Summer Maple Propagation, Part 2

Subsequent to the posting of this blog, MrMaple corrects us as to the lineage of one of the newer Acer oliverianum hybrids mentioned below:

"The old code name of 'Nakahara beni B' is 'Hot Tamale', not 'Hot Chicken' [as I reported]. 'Hot Chicken' was a seedling we [MrMaple] collected at World Maple Park [Masayoshi Yano's home in Japan] from the parent tree of 'Hot Tamale' and 'Hot Sauce'."

I regret the error. My excuse is that it's not easy to keep straight these possibly incestuous relationships, and its likely that the maples themselves have lost track with whom they cavorted.

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Last week's Flora Wonder Blog – Grafting Days Are Here Again – was a preamble-ramble of various thoughts about the very consequential summer grafting program at Buchholz Nursery. I don't know if I pleased anyone; perhaps it was too detailed for many simple plant lovers, but maybe it was found lacking for those who hoped to gain greater propagating insights. My herky-jerky narrative actually reflects my relationship with horticulture, that I'm a servant to it and its constant surprises and challenges, as much as I am in firm control of it.

Acer palmatum 'Hubbs Red Willow'

Acer palmatum 'Hubbs Red Willow'

Now, early August, let's take a look at some Stars of the Show, the cultivars that will serve the MrMaple owners and their mail-order business, as well as providing future specimen trees for the long-established Buchholz Nursery. We always begin with species and cultivars compatible with Acer palmatum as rootstock, whether it be Acers palmatum, japonicum, shirasawanum, oliverianum or various hybrids of the above. The idea is to get the ball rolling with the straight and easy scions – plus those most early to ripen – and for the past few years the first on the list is Acer palmatum 'Hubbs Red Willow'. We are blessed with one tree in particular, a 12' tall by 12' wide specimen in our Long Road section that virtually throbs with quality scionwood. The purple new-growth candlesticks rise to 10” to 20”, perfect for three nodal sections with stems the best size for grafting. It is a very “commercial” cultivar, pretty much on the Mt. Rushmore of maples.

Acer palmatum 'Hubbs Red Willow Long Road specimen

Acer palmatum 'Hubbs Red Willow' would have been better served without the “Hubbs” part to the name. Simply “Red Willow” is apt and adequately descriptive by itself, just as Acer palmatum 'Twombly's Red Sentinel' would be a better horticultural name without the “Twombly” prefix which only clutters the name. Similarly, Acer palmatum 'Peve Starfish' – the “Starfish” part which I coined – would be better named without the “Peve” moniker which precumbers all of Dutchman Piet Vergeldt's introductions. 'Starfish' alone wouldn't suffice, if I was to decide, but something like 'Purple Starfish' would have been tremendous. But back to 'Hubbs Red Willow', the Vertrees/Gregory Japanese Maples (4^th edition, 2009) lists it under the section for cultivars “not yet assessed,” but the brief description contains a number of errors such as the incorrect name of “Hupp's” for what should be “Hubbs,” plus there's no apostrophe “s” to the name as it was named after Elwood Hubbs from New Jersey. Perhaps it was named and introduced by the Red Maple Nursery in 1992 as V/G suggests, and the confusion might have arisen due to author Peter Gregory's notoriously bad penmanship, and also the similar name Hupp's is correctly used for a very different dwarf cultivar discovered by the late Barbara Hupp of Oregon – Acer palmatum 'Hupp's Dwarf'. Anyway, hopefully I have set straight the Hubbs hubbub flub.

New employee Jordan is in training to replace me as chief scion cutter, so he harvested the 'Hubbs Red Willow' for 250 excellent, two-to-three node shoots. He was spoiled by the easy assignment, and he probably concluded that cutting scions for the other couple of hundred cultivars would be quick and simple as well. He'll learn that cutting 20-30 acceptable scions from a particular tree is more of a challenge, and time consuming than the 250 'Hubbs Red Willow', especially when dragging out a ladder is involved. And as I said before, the grafters are relentlessly nipping at the scion-cutter's heels.

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Sauce'

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Sauce'

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Sauce' is how we list the exciting new maple cultivar by the late Masayoshi Yano, although there could be some Acer palmatum in the bloodline. As I understand the story, Yano of Japan developed an Acer oliverianum seedling that he identified under the code name of 'Nakahara beni A', then gifted it to the Nichols brothers and gave his blessing for MrMaple to trade name it as 'Hot Sauce'. Acer oliverianum is a Chinese species that resides in the Palmata series, and while hardy to only USDA zone 6 (-10 F), it is quite vigorous and it withstands hot summers better than most Acer palmatums. Indeed MrMaple includes 'Hot Sauce' in their “Heatseekers Series (tm)” which they describe as “Hot! Hot! Hot! like Acer oliverianum 'Hot Blonde', Acer palmatum 'Hot Tamale' and others.” They are promoted as “Japanese maples” that thrive in full sun in the southern United States.

One, two, and three node shoots

MrMaple claims that 'Hot Sauce' is a possible hybrid with a red-leaved Acer palmatum, and they even boast that its spring foliage is “bright red turning to deep red in summer.” In our white-poly greenhouses the leaves are more greenish so I see it should be grounded – which we have done near the office – in full sun. I decided to cut 'Hot Sauce' myself since MrMaple wants as many as possible, and I have experience with relatively thin wood and short stubby wood, many of which are single-node. When I describe “single-node” I mean the section of stem with a pair of opposite buds, unlike the aforementioned 'Hubbs Red Willow' where our sections consist of two or three pairs of buds. Graft success maybe improved with the longer sticks – some say the more buds the better – but we usually get good “takes” and ample growth with the singles, plus twice as many grafts are possible.

