Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

The Yellow Magnolias and Honey Tulip

Honey Tulip - looking very good this week

Honey Tulip – looking very good this week

There is some relief here this week as our newest magnolia, Honey Tulip, is looking particularly good. It is always a bit nerve wracking releasing a new cultivar on the market and hoping we have it right.

We are still a little bemused by a communication from some random person when Honey Tulip was first shown in an overseas publication. I will have to paraphrase it because I must have deleted it in irritation at the time, but it said something along the lines of: “It is good that Mark Jury is discerning in the magnolias he names, but the world has enough yellow magnolias already….” It then proceeded to instruct my Mark on what he should be breeding for instead.

The international world of magnolias is pretty small, the number of international magnolia breeders even fewer. We know most of them by repute, if not personally. This email did not come from anyone we had heard of before. What was galling was that in the heady world of new magnolias, Honey Tulip represents a genuine step in flower form for the yellows.

Honey Tulip - a lucky break in flower form and performance

Honey Tulip – a lucky break in flower form and performance

The yellow magnolias descend from a single species and while most magnolias originate from parts of Asia, the yellow deciduous M. acuminata and the evergreen grandiflora magnolias are from USA. M. acuminata is from eastern USA up into southern Ontario in Canada. We can remember when it first came into this country maybe 25 years ago, along with four of the earliest yellow hybrids – Yellow Bird, Yellow Fever, Elizabeth and Koban Dori. They were a collector’s novelty. Who knew that magnolia flowers could be yellow?

It did not take that long to realise that the yellow magnolias were not quite like the big pink, red, purple and white ones. There are a few problems yet to be solved. M. acuminata itself grows very rapidly and very large which takes it beyond the size most gardens can accommodate. The flowers are small, very small by magnolia standards, though they have good fragrance. Mind you, it has to be a very strong scent to mean anything when the blooms are 20 metres up above.

However, the biggest problem with acuminata and most of the hybrids is that the flowers come so late in the season that they coincide with the new foliage which then hides them. We are of the opinion that the whole point of a deciduous magnolia is to have all those fat, furry buds exploding into a mass of blooms on a bare tree in late winter and early spring. So little flowers, no matter what colour, obscured by masses of fresh foliage, are not going to set the world on fire.

Magnolia Yellow Fever planted on our road boundary

Magnolia Yellow Fever planted on our road boundary

We have not kept buying the many new yellow hybrids that have come on the market. There is a limit to how much space we have and too many of them show the same flaws. In a large garden, the best performer we have seen so far remains the early American hybrid with the unfortunate name of Yellow Fever. It is not the strongest yellow but it does flower on bare wood and is a pretty primrose, unlike Elizabeth which is more cream.

There is yellow form of the Asian M. denudata but we have not heard of it being imported to this country yet and have not seen it in person. It is difficult to judge colour from the range of hues shown on the internet. A form called ‘Yellow River’ is being sold overseas but the nature of its breeding and origin is unclear. Certainly it came out of China and it has denudata origins but whether it is a yellow sport of that species, a natural hybrid or a controlled cross seems unclear. Even less clear is when or if it will become available in this country. Only time will tell whether international breeders get the jump on different yellow magnolias using denudata yellow, with or without acuminata.

For all these reasons, our Honey Tulip represented a significant breeding step. It flowers on bare wood, before the foliage. It does not appear that it is going to be of timber tree stature. The colour is a pretty butterscotch but the big breakthrough is the form. While not huge flowers, the tulip shaped blooms are larger than most other yellows – very similar in fact to a soft yellow form of Magnolia Black Tulip. It was also a lucky break because it was the only one of the plants from that particular cross that flowered in that form and colour.

The ultimate challenge is to get a pretty yellow Iolanthe with big cup and saucer flowers. Mark has about 20 years left in him to work towards this goal. I wonder then if the overseas critic who saw himself as an expert on yellow magnolias will concede that there is always room for improvement.

The ultimate breeding challenge - is a yellow Iolanthe even possible?

The ultimate breeding challenge – is a yellow Iolanthe even possible?

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Pruning and shaping

Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier after pruning. For the avoidance of confusion, this plant is only 3m by 3m, not a forest giant.

Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier after pruning. For the avoidance of confusion, this plant is only 3m by 3m, not a forest giant.

I am married to a master pruner. I recognise his skills are hugely greater than mine. This was reinforced when he pruned the Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier at the weekend. This plant is meant to be a dwarf but it is looking less and less dwarf-like in our rockery and needs attention most years to keep it to a suitable size for that location.

At the end of the better part of half a day, he asked me how I thought it looked. In fact it looked very similar to how it had looked when he started. It is a plant with a lovely characterful shape and fan like sprays which hold the tiny leaves. There was close to as much lying cut off on the lawn as there was left on the shrub but you would not pick that. It had been reduced considerably in size and scale but had lost none of its form or shape. That is good pruning, dear Readers, as opposed to the butchery carried out by lesser mortals.

There was almost as much on the ground as left on the plant but you could not tell that by looking.

There was almost as much on the ground as left on the plant but you could not tell that by looking.

Such dedicated and meticulous pruning takes time, skill and sharp hand tools.

We joined a garden tour in the north of Italy some years ago and anyone who has visited those grand Italian gardens will know that most are clipped and shaped to within an inch of their lives. In fact they are so heavily clipped and groomed that plant health is often not that great. It is all about form and shape and very labour intensive.

Similarly, we have looked at the meticulous bonsai specimens in the Chinese gardens in Singapore. These are tended constantly by people with nail scissors, I kid you not. It may not be nail scissors exactly, but they were definitely nipping and snipping with scissors of some description. Surgical precision and detail. Again, labour intensive.

We lack the personpower here to carry out that sort of heavy clipping and shaping. Oh, to have a small army of serfs that we could upskill and then reward with a hovel in which to live and the occasional sack of spuds. But even then, we would not want a heavily contrived and clipped garden, preferring instead to go with some degree of natural harmony. It is all about degrees, however. Gardening involves a whole lot of management and manipulation to get desired effects.

Once the initial shaping and training is done, it does not take huge skill to maintain it. These are just camellias used as shapes in the garden.

Once the initial shaping and training is done, it does not take huge skill to maintain it. These are just camellias used as shapes in the garden.

Getting the initial shaping on plants is the skill, or bringing an over-sized specimen back to a more manageable size and shape. Once it is done, it only takes a moderate level of skill and care to maintain it.

I have watched Mark bring a wayward plant into line and that is why I am happy to concede his skills are so much greater than mine. He takes his time and he concentrates. He is up and down the ladder repeatedly (despite this playing havoc with a dodgy knee joint), viewing the plant from all angles at all stages. Major cuts are very carefully considered because you can’t glue a branch back on if you make a mistake. It is all about finding the natural shapes within the plant and highlighting those.

Frankly, it would often be faster to cut a plant out, even if it then involves major work removing stumps and roots. But if one forever removes plants when they get some size and maturity, then there is never a chance for them to develop character and the garden will remain perpetually juvenile.

All this comes back to the fact that we use plants as features and focal points in our garden, not ornaments. We prefer to clip a strategic plant here and there than to paint the outdoor furniture a different colour or place an urn.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Tulips, but not from Amsterdam

Tulips from Crete - T. saxatilis

Tulips from Crete – T. saxatilis

Tulips. They are Dutch in origin, aren’t they? Well no. The original tulips are no more Dutch than I am, but the modern hybrid tulips largely originate from the flat home of dairy, dykes, windmills and clogs. And in a love affair spanning 450 years, the Dutch have made this plant family their own.

We don’t grow many tulips in our own garden. The showiest by far is a tulip from Crete – T. saxatilis. Most people are surprised to find that there is a tulip from that Greek island because, after all, tulips come from Holland, do they not? In fact the species in the wild – and there appear to be somewhere between 70 and 100 different species recorded – do not originate from anywhere in Northern Europe. Instead, stretching from Southern Europe, through Northern Africa, the Middle East and spreading overland from Turkey to north western China, tulips have a wide territory. Many of them favour mountainous areas with hot, dry summers and cold winters and therein lies the hint to the problems people can have with getting the modern hybrids to flower past the first season in their garden. Most need a much greater winter chill than we can give them here.

