, and we'll hope the damn heater doesn't fail. Picea farreri honors the quirky plant collector Reginald Farrer who found it in Upper Burma (Myanmar) in 1919, and good that he did because he died in Burma soon after in 1920. A specimen was raised at Exbury, Hampshire that was planted in 1921 – according to Grimshaw/Bayton in New Trees, Recent Introductions to Cultivation – but it died from drought in 1995. It would be fun if an English gardener planted a P. farreri next to a P. breweriana, then we could all stand back 20 years later and decide which species is the more beautiful...well, if both you and I have 20 more spare years to live.

Picea glauca var. albertiana 'Pixie Dust'

 

Picea glauca var. albertiana 'Pixie Dust'

Picea glauca is the "White spruce" and it occurs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but mostly in Canada. The 9^th lists 13 cultivars of the very hardy species with 9 of them being selections of var. albertiana, the "Alberta spruce." Var. albertiana 'Conica' (aka 'Albertiana Conica') was the first of the little dwarf pyramids and it was found in the Canadian Rockies in 1904 by Dr. Jack and Professor Rehder of the Arnold Arboretum. 'Conica' has been produced by the millions over the years, and when I started my career in horticulture the large nursery where I worked sold over 200,000 per year. During the Recession of 10-12 years ago the albertas were a glut in the market, and nurseries who couldn't sell them kept them in the same size pot as they grew larger and larger, tipping over every time the wind blew. With the larger-sized 'Conicas' growers developed the brilliant idea to prune them into spiraled shapes, except that everyone produced spirals so they didn't sell either. Most nurseries with a crop of spiraled albertas have since gone bankrupt it seems. I grow only one cultivar – 'Pixie Dust' – and it's a cutie when the second flush of the season appears cream yellow, but it is absent from Hillier's list of cultivars.

Picea glauca 'Pendula'

Picea glauca 'Pendula'

For the non-alberta cultivars Hillier is content to list only 'Arneson's Blue Variegated', 'Coerulea', 'Densata', 'Echiniformis' and 'Nana'. Most of those are ancient selections and you don't find them in the trade anymore, the same as with most of the cultivars of Picea abies that Hillier lists. The one or two sentence descriptions serve as a history lesson I suppose, but in a few areas of the Manual Hillier is woefully behind what is currently in the trade. I find the omission of Picea glauca 'Pendula' to be strange because I have seen it in a few European countries, and it is a very distinctive, elegant and useful cultivar. Rushforth in Conifers lists it in his 1987 book, where it states: "'Pendula' is based on a plant with pendulous branches." That sentence must be the most uninspired plant description in the history of horticulture. Keep in mind that there is probably more than one clone of 'Pendula', but the one in the photos above was originally propagated by D. Hill Nursery from a tree in the wild in Ontario, Canada, and it has been in cultivation since at least 1958.

Pinus bungeana

Pinus bungeana

Hillier keeps the same descriptions from the 8^th to the 9^th editions for the most part, but sometimes the prose is reworked and/or other snippets of information are added. That is the case with Pinus bungeana, and a new reference is made about a large P. bungeana in the Forbidden City in Beijing. I saw that specimen 30 years ago and I lamented that it received no protection from tourists, and cigarette butts and plastic littered its base. Now we read: "One specimen, possibly now removed, well over 20m, remained for a time after its demise as an unintentional monument to the millions of tourists' footfall and the resultant soil compaction." What a shame; a simple fence with a "Stay Out" sign would have preserved the tree. And by the way, the vast majority of the tourist culprits were Chinese, at least when I was there.

Pinus strobus 'Louie'

Pinus strobus 'Louie'

The Manual is correct that Pinus strobus 'Louie' was found by Greg Williams, USA before 1993, and it originated as a seedling in Hyde Park, Vermont. It is described as "a small tree," with a broadly pyramidal habit, and yes it is broad but not so small. I planted one at Flora Farm – it's about 22 years old now – and I thought it would look attractive in the middle of a grouping of upright Picea pungens. It did for awhile, but now 'Louie' produces shoots two feet long at the top and it has become decision time about whether it or the spruce will be sacrificed.

Pinus strobus 'Tiny Kurls'

Pinus strobus 'Tiny Kurls'

Pinus strobus 'Tiny Kurls' is described as "A seedling of 'Torulosa' raised by A. Sherwood USA before 2005." Wrong. Andy Sherwood, who I am related to, had died long before I began my career. Actually it was the same Greg Williams of Vermont who intentionally crossed the cone-prolific dwarf cultivar 'Horsham' with 'Torulosa', and subsequent seedlings could be dwarf with the curious twisted needles like 'Torulosa'. Probably the most popular is 'Mini Twists', which is not listed in the manual. Conifer collector Bob Fincham was given permission to name both 'Mini Twists' and 'Tiny Kurls', while a third cultivar – 'Vercurve' – is also in the trade. Not surprising, the 'Tiny Kurls' origin error is repeated in the RHS Encyclopedia of Conifers.

Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

The 8^th and 9^th both mispel the finder of Pinus 'Chief Joseph' as Doug Wills* (Will, not Wills), while the RHS publication has it correct. But a more egregious error occurs in the Manual when Pinus contorta, the "Beach pine" – in Oregon we call it "Shore pine" – is listed as the species for 'Chief Joseph'. We read that it was "discovered in the Wallowa Mountains, Oregon, USA...and named after the famous leader of the Native American Nez Perce tribe..." But the Wallowas are in the east side of Oregon, 300 miles away from the ocean. Pinus contorta var. latifolia, the "Lodgepole pine" is mentioned after P. c. 'Chief Joseph' but the only cultivar listed is 'Spaan's Dwarf'.