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Blonde' autumn foliage

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Blonde' spring foliage

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Blonde'

A Heatseeker that pairs nicely with 'Hot Sauce' is Acer oliverianum 'Hot Blonde', a golden upright with an orange cast in full sun. It is a MrMaple introduction from a chance seedling from Acer oliverianum collected at the Keith Arboretum in North Carolina. The only other Japanese maple in that collection was an Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum', so that is the likely co-parent. I have grown 'Hot Blonde' for about seven years, and my original one-gallon pot soared to 15'-18' tall in the lush greenhouse. I was happy that MrMaple didn't patent 'Hot Blonde', which they considered doing, for I was propagating it five years prior to them purchasing Buchholz Nursery. The grower learns to keep his Felcos in hand, for a graft in August – even from a single-node scion – can develop into a branched, very salable one-gallon pot by the following August, with the pruners needed to form a more bushy and colorful tree. Autumn foliage is blazing red and for us it lasts much longer than most Acer palmatums. When Tim Nichols first described the cultivar and its name, I expressed a little concern that some might find it offensive, that “hot blonde” was possibly a demeaning stereotype. Personally I'm crude and sexist enough that I like the catchy name, but in Oregon the powers that be are crabby women communists that run the government, schools etc. and you had better keep your pronouns in order. Tim dismissed my warning because it was named for brother Matt's wife who very much is a hot blonde, and “she was fine with it.” I enjoy the tree and its name thoroughly, a great maple.

Acer oliverianum 'Hot Chicken'

I explained earlier that Acer oliverianum 'Hot Sauce' was a renaming of the code ID that Masayoshi Yano used for 'Nakahara beni A', and was done with his permission. Likewise, another Hottie from Yano, 'Nakahara beni B', was given the trade name 'Hot Chicken'. The name is silly but fun, but I don't have enough familiarity with it to pass judgement on its garden potential. So far we have three 5' pots in the white poly greenhouse, and like all the other A. oliverianum cultivars, it grows with enormous exuberance. We have already grafted a fair number, with all scions rush-mailed from MrMaple; but since I don't have sufficient personal experience, I'll borrow the following from MrMaple's website: "A rare Japanese selection of a heat tolerant Chinese maple that leafs out olive green to electric red…Mid-summer flushes of new growth are a bright red, making a great contrast with the older growth. 'Hot Chicken' will dazzle you with bright reds to olive green leaves…sure to make a splash in your garden." Well, the Nichols boys certainly exude enthusiasm, but we'll see if the "hot chicken" can cross the road from obscurity to a welcome standard in American landscapes.

Acer oliverianum

Acer oliverianum

Ok, MrMaple is promoting their Heatseekers for justifiable reasons, while I look at the prospects from a competitive, commercial perspective, but since I'm an Oregon nurseryman – who has certainly experienced and survived fantastic records of the Hots – I can't completely relate to the Southern Summer Experience, so I must reserve judgement. I collected the Acer oliverianum species forty years ago, a seedling gifted to me by an amateur grower with the wonderful name of Noble Bashor. I propagated for a few years by grafting onto Acer palmatum rootstock, and the offspring grew well, but sales were weak for the unknown Chinese species. My first specimen was planted at the entrance to the nursery, but it suffered from a damaged trunk during a vicious Arctic Blast, and it was edited from the landscape, goodbye, so long, farewell. I'm excited to retry the species with MrMaple's new cultivars, but we'll have to prune and winter protect with extra attention.

Acer laevigatum 'Hong Long'

Acer laevigatum 'Hong Long'

Acer laevigatum is a Chinese species that is rare in tree collections because of its perception of being non cold hardy. Specialist arboreta in mild climates can succeed with it, and since seedlings from the wild can vary in hardiness and ornamental appeal, I was happy to receive a start of one recently collected seedling from Mark Weathington of the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was given the trade name of 'Hong Long' – which translates to "Red Dragon" due to its purple-red new growth and black-purple stem color on the new shoots. In Oregon the so-called "evergreen" species is semi-deciduous to fully deciduous, depending on the winter. 'Hong Long' enjoys the heat and humidity of our greenhouse environment, but the problem is that its three-to-five feet of growth per year can cause the water shoots to melt to mush if we get a hard freeze. When we eventually plant one into the garden (this fall) we'll prune all the new growth back to the older branches. Most visitors cannot identify the genus as Acer when they first encounter 'Hong Long', and they frequently comment, "It sure doesn't look like a maple." I agree, it doesn't, but then many Asian species can look more like laurels or rhododendrons; surprisingly it is graft-compatible with Acer palmatum rootstock. We have rooted it with soft-wood cuttings under mist, and while the rooting percentage is usually high, I suppose those cutting grown would result in even less hardiness.

The original Acer palmatum 'Yellow Threads'

Acer palmatum 'Yellow Threads'

Acer palmatum 'Yellow Threads' is a fun, newer introduction (germinated in about 2005) that originated, not surprisingly, from the parent tree of A.p. 'Koto no ito'. It prospers in full sun in Oregon where new, spring growth emerges a light yellow-green, but when the summer heat arrives the narrow lobes transform to a bright white-yellow, hence the cultivar name. When grown in containers in the relative shade of our white poly greenhouses, the foliage remains yellow-green and belies the cultivar name. In autumn the foliage fires to an orange-red, usually, but I remember one year when it turned to straw-yellow.