Some species - we just don't know which one

Some species – we just don’t know which one

We have three different tulips in the garden. The Cretan species is wonderfully easy-care and increases gently and reliably. I love the unlikely contrast between the lilac pink and bright gold. Then we have a pure yellow one which is inclined to nod its head. Mark thinks it may be a hybrid, not a species, though I am unsure of how he reached this conclusion. It never increases but it does at least return each year. And we have a small flowered, small growing species of unknown origin. Charmingly understated, might be the descriptor.

Indubitably tulip, but we have no name on it and it never increases.

Indubitably tulip, but we have no name on it and it never increases.

I am not the world’s greatest fan of modern tulip hybrids but concede I am in a minority. I have toyed with the idea of bulk buying bulbs of one or maybe two selected cultivars to drift through areas of the garden. A swathe of pure white tulips or maybe clusters of a deep wine colour might add to the early spring herbaceous plantings even though they may be a little clichéd. But I prefer to spend money on bulbs which have a life-span beyond just one season. I can’t bring myself to treat tulip bulbs as a disposable commodity. It seems a shocking waste of money, resources and effort.

I was a bit surprised to find that even in the UK, tulips are often treated as annuals because their repeat performance is patchy at best, despite the fact that their winters are much colder than ours. Tulip bulbs are much cheaper to buy there which may be a factor.

It is not that these hybrids all die after flowering for the one season. They just decline and flowering diminishes considerably in subsequent years unless you go to the trouble of lifting them, separating the offsets, chilling them and replanting in fresh ground. That is a lot of effort. Holland apparently produces fresh tulip bulbs by the billions each year, so I guess there is an insatiable demand from people who do keep replenishing supplies.

The early variegations and novelty breakthroughs were almost certainly caused by virus which, while giving variety, also weakens the plants over time. Nowadays, the variegations are the result of genetic breeding and selection, and considerable effort has been made to get rid of the debilitating viruses. Most of the modern hybrids descended originally from T. suaveolens, which we do not have in our garden here.

I went looking for a photo of tulip fields in Holland and found instead this one of tulip fields in Japan, pretending they are in Holland!

I went looking for a photo of tulip fields in Holland and found instead this one of tulip fields in Japan, pretending they are in Holland!

The history of tulips is fascinating but not without debate. The earliest cultivation of tulips was apparently recorded 1000 years ago in Persia. How and when they arrived in Northern Europe is disputed, but they appear to have been taken there in the mid 1500s. By 1637, what is now called “tulip mania” had hit Holland. Single bulbs could command fabulous prices – reportedly as high as 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. But it was not just the wealthy plant collector who coveted these flowering plants. They had become an investment commodity, priced way beyond their actual value. This extraordinary situation has received a lot of attention because it was the first recorded instance of rampant, economic speculation on a product but there is ongoing debate about the extent and the detail. Economic data from 1637 is always going to be a little sparse and sometimes unreliable. Whatever, it makes a good story and “tulip mania” has entered the lexicon as a term for a freakish economic bubble, such as the sub-prime mortgage bubble in most recent times.

Going back to garden plants, in their simplest form tulips are generally cup-shaped and can face upwards or downwards. Essentially they all have strappy foliage and while it looks as if they have 6 petals, botanically they have 3 petals and 3 sepals. Ten times an average income seems an awful lot to pay for one of those.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

The story of the red magnolias

Vulcan to the left, Lanarth to the right

Vulcan to the left, Lanarth to the right

Few people realise that the story of the red magnolias is a New Zealand story. Probably even fewer realise that when it comes to stronger colours in magnolias, we get the best colour in the world here.

I am talking about deciduous magnolias. The evergreen grandiflora types are resolutely white in bloom and adding colour to the softer-leafed, evergreen michelias is very much a work in progress. But deciduous reds, we do well.

Most deciduous magnolias are in the white and pink colour range and very lovely many of them are too. But with many plant genus, there is always that quest to extend the range of flower form and colour, to build on what happens in nature to get a better performing, showier garden plant. Some of it is about pushing boundaries to see what can be done. A truly blue rose is still an unfulfilled quest but it is highly likely it will come sooner or later.

