Plant Delights Nursery

 

Tony Avent and Talon Buchholz

Our late-October gathering for the International Maple Society's 2022 Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina consisted of three days of lectures in the mornings, then when we woke up we were excurted to various gardens and arboreta in the afternoons. On our third and final day we were treated to a tour of Plant Delights Nursery which was hosted by the acclaimed proprietor Tony Avent. My one previous visit occurred a couple of years prior during the 2013 Maple Symposium...except that my “couple of years” of reckoning was actually nine years before. Mr. Avent appeared to not have aged, while my brown-haired dome had bleached significantly, and I must have looked like one of Tony's Agave specimens (“century plants”) which are said to take about 100 years to flower. My wife Haruko provided a youthful contrast, though, which helped to establish my virility, but most attendees were not aware that we married when she was just 12 years old.

I was nervous about Haruko at the famous nursery/botanic garden because I knew she would have more fun at Plant Delights than at my own Oregon garden, and perhaps she might conclude that she married the wrong guy. In any case, I admonished her to take lots of plant photos – and to not forget the identifying labels! – because I was anxious to experience the garden through her eyes as well as my own. She connected immediately with the Murakami-esque company cat who followed (or led) her throughout the afternoon, and the above photo and some subsequent images demonstrate Haru's delight in this Disneyland of Horticulture.

Acer cordatum

Acer laevigatum

Acer laevigatum

Tony was prepared for our Society's visit with his maple inventory, and as a collector of many genera of plants, his botanic garden contained interesting Acer specimens even though he doesn't sell any of them to help fund their keep. I recognized on his list a few of my cultivar selections such as Acer palmatums 'Amber Ghost', 'Dark Knight', 'Fairy Hair', 'Geisha Gone Wild', 'Green Fingers' (which I don't even have anymore), 'Ikandi' and a 'Japanese Princess' that looked better than the best specimen I have at home. Of course his garden contained a requisite sampling of non-hardy (for me) species, plus one that I had never heard of before, Acer cordatum. The specific epithet cordatum would refer obviously to “heart-shaped” leaves, but I couldn't find the species listed in my well-worn maple reference books. I was correct to assume that cordatum was likely a variety or subspecies of another species, and indeed it is considered by some to be a distinct form of Acer laevigatum, the latter a maple introduced by E.H. Wilson from China in 1902, but first described by Nathanial Wallich in 1830. Laevigatum was so-named, from Latin laevigatus, in reference to the smooth, polished leaves. According to the International Dendrology Society's Trees and Shrubs Online, the species is a small evergreen tree or shrub, usually multistemmed, and even in England it requires a “sheltered” placement. Any plant in a collector's garden that is generally assumed to be too tender seems to bring extra delight when it thrives in defiance of the odds.

Acer pentaphyllum

Acer pentaphyllum was also included on Tony's maple inventory, but I didn't find it actually planted out. I wondered if his source was the clone long-established in Western collections that was originally discovered by Joseph Rock in 1929, or if his Acer pentaphyllum was from more recent expeditions to China which aimed to document and preserve the species considered extremely endangered. I have grown Acer pentaphyllum, and have kept a few around for the past 40 years, my start coming from the Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco. We have propagated via seed from my largest, greenhouse-protected tree, which was itself produced by grafting onto Acer rubrum, which is an unlikely combination of two species from different sections. Acer pentaphyllum will also root from July-August cuttings under mist, and at one point in my nursery's history we probably had more trees than the number still in the wild.

Muhlenbergia capillaris 'White Cloud'

Gotthilf Muhlenberg

Ok, enough of maples, let's get to the fun stuff that makes Avent's company Plant Delights. Haruko was smitten with the glowing white grass flowers of Muhlenbergia capillaris 'White Cloud', and the somewhat jaded Mr. Avent also enthuses in his catalog: “White Cloud is a superb selection you simply must see to believe!” The “Muhly grass” is far more common in Carolina gardens than in Oregon, and I have also seen it growing there along highway borders with no irrigation. It is native to eastern North America and was voted as plant of the year in 2012 by the Garden Club of America. It was first described by the French botanist Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1791 as Stipa capillaris, but the genus name was later changed to honor Gotthilf Muhlenberg (1753-1815), a Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania and amateur botanist. I should mention that Muhly grass typically flowers pink, but I favor the 'White Cloud' cultivar, while Avent gushes that the “see-through cloud of white lasts well after frosts have begun...absolutely dynamite!”