Acer palmatum 'Yellow Threads'

The grafting tents

Our summer grafts are sealed in a thin (2 mil) poly tent, left to incubate for a couple of weeks. Graft takes seem to improve with the extra humidity, but the warm sweaty environment ends when new growth emerges. We then lift the mini tents for more air circulation to prevent disease on the tender leaves. At this date, exactly three weeks after the grafts were executed, only about one-half have broken bud. Many others never do until the following spring, but at first the grafter must wonder if he'll only get a miserable, 50% take. However, the following April is exciting when the overall success is 90-95%. In other words, it doesn't seem to matter if the scions break this summer or not, and the amount of new growth is the same in either case. And, of course, our later grafts at the end of September will have no scions leafing out, and those grafts too will catch up with the mid-July grafts. Hopefully I'll be around to document my claims next April which will more clearly explain the situation.

Last week's Flora Wonder Blog – Grafting Days Are Here Again  – was summer maple propagation, part 1, while today's is part 2. Next week I'll continue with part 3. It's an interesting process, and each cultivar has its own unique story…on and on for about 500 different cultivars.

Crossword Puzzle #2 Solution

 Here's the original Crossword Puzzle #2 on Japanese maple cultivars and related botanical terms, followed by the solution:

Across

1 Famously popular maple in America

5 Weeping green Acer palmatum

7 Also known as 'Chiba yatsubusa'

11 "Hill" in Japanese

12 Acer palmatum '___ shidare'

13 "Heaven" in Japanese

15 "Bark" or "River" in Japanese

16 Acer shir 'Mr Sun's' leaves resemble sun ___

17 Japanese god

19 "Glowing Evening Sky" in Japanese

23 "Blue-green" in Japanese

24 Name means "bright moon" in Japanese

25 Originated as a seedling from Acer palmatum 'Alpenweiss'

27 "Female" in Japanese

28 Red, upright linearlobum

29 Name means "umbrella mountain" in Japanese

34 Mane of a mythical lion

37 Named for Buchholz Nursery employee

40 "Floating _____" common name for Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo'

41 The origin of many Japanese maple cultivars

43 Acer palmatum '______ Sunrise'

44 Glamorous female performer

47 "Elegance" in Japanese

48 Scion____

50 "Gold" in Japanese

52 "Small" in Japanese

53 "Land of the Rising Sun"

54 Acer palmatum '___ nishiki'

56 "Light-green" in Japanese

60 "Purple" in Japanese

62 J.D. Vertrees introduction

63 Deep-green laceleaf

64 Winged Fruit

67 Named for a type of azalea

74 Place name for variegated cultivar

77 Acer palmatum '___ hime'

79 Dwarf, compact

82 Cultivar of Acer pictum

Down

1 Acer palmatum '______ Beauty'

2 Sake cup

3 Acer palmatum '__ Brown'

4 Acer palmatum '___ tsuma gaki'

6 Acer palmatum 'Kasagi ____'

8 "Soft drizzle" in Japanese

9 A green laceleaf, A.p. 'Green ______'

10 The "Prince's maple"

12 "Lion" in Japanese

14 Red cloth, red background

15 "Hairy" in Japanese

18 New moon (sickle-shape)

20 Acer japonicum '__ jutan'

21 Variegated or rough

22 Acer palmatum '_____ hair'

24 "Gathering," as in A.p. '____kumo'

26 ___ Loukes, late Oregon maple grower

28 "Splendor, glory" in Japanese

30 Acer palmatum '______ Ghost'

31 "Early Evening" in Japanese

32 Cascading or weeping

33 "Colored"

35 Acer oliverianum '___ Blonde'

36 "Multicolored" in Japanese

38 Name means "mountain white"

39 Acer shirasawanum 'Bronze ___'

42 "Coral-Bark" in Japanese

45 "Thunder" in Japanese

46 "Rough," as in rough bark

49 Trident maple with incurved leaf lobes

50 "Peacock"

51 Acer palmatum '______ nishiki', a variegated laceleaf

55 Descendant

57 "Boulder" in Japanese

58 "Ball," as in Acer palmatum '____ shishi'

59 Acer palmatum '____ Knight'

61 "Red" in Japanese

62 Fabric woven with gold threads

64 Acer palmatum 'Manyo no ____'

65 Acer buergerianum '____ yatsubusa'

66 Dark, red-colored gem

67 "Web" - as in spider

68 Acer palmatum 'Dragon _____'

69 Acer palmatum '___ midori'

70 "___ leaf" - common name for "laceleaf"

71 "Thin" in Japanese

72 "Autumn" in Japanese

73 "Dance" in Japanese

75 ___ Buddhism

76 "Of, from" in Japanese

78 Means "east," as in Japanese capital

80 Abbreviation for maple-cultivar prefix

81 Acer palmatum 'Ina__' - Japanese for "leaves"

83 "Five" in Japanese

Grafting Time is Here Again

C'mon everybody, sing:

Grafting days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So let's sing a song of cheer again
Grafting days are here again…

So, what's so great about these days? At Buchholz Nursery there's an extra hop to our step because we have begun our summer grafting campaign. It's my 48th consecutive season – always beginning in July – where the propagating results directly determined my financial well-being. In other words I only got paid for "take-grafts" when I first provided contract services, then also so for the 44 years of my nursery ownership. During the entire time the employees got paid even if their grafts failed; their wages were guaranteed while mine never were.

I'm typically nervous the first few days of maple grafting, wondering if it will work yet again. So many things can go wrong. I worry if my scionwood is sufficiently mature, or if the rootstock is adequately rooted-in from our March potting from plug-to-3 1/2" pots. Do we have enough graft bands for the season, as we have about 65,000 maple, oaks, ginkgoes etc. to slice this summer? Plug in the cooler – does it still run?