*The first time I met the salty Doug Will he told me that he was resting in his chair at his hunting campsite, but he noticed something golden off in the distance. He thought at first that it was a bucket or some type of garbage. As a good steward of nature he went off to pick it up, and discovered that it was the golden pine. "Digging it up was difficult," he said, "because the ground was hard as a wedding-night dick." That was a crude comment to someone who you've just met, but I laughed and have never forgotten it.

Pinus contorta 'Spaan's Dwarf'

Pinus contorta 'Frisian Gold' at Jeddeloh Nursery

Pinus contorta 'Frisian Gold'

I always assumed that 'Chief Joseph' was from the var. latifolia tribe, but now I'm not so sure. Rushforth calls latifolia a subsp. not a var., but I've never figured out the difference. P. contorta subsp. or var. contorta is the "Beach pine," while P. contorta subsp. murrayana is the "Sierra Lodgepole pine" which is native to the Cascade Mountains from Washington to Oregon and all the way south to Mexico. Another subsp., according to Rushforth, is bolanderi, the "Mendocino shore pine" and the cultivars 'Spaan's Dwarf' and 'Frisian Gold' are listed as members of the bolanderi group in Conifers. I grow both, but to place them in the Mendocino group surprises me. 'Frisian Gold' is from Jeddeloh in Germany – I wonder if they would know.

Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

Pinus contorta 'Chief Joseph'

To further complicate matters the RHS Encyclopedia places 'Chief Joseph', 'Spaan's Dwarf' and 'Frisian Gold' in the var. murrayana group. Confused? Me too, with three different English publications, two from the RHS, all giving different taxonomic placings. All that I'm certain about.........no, wait a minute, I'm not certain about anything, but I strongly suspect that 'Chief Joseph' is not a "Beach pine" cultivar as is implied in the 9^th Manual.

Abies koreana 'Nanaimo'

Abies koreana 'Nanaimo'

Abies koreana 'Nanaimo'

An Abies species that is well-suited for horticulture is A. koreana, and I have more cultivars of it compared to any other. Strangely the Manual is paucus with it, suggesting that it is an "interesting species," then adding "A tall-growing but very poor form is in cultivation." I have no clue what that means as I have purchased thousands of Abies koreana seedlings that I use as rootstock, or if grown on their own they make excellent garden trees. Is the "form" describes as "poor" the type specimen that E.H. Wilson collected? And by the way, where is that now growing? Of course it is entirely possible that the Hillier Manual is clear and concise and that I'm the confused one.

Abies koreana 'Silberlocke'

Abies koreana 'Silberlocke'

Abies koreana EX 'Silberlocke'

A few cultivars are listed, where A.k. 'Silberlocke' is of course mentioned, with the factoid that it was "raised in Germany before 1983." 'Silver Show' is "A remarkable slow-growing selection similar to 'Silberlocke' but with more strongly upcurved leaves, making the silvery appearance of the foliage even more striking." I grow both cultivars, but honestly I can't tell them apart without looking at the trees' labels. What I do know is that nearly every seed of 'Silberlocke' that germinates produces upcurved needles at my nursery. These are always sold when young or they become rootstock for other cultivars, but it would be fun to grow them to larger sizes to see how they might vary, except that would take too much time and money.

Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker'

Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker'

The Hillier 8^th lists Abies koreana 'Ice Breaker' and states: "A remarkable miniature cultivar with a low, squat habit. The white undersides of the upturned leaves give the whole plant a silver-blue appearance. Raised in Germany in 1998 from a witches' broom found on 'Silberlocke'." Then in the 9^th edition the same description is used, but the plant is renamed 'Kahout's Ice Breaker'. Actually it is Kohout, not Kahout. The American Conifer Society spells Kohout correctly but leaves out the apostrophe's and combines 'Icebreaker' into one word. I choose to continue calling it 'Ice Breaker', but then I'm not the person who first discovered and propagated it. In any case it was selected by the ACS in 2014 as the Conifer of the Year. It is well established in the trade – I have grown thousands – and we produce it via winter cuttings or as grafted plants.

Abies procera 'Glauca'

The "Noble fir," Abies procera, was introduced to cultivation in 1830 by David Douglas. 'Glauca' (or

David Douglas

"Glauca Group" now) is called by Hillier "The common clone," with an introduction supposedly in 1863, and is "used to cover all forms with blue-grey leaves." 'Glauca Prostrata' is a "low bush with spreading or prostrate branches and glaucous leaves." What I didn't know is that it "originated in Hillier's Shroner Wood Nursery in about 1895." I saw a remarkable specimen at the Dutchman's home while I toiled at his nursery. The plant was only one foot tall while spreading to ten feet wide. I was allowed to propagate from that plant and one was put into the original Display Garden, and I look at it every day from out my office window. Unfortunately for me, it immediately shot upward and it's now about 40' tall, totally declining to grow low.

Picea abies 'Nidiformis', 8' tall, 30' wide, growing at Whitney Gardens, Washington State

I'm sure the conifer section of the 9^th edition is basically solid with the specific nomenclature and the useful and sometimes colorful descriptions. The cultivars presented, however, seem rather old-fashioned and I didn't find much that was new compared to the 8^th edition, but maybe trees such as Picea abies 'Tabuliformis' (1865), 'Remontii' (1874), 'Ohlendorfii' (1845), 'Nidiformis' (1907) etc. are in more common use in England than here in America. The conifer section comes towards the end of the Manual, sandwiched between the Climbers and the Bamboos, and since I know very little about those two groups I will not pass judgement on them. Flora Wonder Blog, Part 2 of the 9^th edition of The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs will focus on trees and shrubs, or maybe both – I don't know what I'll do yet.