Capsicum frutescens 'Hot Returns'

Capsicum frutescens 'Hot Returns'

Another fun discovery was the perennial pepper Capsicum frutescens 'Hot Returns', a dense erect shrub of 4' tall that displayed a hundred-or-so little yellow beguiling devils. The genus name Capsicum is from the Greek word kapto meaning “to bite,” but with some cultivars that are extremely hot it seems that it's the vegetable that bites the human, not the other way around. The English word pepper is from Greek piperi, and that from Sandskrit pippali for “long pepper.” Also known as “pepper” is Capsicum annuum, and when Columbus discovered it in Caribbean gardens he wrongly assumed that Capsicum was the same as Piper. But Capsicum was one of the earliest plants cultivated in the Americas, and there's evidence that it was used as food in Peru at least 8,000 years ago. Now it is an important ingredient found throughout the world, and you also have idiots who compete with eating the hottest of the Chili peppers, and that is the “ghost pepper,” or bhut jolokia from the mountains of northern India. Eating one ghost pepper would probably kill most of us, butt a recent “winner,” a 34-year-old dentist from Kentucky, ate a dozen of them on national TV. For what it's worth he now has red hair, but his colon no longer terminates with an anus.

Gladiolus dalenii 'Halloweenie'

On this day before Halloween we passed a blooming Gladiolus which glowed with fiery yellow, orange-red color. Tony remarked that G. dalenii 'Halloweenie' reliably flowers on Halloween, hence the cultivar name, and what a wonderful bouquet it would make for the late-autumn feast table. G. dalenii is an easy-to-grow Iridaceae species from eastern South Africa and Madagascar, commonly known as the “Dragon's Head Sword lily,” yet it has proven completely hardy in my USDA zone 7 garden. Gladioli attract hummingbirds but the flowers are toxic to dogs and cats, and gardener beware that gophers and squirrels love to eat the corms. The genus name is from Latin gladius meaning a “small sword,” while the specific epithet dalenii was named in 1828 for Cornelius Dalen, director of the Rotterdam Botanic Gardens who introduced it to Europe. Traditional uses of the plant include the sword leaves that can be braided into rope, and that in medicine it has been used to treat diarrhea as well as sterility in women. Additionally, glads are considered good luck charms, though I'm not sure how applied, and also to cure chest ailments caused by sorcery. Do we suppose that one can ward off the evils of the Sorcerer by growing a cormeous clump of 'Halloweenie'? If so, trick or treat that!

Gardenia jasminoides 'Double Variegated'

Gardenia jasminoides 'Double Variegated'

Alexander Garden

A shady path featured a dazzling presence that stopped me in my tracks, and I didn't have a clue to its identity, Ah – there's the label...and it read Gardenia jasminoides 'Double Variegated'. I have seen G.j. 'Variegata' before, so I guess Tony's planting was doubly so. G. jasminoides is an evergreen flowering plant in the coffee family (Rubiaceae) native to southeast Asia, noted for intense fragrance, and was a recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society's prestigious Award of Garden Merit. The Gardenia genus name honors Alexander Garden (1730-1791), a Scottish physician and botanist who resided in Charleston, South Carolina, and who was known to ship plant specimens to Carl Linnaeus. Garden was an avid botanist who bought on to the Linnaean classification system, but he had to labor in America alone, complaining about his neighbors that “there is not a living soul who knows the least iota of natural history.” His parcels to Europe included fish, birds, insects as well as plants, but peculiarly the Gardenia genus had nothing to do with him, and it was John Ellis, a merchant and zoologist from London who persuaded Linnaeus to name the Gardenia genus after him. Garden chose the wrong side in the American War of Independence, however, when he sided with the British, whereupon he lost his property and was kicked out of South Carolina for good.