New Buchholz employee Jordan and I share the scion cutting duties which worked out well last winter for conifers, but now he carries more responsibilities and projects than before. I wanted him to also spend time at the grafting bench because an accomplished grafter with a few seasons under his belt makes for a better scion cutter, but I'm not sure when he'll squeeze in the time. I suppose I'll have to get up a little earlier and stay at work a little longer so Jordan can find more time to escape the relentless grafters who constantly nip at the scion cutter's heels.

David grafting

The new grafter, foreground

There's nothing magical about grafting, not at all, and I've even taught monkeys and European interns how to perform the short, precise operation. This summer we are training a new grafter – neither monkey nor intern – but of course we select varieties for him that are relatively straight and medium-sized; and importantly: those cultivars which we have aplenty, and not the newest and rare scions where we hope to rapidly increase numbers. Our main-man David (an 18-year nursery veteran) gets the hard-to-do stuff, the tiny scions, the short, chubby single node shoots and the hot, new varieties. He accepts his role, owns it to a large extent, and I often see him in the greenhouse before work, after work and even at lunch time where he inspects and cheers on his propagants. It's rewarding for me to work with someone who exhibits pride, since most employees I've been saddled with in my career clearly do not. David is certainly our most accomplished grafter, but I foresee the day when he is elevated as the main scion cutter, because that's the more difficult and important task.

"Cuttin' sticks" is how I euphemistically describe the scion harvest, but it's a very personal, intimate relationship that the propagator develops with the trees. It was always my favorite nursery assignment, but for me it was also the most essential for company survival. If I was to express pride for any skill in my career, it was how I was able to go from one gifted plant, or a few scions, and then to transform that quickly into hundreds or thousands even of salable offspring. None of the larger companies, nor any company of any size for that matter, could keep up with me in the increasement of a new cultivar.

Acer palmatum 'Hana matoi'

The original top graft 'Hana matoi'

One relatively new variety, Acer palmatum 'Hana matoi', will certainly explain my point. I started out with a one-gallon pot, gifted to me by the late – but then alive – Jim Schmidt, a notable Oregon maple grower. I expressed gratitude, like I was going to put it into an ornamental pot on my deck next to the bird bath. But immediately I sized it up for six or seven single-node scions. I thinned out the canopy of a 7-8' specimen of Acer palmatum 'O sakazuki' and top-grafted the 'Hana matoi', one on each of the best-balanced rootstock shoots. Five grafts "took" and the following summer they exploded with three-to-four feet of dangling new growth. These too were cut into single-node scions and the following year I was able to produce a couple of hundred…and just one year past that about eight hundred were accomplished. So in just four years from a humble little pot, I was in major production. Since the initial extravaganza, however, we have backed off with 'Hana matoi' because a portion (too large) could revert to just a non-variegated, reddish laceleaf. In that regard it's similar to its seed-parent tree of Acer palmatum 'Toyama nishiki'.

Acer palmatum 'Red Panda'

Jordan and I serve two masters: 1) MrMaple's wish-list of which cultivars we should propagate, and at what numbers, and 2) reality. Yes, the parent company would "like" a hundred of this and five hundred of that – and as soon as possible – but the realistic situation is that we currently have more graftable rootstocks than we have scions for the rare, new or difficult-to-graft cultivars which their customers are clamoring for. The point is that Jordan and I must acquiesce to the dictates of ownership as much as, and whenever possible, but we can't invent quality scionwood out of thin air. We compromise, however, by taking more risk by cutting single-node, or questionably thin, or softer scions in active growth, or perhaps we use two or three-year wood just to find a firm, straight, healthy stick, even though we know our "take" percentage will be lower. The best scenario would be to plant acres of five-to-ten-year-old stock trees (in unlimited numbers), on a continuously rotating basis; then propagating life would be more simple and straight-forward, and I wouldn't be trying to now describe the intricacies and nuances of the scion harvest.

Ok, my above words that try to describe the propagator's dilemma cannot fully explain the mental and physical process. Whenever Jordan asks me a simple question it can lead to a 15-minute disquisition that seldom answers him simply and directly; I typically surround and poke at the subject from various points of view, but when his eyes eventually glaze over I quickly wrap it up with "Good luck" or, exasperating for him, I might say "Figure it out for yourself" by trying various methods and then keeping track of the results. "Even though my career is nearly finished I'm looking forward to you teaching me."

My youngest daughter, S., who is now 18 years old, didn't need a 15-minute speech to explain scion preparation. Her older sister, L., now about age 37, was visiting and volunteered to help S. with scion preparation. The project involved cutting leaves from the shoot, plus shortening the graft-stick to an appropriate length if necessary. L. asked her little sister, "How do you decide where to prune the tip of the scion?" S. has prepared approximately 200,000 in her short, six-year career and I trust her completely, plus she is speedier than any other whom I've ever employed. After pondering a few seconds she replied, "Well, you just go with your gut feeling." S. didn't need 15 minutes to poke and prod the question, and her response was perfect. L. didn't get the explanation she was seeking, but she was impressed none-the-less, but later teased me with mock concern that I had brain-washed her little sister. Besides my influence, S. was nurtured by her Japanese mother who seldom proclaims absolutes, and who answers either/or questions with, "It depends on the situation." I don't know – maybe it's just a female thing.