Castanopsis cuspidata 'Nakafu'

Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes)

Rivalling the aforementioned Gardenia for striking leaf variegation was Castanopsis cuspidata 'Nakafu', and it too looked vibrant even after Raleigh's brutal summer temperatures. I've never grown a Castanopsis – commonly known as chinkapin – a genus of evergreen trees in the beech family (Fagaceae) native to Asia. Tokyo and some other Japanese cities use Castanopsis cuspidata (shii) as a municipal symbol. While the nuts can be harvested for food, the more commercially important shiitake mushroom likes to grow on logs of C. cuspidata, so you can describe the fungus shiitake as “Castanopsis cuspidata mushroom.” When I quizzed my wife about the cultivar name of 'Nakafu' she groaned and predicted that I wouldn't find the name interesting – naka for “center of the leaf” and fu for “variegated.” She was right – not interesting. The specific epithet is from cuspidate, or having a “cusp,” as in a leaf that terminates in a point. The common name of chinkapin isn't used in Asia, but rather is a word in the central Atlantic coast Algonquian language* and means “small tree or shrub bearing a nut like the chestnut,” especially the American species Castanea pumila.

*A probable modification of Virginia Algonquian “chechinquamin.”

Daphniphyllum himalaense subsp. macropodum 'Ki midori nakafu'

Another 'Nakafu' cultivar was present with Daphniphyllum himalaense subsp. macropodum 'Ki midori nakafu', and I didn't need Haruko's help with the translation, as I know ki means “tree” and midori means “green,” so “a green-leaved tree with the central leaf-portion variegated.” Refer back to last week's Flora Wonder Blog – The J.C. Raulston Arboretum (11/25/22) for my thoughts/frustrations with the taxonomy of Daphniphyllum. I'll just conclude for now that 'Ki midori nakafu' was rather sparse on variegation, or at least the specimen was lacking at Plant Delights. I've seen a few other variegated cultivars of Daphniphyllum as well, so the variegation phenomena is not at all that unusual, and fortunately in my experience the colored portion does not seem prone to reversion.

Lithops aucampiae

Lithops aucampiae

A surprise awaited us as Tony pointed out a little family of “Stoneflowers,” Lithops aucampiae, growing in dry conditions under an intentional rock overhang. He explained that the genus was considered impossible to grow in Carolina, supposedly that it wasn't hardy, but he debunked that notion and revealed that previous growers had failed because their plants were watered to death. The succulent is native to South Africa, with the specific epithet honoring Juanita Aucamp who discovered the plant on her father's farm in 1929. In spite of the tendency for fatal watering, this species won the Award of Garden Merit from the RHS, and I've even seen it for sale as a houseplant. The genus name was coined by the English botanist Nicholas Edward Brown (1849-1934) and is formed from Greek lithos for “stone” and ops for “eye” or “face.” Indeed they resemble in color and appearance the rocks and pebbles they grow among.

Sarracenia wrigleyana 'Scarlet Belle'

Sarracenia wrigleyana 'Scarlet Belle'

Tony Avent appears to lay/lie low...especially concerning his obvious infatuation with the carnivorous genus Sarracenia, and his mail-order nursery has distributed many species and hybrids to the gardening public. Mr. A. would concur, I'm sure, that the East-coast “pitcher plant” group does not require any special expertise to grow, but just keep the damn things wet. One should get bogged down in their cultivation, and just remember that they're native to soggy, east American habitats, We have never sold a single plant, although we enjoy a number of bog-troughs that we keep just outside the office. Nursery visitors, and especially children, are fascinated with the bug-gobblers and the strategies they employ to lure their prey.

Sarracenia purpurea subsp. venosa

Michel Sarrazin

The Sarracenia genus belongs to the family Sarraceniaceae and it also includes a closely related West-coast native, Darlingtonia, the latter which seems to thrive in putrid seepage wilderness swamps, and even on a 60 F-temperature day I find myself sweating in their presence. Interesting that the etymological origin of the genus name Sarracenia, honors the French physician and naturalist Michel Sarrazin, and it was bestowed by the nobleman and botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort. Sarrazin had discovered S. purpurea, an outlying species that grows in wetlands and bogs in Quebec, Canada. While it might seem obvious today, it was Sarrazin who first proposed that the pitcher plants actually caught insects and then ate them. His theory was widely rejected in his time, but 200 years later Charles Darwin would support Sarrazin's conclusions in his (Darwin's) work Insectivorous Plants.