The bulk of our rootstock for Acer palmatum is purchased as a 1-year, 3/16" caliper plug which is potted into a 3 1/2" pot in early March. The preferred source for maple seedlings is Oregon's Heritage Seedlings. These plugs are produced in a temperature-controlled environment in artificial media and they are always straight and healthy and completely disease free. They are still dormant when potted, but we begin by pruning the tops by half. Approximately by mid-June they will have regrown another 12-18", and they are topped again…back to the original potting size. We use a mechanical hedge pruner that makes the task quick and easy, while in the old days we plodded along by pruning each rootstock individually with hand-held Felcoes. That practice was unnecessarily tedious, but it took me a couple of decades before I figured it out. The purpose of keeping the rootstock reduced is to 1) build caliper, 2) as an aid to disease control by allowing more air movement and 3) to reduce watering needs. A final reducing of the rootstock takes place in September-October for the same reasons above, and also to provide more air and light to the fledgling grafts. Finally, the following March, the rootstocks are removed completely so all the energy then goes to the new graft which is ready for pot-up to a one-gallon container. I don't know how a machine could help with most of the procedures; unfortunately it is an extremely labor-intensive process.

Now that I'm not saddled with nursery ownership, though still partially employed, I am promoting a couple of experiments:

First, we will graft 100 Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood', a cultivar that is plentiful for us, usually with high “takes.” A single grafter will perform all, so as to eliminate one possible variable. The scion unions will be wrapped in rubber budding strips like we have done for my entire career. For the first decade of Buchholz Nursery the rubber stayed intact for an entire year with no sign of decomposing. A year later we would physically remove the bands when potting up so there would be no girdling of the trunks But after the first decade and many thousands of grafts, suddenly our purchased bud strips – always coming from the sole supplier in America, from South Carolina – began to fall apart after about 6-8 weeks, way before the union was secure. The supplier had altered the UV properties so that they would decompose much earlier than before, a fact that they initially denied. Later they admitted to the changed formula, probably on advice from their attorneys, because other Northwest propagators were simultaneously griping about their product. It turned out that rose growers were by far their largest customers, for after six weeks their buds were already secure, and they preferred the short-term strips which eliminated another manual task. We panicked of course, but to save the crop we went back to all grafts and secured the union by applying masking tape over the rubber strip, another manual task to add to our cost. In recent years the South Carolina firm went out of business, or at least their budding-strip division, and our only option was to purchase graft bands from Germany. So far they appear more long-lasting, so we'll see if we ever have to use masking tape again.

Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'

Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'

A second experiment will also involve the same Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood', and the same grafter will execute another 100 grafts, but in this case we will not de-leaf the scions. I tried that method thirty years ago and the graft-take was the same as when we laboriously removed the leaves. I discontinued the practice, however, because I didn't like a cluttered look in the greenhouse, and I didn't like the smell of moldy, decomposing leaves. We'll try it again anyway, as maybe Jordan will have a different perspective with the results.

 

A third element to the experiment – our control – will be to graft another 100 Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood' the exact same way as before, i.e. including mask-taped grafts with scion leaves removed.

The message to Jordan is obvious: Go ahead and challenge me and my theories, and never completely trust what I say. Find out for yourself, and maybe down the road when I'm long gone, you'll look back and chuckle at this Old German and his senseless beliefs, just as I do now with the stubborn Old Dutchman I used to work for. I'm different than the old Nether-head, however, with his “wooden shoes, wooden head and wouldn't listen” approach to horticulture. I look forward to progress and company improvement, and Jordan will have an opportunity to prove that his college horticulture degree wasn't a waste of time and money.

Anyway, the foregoing propagating sketches are not intended as a prescriptive recipe for how to graft, but rather an insight into what has been successful, or at least successful enough to sustain my 48-year-old career. Please Jordan, grab the baton and take off!

 

Indeed, “Happy days are here again

               The skies above are clear again

               Let's sing a song of cheer again

              Happy days are here again.”

Rest In Peace

Haruko Buchholz (Left) and Jolly Krautmann (Right)

I learned a couple of days ago of the passing of Jolly Krautmann, co-owner of Heritage Seedlings of Oregon, USA along with her husband Mark. She bravely staved off the cancer which attacked her for a number of years...until July 21, 2024, and hopefully she can now rest in peace.

The Krautmann's company began at about the same time (in the early 1980s) as did my business. Indeed, we initially met as we were both employed at the Dutchman's nursery in west Portland. We had both begun our companies, but still required a few years of steady income to feed our families.

As start-up nurseries, Heritage Seedlings and Buchholz Nursery flubbed-up a lot with poor decisions and missed opportunities, plus dealing with the vicissitudes of nature, but somehow we shouldered on.

Jolly cornered me alone one time, about a year into our careers, and with a low voice and a seriously grave face she asked if I thought Mark was able to own a nursery, “Does he know what he's doing?” I smiled and replied, “Jolly, none of us really know what we're doing.” But we shared a willingness to work hard (obsessively so), and that coupled with a fascination for woody trees and shrubs, we are now proud to have made the earth a more interesting and vital space.

The last time I saw Jolly was about two years ago. Haruko and I were led around the Heritage Seedling's Santiam location by Mark and Jolly. We chatted about people and plants, like Mark and I always do. We passed a seedling bed of oaks or hornbeams or something, where the end of the bed had recently been harvested, but there were a hundred or so trees tossed sideways – helter-skelter – with the roots exposed and drying out. Jolly didn't like the looks of it and quizzed Mark, “What are these doing like this?” Mark answered that they were the runts and wanted to leave it at that. But Jolly thought they looked ok – so did I – and she pestered him for further explanation. Mark sighed and said he had plenty of #1 plants, and the company didn't have time to deal with the second grade. That finally satisfied Jolly and we moved along. That wasn't the only time that I witnessed Jolly's sharp intellect and persistence, and I reflected that it was a key element in the success of Heritage Seedlings. Maybe Jolly wasn't the avid plantsperson as was Mark, but she kept those around her on their toes, and the combination of the Krautmann's different skills and personalities formed a strong team.