Sarracenia 'Doodlebug'

I guess the one Sarracenia that most caught my eye – you could say that I got bug-eyed – was S. 'Doodlebug', supposedly a hybrid between S. alabamensis and S. psittacina. Maybe I was just amused by the goofy cultivar name, but then many pitcher-plant selections are dumbed with names like 'Bug Bat', 'Marooned', 'Flies Demise', 'Fruit Punch', 'Tea and Crumpets' (huh?) etc. As I mentioned before, I've never sold a Sarracenia in my career even though I have acquired quite a few choice cultivars. But, I would give away my entire collection to anyone who truly appreciates these wonders of nature, and preferably to an under-21 plant geek who promises to not feed them hamburger or left-over food scraps.

Juniperus pingii at Plant Delights

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Imbricata Pendula' at the Flora Wonder Arboretum

Tony's arboretum is jammed with a bewildering display of perennials, succulents, deciduous and broad-leaved trees and shrubs, but still he's managed to shoehorn in a nice assortment of conifers. I remember seeing a good-sized Cathaya argyrophylla and Keeteleeria davidiana, for example, on my previous visit; somehow I missed them this time. But Tony did point out a vibrantly healthy Juniperus pingii that will astound visitors as it matures, when the lower branches can be removed to reveal attractively peeling bark. Near to the Juniper was a pair of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Imbricata Pendula' that actually came from my company, so we know that they were grafted onto Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'DR' (Disease-resistant rootstock). I would probably edit (remove) one of the pair so the remaining specimen can develop more majestically, for the solo will get huge anyway. Haruko would disagree with that plan because she likes the vibe of crowded plants – she thinks they're happier to snuggle in close proximity, that Flora has feelings somewhat like her own.

Callicarpa rubella

Near the end of our visit we approached a sprawling shrub of Callicarpa rubella, the arching stems bejeweled with clumped-rows of purple “Beauty berries.” This bush was an introduction from the US National Arboretum (NA81624), native to China, Vietnam and Malaysia, and its fruit literally glistened in the afternoon sun. Tony tossed out the offer for us to help ourselves with seed, that certainly it was endowed with plenty. I had an instant urge to pounce on the attractive plant while I fished in my coat pocket for a plastic bag...but then I held myself in check. Since I intend to retire sooner than later, the last thing I need are additional seedlings to tend to. I smiled feebly and expressed gratitude, but passed up the offer. Haruko sensed my bittersweet dilemma but said nothing at the time. She knows, though, that my career's terminal philosophy is that I can't take plants to heaven with me; and she furthermore suspects that heaven might not be my destination anyway.

Tony's catalogs are still distributed via print and they are fun, well-photographed and loaded with plant information. The cover states, “Catalog Price: 10 stamps or a box of chocolates.” Also on the cover is the heading Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. at Juniper Level Botanic Garden. I think that wording reveals Tony's priorities – kind of like I do with my Flora Wonder Arboretum of Buchholz Nursery, except that I say it backwards. But in both cases the implication is that the collective family of plants is the higher order, and that operating a nursery both serves and is subservient to that greater accomplishment. Tony has been more decisive than I to ensure the continuation of his arboretum, and by establishing an endowment he has gifted his flora hoard to North Carolina State University, and encourages all to donate at www.jlbg.org. He figures that 17 million dollars needs to be raised; a lot of money, sure, but if everyone donates just 17 dollars, he will need “only a million” people to do so.

If I was a neighbor to Juniper Level Botanic Garden I would sneak in every day and find sufficient fodder for endless blogs...but I suppose I have indulged the reader enough with just one. Well, at least until the next time I find myself in North Carolina; and did the Plant Delights cat just wink at me as we said our final goodbyes?