I will hug my wife extra long tonight when I give her the sad news.

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I'll take the liberty to repost Mark's letter to his friends.

Dear Friends,

Many of you know of Jolly's recent years' struggle with the debilitations of her brain tumor. You may also recall from her lung cancer primary tumor removed ten years ago, she survived without apparent recurrence until the cancer migrated to her head and caused her bloody stroke in Dec. of '21.

She died at home on the farm on July 21st in the company of all her family after several months of gradually losing her sensory capacities. Thankfully, she never lost her sharp wits. Courageous to the end, she never whimpered a single word of regret, anger, fear, or impatience. There were plenty of opportunities. Brain cancer can be a particularly fearsome disease, but oddly, she had NO body pains or headaches. I have been more or less her constant caretaker over these recent 2.5 years, an honor for me to be by her side and help us to both keep up with doc appointments, our chins up, travelling, trips with grandkids and just living life as full as possible until just the past few debilitating weeks. Her doctors and PA's were astonished she lived for over 2 years after diagnosis when most BC patients survive just a few months after diagnosis.

Diminutive in stature but not in determination, she was an example to us all of what tough looks like, feels like, what we can accomplish if we dream big.

So, as we continue forward with this large gap in not seeing Jolly among us daily, talking with us about all life's gifts and frustrations, our lives feel diminished by this mighty but small woman. She made us all better people by her example of just showing up, doing the right thing every day, and most of all, forgiving Mark his seed lab in her kitchen and all his crazy plant ideas during more than 42 years with the nursery. She was faithfully optimistic that whatever we attempted together we'd succeed with and take pride in. Family, work, adventure, lending others a hand up...all of it came true. She lives on in all our hearts and the genes of our two fine kids and 5 grandchildren. Mark's and her trees grace work places and landscapes all across America, propagated and grown on in the millions by all our dear friends and customers in wholesale nurseries and garden centers.

You share in that legacy, that action of making the earth a bit greener, cooler, and pleasant than it might be otherwise, absent her dedication – and your own.

Please join me in offering a prayer of thanksgiving, sharing a funny memory, or offering a kind word to someone who can use the uplift. Lord knows the world needs more Jolly's nowadays.

I just thank God I got almost 50 years with our cute little Chinese girl. It was love at first sight for each of us. We had a long, intimate, exciting marriage and business experience. Hard for me to accept she does not now share coffee & amaretto with me every morning now, but I'm not for a moment complaining about the gift of this amazing woman in my life, the mother of our children, my companion in most of life's adventures with me.

Join me in celebrating her, with THANKS for all your friendship and kindness to this American immigrant wonder woman!

Respectfully,

M

Mortal Epithets

 

Pieris japonica 'Bisbee Dwarf'

Dionaea muscipula

Dione

Andromeda

I love plant name origins, especially those derived from Roman and Greek mythology. Often, however, the myth has absolutely nothing to do with the plant, while sometimes it does. Andromeda, (Pieris), for example, was the daughter of the Aethiopian king Cepheus and his wife Cassiopeia. When C. leads her to boast that A. is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea-monster Cetus to ravage Andromeda while she is chained to a rock...to administer divine punishment. The dangling flower panicles of Pieris are said to resemble a chain, so in this case you can imagine a connection. On the other hand Dionaea, the “Venus fly trap” is named for Dione, the mother of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Dione was also the mother of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, but sometimes she is also identified with Aphrodite. Confusing, but then what do these love goddesses have to do with a carnivorous plant?

Linnaea borealis

Linnaeus named over 8,000 plants, but only one plant was named for him – Linnaea borealis* – and that name was bestowed by his teacher and friend Jan Frederick Gronovious. The circumboreal “twin flower” in the honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae) is a modest groundcover and Linnaeus falsely humbled himself when he wrote: “Linnaea was named by the celebrated Gronovious and is a plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant and disregarded, flowering for a brief space – from Linnaeus who resembles it.”

*I was surprised to find that Linnaea is placed in the same family (Caprifoliaceae) as Lonicera, the honeysuckles, in fact surprised that Linnaea is even included in the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs. While Lonicera contains many climbers it can also be a woody shrub. It was named by Linnaeus for Adam Lonicer, a 16^th century German naturalist.

Camellia x 'Water Lily'

Georg Joseph Kamel

I'll probably never have a plant genus named after me, and definitely not if I found it myself. It would be an honor if someone else named something for me...as long as it was a pleasant, agreeable plant, and not something that had a bad odor or prickly thorns. Camellia is a nice evergreen genus in the Theaceae family. Linnaeus named it for Georg Joseph Kamel (or Latin Camellus 1661- 1706) a Jesuit of Moravia who traveled in Asia. Besides his holy pursuits he was a renowned pharmacist and naturalist who produced the first accounts of the flora and fauna of the Philippines. He died in Manila at age 45 from a disease whose symptoms included diarrhea, so he was famous for curing others but failed to fix himself.

Sinowilsonia henryi

Augustine Henry

Botanist William Botting Hemsley (1843-1924) was in the right place at the right time to document some of plant-explorer Ernest Henry (“Chinese”) Wilson's plant introductions from China. Sinowilsonia henryi is one-such, a monotypic genus related to the witch hazels and which was brought into cultivation in 1908. It flowers in May monoeciously, but since the flowers are not as showy as the Hamamelis genus Sinowilsonia is rarely encountered in horticulture. The specific name henryi honors Augustine Henry, an Irish customs officer/botanist who spent 20 difficult years a thousand miles into the heart of China. He survived malaria, boredom, loneliness and the death of his first wife. When he botanized he employed Chinese helpers and through them he could record the native names and applications for plants used in folk medicine. Henry sent to Kew about 150,000 dried specimens which included over 5,000 new species. He encouraged Kew-trained E.H. Wilson to seek out the “Dove tree,” Davidia involucrata.

Magnolia x 'Kiki's Broom'

Pierre Magnol

Magnolia was named by Linnaeus in honor of Pierre Magnol, a professor of botany and medicine at Montpellier in the 16^th century. Magnol's father was an apothecary and his mother came from a family of physicians, but he concluded that “it would be very advantageous to make a serious study of plants” before practicing medicine. His reputation grew rapidly and soon he was corresponding with many French and foreign botanists. A hundred years before Linnaeus, he was serious to promote interest in botany which he thought was highly neglected by educated people. Magnol is credited as the first to use the term “family” in the sense of a natural group of plants.

Magnolia x soulangeana

The Frenchman Etienne Soulange-Bodin (1774-1846) was a biologist and botanist and is commemorated by his hybrid Magnolia, x soulangeana (M. denudata with M. liliiflora). He was impressed with the offspring's first flowering in 1826 which were precocious, and today the hybrid is one of the most commonly used flowering trees in Europe and America. His botanical career was interrupted due to service as an officer in Napoleon's army. After reflecting on all the pointless carnage from the Napoleonic Wars, Soulange supposedly said, “We would all have been better off staying home to grow our cabbages.” I agree, and it is certainly better to make Magnolia hybrids than war.

Lapageria rosea

Empress Josephine

Speaking of Napoleon, his first wife was Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, who is honored with the “Chilean bellflower,” Lapageria rosea, and it is the national flower of Chile. It is an evergreen climbing plant that can grow up to 98' (30m) into trees, and it is pollinated by hummingbirds. The connection with Empress Josephine is that she was a collector of plants for her garden at Chateau de Malmaison*, however it was the English collector William Lobb who first introduced it to Europe. I used to grow the non-hardy vine in our fun house. I had a dozen plants that were raised from seed and one produced white flowers. I was encouraged that they grew well in the protected house, but I overzealously potted them into small 7” wood boxes. They hated the move and all went into decline where they wouldn't live but wouldn't die either. After a couple years of impasse I finally grew disgusted and threw them all out.

*Josephine modelled her garden with winding paths and informal shapes as opposed to the formal style of Versailles. Napoleon thought: “How silly to spend fortunes creating little lakes, little rocks and little rivers...” and he preferred the uncontrived woods. During the Napoleonic Wars ships carrying specimens for Josephine were allowed free passage, and between 1803 and 1814 she introduced hundreds of species of plants to Europe.

Banksia solandri

Banksia spinulosa 'Red Rock'

Joseph Banks

Empress Josephine was enthusiastic about Australian plants, and even Englishman Joseph Banks contributed to the French-Australian connection. It is perhaps a lesson for today that plant exchange can trump national competition, that growing cabbages and collecting trees brings a greater reward than creating empires.* Joseph Banks – ultimately Sir Joseph Banks – took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768-1771), visiting Brazil, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia and later sent botanists around the world to collect plants. He made Kew the world's leading botanical garden of the time, maybe of all time. The interesting genus of Banksia was named in his honor and it consists of about 170 species in the family Proteaceae, and though not hardy for me I enjoy seeing them in arboreta such as the Santa Cruz (California) Botanical Garden.

Alexander von Humboldt

*For example: Banks met the young Alexander von Humboldt in 1790, when Banks was President of the Royal Society. Before Humboldt and his scientific travel companion Bonpland left on their 5-year expedition to America and South America, Banks arranged for plant specimens to be sent to himself, believing in the internationalism of science. Banks appears in the historical novel Mutiny on the Bounty and also in Patrick O'Brian's sea novel Post Captain.

Bougainvillea glabra

Jeanne Bare

On the Cook voyage, when in Brazil, Banks encountered and made the first scientific description of Bougainvillea, named for Cook's French counterpart, Louis Antoine de Bougainville. It is also a vine (or bush or tree) with flower-like leaves. De B. (1729-1811) was a French admiral and explorer and was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world in 1763. It is possible that the first European to observe Bougainvillea was Jeanne Bare who was an expert in botany. As a woman, she was not allowed on the ship and so disguised herself as a man in order to make the journey...and thus became the first woman to circumnavigate the world.

Paulownia 'Purple Splendour'

Paulownia fargesii

Anna Paulowna

Paulownia is commonly called the “Empress tree” as it was named by Philipp von Siebold for Anna Paulowna (1795-1865), a Russian-born princess of The Netherlands. She was the daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia and in the mixed-up world of royalty at the time it's uncertain why the German-born botanist and explorer Siebold felt compelled to honor the Russian daughter, except that he was a physician in the Dutch military service and eventually introduced many new plants from Japan into Holland. In fact there is speculation that Siebold brought the first Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' to Boskoop, The Netherlands, one of which is the largest known to exist at Esveld. As for Anna, at one point Napoleon I of France asked for her hand (and more!) in marriage, but her mother managed to delay her reply long enough for N. to lose interest. Later she married the Prince of Orange who would become King William II of the Netherlands. Though intelligent, she was considered a royal bitch, arrogant and distant from the public and one who possessed a violent temper. My interest in the genus isn't because of the crabby princess, but rather for the tree's interesting bark, and because my sweet wife took happy shelter under a P. fargesii leaf during a sudden shower.

Begonia 'Fireworks'

Amsonia tabernaemontana

I lament that at my nursery Begonia would be mixed up with Bignonia and that Amsonia would be confused with Amasonia. See: look at those spellings again, and be sure that all four are very different plants. I named my eldest daughter Sonya – yep! – in the Russian style because I fell for the girls in Russian novels where the “y” would be dragged out to a long yyyyy...a. I even teased to name a plant, 'Sonya Begonia', but I never did. Instead I named a variegated Xanthocyparis nootkatensis 'Laura Aurora', but it turned out that it – the plant – wasn't stable. Amsonia was named for the Scientific explorer Charles Amson, and the species tabernaemonteana was named for the German herbalist J.T. Tabernaemontanus, and God – what a wonderful last name! You all have probably grown or admired Begonias, a genus named for Michael Begon, a French botanist. Bignonia, however, is a flowering plant in the Catalpa family (Bignoniaceae) and was named for Jean-Paul Bignon, a famous French preacher.

Saussurea gossypiphora

Henri de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure

I have never grown, and have seen Saussurea gossypiphora only once in my life, and that was at 14,000' in the Indian Himalaya where we hunkered-down for two days in a snowstorm. The herbaceous perennial is known as the “snowball plant,” and it was one of the strangest, most fascinating creatures that I've ever seen. When I returned home I researched and was surprised that it's in the sunflower family (Asteraceae) and is known as Kasturi Kamal in Hindi. It is used medicinally where the wool is applied to cuts – they seal and stop the bleeding. The genus was named for the Swiss de Saussures, father and son alpine explorers and scientists. The specific name gossypiphora is a fancy way of saying “wool bearing.”

Lagerstroemia fauriei 'Townhouse'

Lagerstroemia species

Magnus von Lagerstroem

Urbain Jean Faurie

Magnus von Lagerstroem (1696-1759) was a Swedish naturalist and friend of Linnaeus. He stayed home and never visited Asia, nevertheless he was Director of the Swedish East India Company and in that role he was able to obtain natural history items from India and China, and one such Linnaeus named Lagerstroemia indica. I have admired the Japanese version of “Crepe myrtle,” L. fauriei, in others' gardens but I have never grown the straight species – only hybrids with L. indica – and in any case it is only the bark that I care for. The flowers of the genus are preposterously gaudy but sometimes the leaves will present you with spectacular autumn color. But the bark – as with the disgusting Eucalyptus genus – can make you actually want to stick one in your garden. The fauriei specific name is for the Abbe Urbain Jean Faurie, a 19^th century missionary and botanist in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The photo above is of an unnamed species or hybrid from the Dallas Botanic Garden, and I find the trunks of the two women to also be particularly attractive.

Darlingtonia californica

Townsendia species

William Darlington

David Townsend

Dr. William Darlington (1782-1863) for whom Darlingtonia californica was named, was a physician, botanist, banker and a US Congressman from Pennsylvania. He was among the first to advocate for a National Arboretum. He was President of the West Chester bank and David Townsend (1787-1858), another botanist to whom Sir William Hooker dedicated a genus, was the bank cashier for more than 30 years. There was a likeness of each genus painted in fresco in the bank over the doors of the president's and cashier's rooms. Darlington said that he would rather have a genus named after him than “a marble column one hundred feet high on the Place Vendome at Paris.” Darlingtonia californica is the “West coast pitcher plant,” sometimes called a “Cobra lily,” a carnivorous plant native to Oregon and northern California growing in bogs with cold running water. It was discovered in 1841 near Mt. Shasta and was scientifically described by John Torrey of Pinus torreyana fame. The Townsendia genus is from western North America in the Asteraceae family, and so completely different from Darlingtonia. It's amazing that two botanists from one bank are plant famous. At my bank they think my “nursery” is a day-care for kids, and no one working there has ever touched a tree.

Pinus torreyana

John Torrey

John Torrey is the botanist who is commemorated with Pinus torreyana. The species isn't particularly attractive, but it is the most rare in the United States, restricted to a small area north of San Diego, California on buttes above the Pacific Ocean and also on one of the Channel Islands west of Santa Barbara, California. It has been classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. The needles are in fascicles of five, unusual for a “yellow” pine. The species was named by Englishman Charles Parry who was a student botanist of Torrey.

Eschscholzia californica

Joao R. Cabrilho

Johann Eschscholtz

California is referred to as the “Golden State,” but the name has nothing to do with the Gold Rush of 1849. In 1542-43 Portuguese-born Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho was the first European to explore the coast of the present state of California, and he noticed golden hillsides from his ship. These were Eschscholzia californica, the “California poppy,” which was named for the German/Russian botanist Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793-1831). Mr. E. was one of the earliest scientific explorers of the Pacific region and he collected flora and fauna in Alaska, California and Hawaii. His botanical collections were published as Descriptiones Plantarum Novae Californiae in 1826, the first scientific description of California's flora and the first reference to California in the title of a scientific paper. It was his friend and colleague Adelbert von Chamisso who named the poppy in his honor.

Place Vendome

Just about everybody mentioned in this blog was above average in intelligence, maybe with the exception of the crabby Anna Paulowna, so I don't begrudge them the honor of having a plant genus name. The Place Vendome that Dr. Darlington refers to was built on the orders of Louis XIV, then Napoleon replaced the statue of the king with a bronze column made from 1,200 enemy cannons.