Some would argue that we do not yet have truly red magnolias and there is truth in that. There is no scarlet, no fire engine red. All the red varieties on the market still retain a blue cast to them and fade out to pink or purple tones rather than to the orange end of the colour spectrum. But if you line one of the red magnolias up against a purple one, it is clear that they are a different colour.

This (liliiflora 'Nigra')

This (liliiflora ‘Nigra’)

I started by saying that the story of red magnolias is a New Zealand story. In fact it started as our family story. Back in the 1970s, Felix Jury wondered if he could get a large flowered, solid coloured red magnolia on a smaller growing tree. He started with the red species – M. liliifora ‘Nigra’. In itself, ‘Nigra’ is a nice enough, low spreading magnolia but nothing showy. He crossed it with the very showy, indubitably purple ‘Lanarth’ (technically M. campbellii var. mollicamata ‘Lanarth’). The rest, as they say, is history.

crossed with this (Lanarth)

crossed with this (Lanarth)

‘Vulcan’ took the magnolia world by storm. This was the break in colour and form. It is not perfect. We know that. The flowers do not age gracefully. It flowers too early in the season for some areas. It does not develop its depth of colour or size of bloom in colder climates and is a shadow of its own self in most UK and European destinations. But after more than 20 years, it is still hugely popular and very distinctive, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. It set the standard and it opened the door to other cultivars.

... and the result was this: Vulcan

… and the result was this: Vulcan

In due course, but slowly, slowly, Mark followed on from his father. He raised hundreds of seedlings and named ‘Black Tulip’ (the darkest of the reds), ‘Felix Jury’ and ‘Burgundy Star’.

Fellow breeder, Vance Hooper, started his programme on the reds and he has named several. The best known is ‘Genie’. Like Mark, he is continuing determinedly down the red magnolia line in the quest for perfection, although improvement or variation will do as steps along the way.

There are other reds on the NZ market now, though none from sustained breeding programmes to match those undertaken by Mark and Vance.

Black Tulip - the first of the second generation red magnolias

Black Tulip – the first of the second generation red magnolias

It appears that it is ‘Black Tulip’ that has enabled the rise of new selections in UK and Europe. It sets seed and every man and their dog is now raising seed and naming selections. Mark is a little wry as he comments that he raised hundreds of plants to get one ‘Black Tulip’ whereas others raise a few seed and name several. He has an ever-decreasing level of patience for amateurs who, as he says, “raise five seedlings and name six of them” based on the first or second flowering only, when he is still assessing seedlings which are 20 years old and showing their adult form, habit and performance.

So New Zealand is about to lose its position of world domination in the red magnolias. But we still get better colour here than others do overseas. There is no certainty yet as to whether that is related to our mild climate, our soils, the root stock used or the quality of light – likely a combination of all. ‘Felix Jury’, which can flower strong red for us is more an over-sized pink flamingo so far in European gardens. We are just relieved that it achieves full-sized flowers and plenty of them, even if it is not red in their conditions.

Magnolia Felix Jury at its best here

Magnolia Felix Jury at its best here

The quest for truer reds continues. A red that loses the magenta hue. Mark is assessing several with which he is quietly very pleased. They are not scarlet but they are an improvement in colour. Just don’t hold your breath. This is a long haul.

Finally, while NZ leads the world in reds, it was USA which gave us yellow magnolias. These all descend from one yellow American species – M. acuminata. I just say that for the record. Credit where credit is due.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

The tyranny of monocultural gardening

We have abandoned the tyranny of the perfect lawn

We have abandoned the tyranny of the perfect lawn

Monocultures. We have been talking about horticultural monocultures – the cultivation of a single crop on a large scale.

I saw a monoculture in Malaysia – palm oil. The accompanying photograph was taken from a moving bus and shows a relatively recent planting. As palm oil plantations go, it is not one where native forest has been cleared for commercial purposes and no orang-utans were endangered for this one – that is happening in Indonesia more than Malaysia. But palm oil is an extensive monoculture.

Palm oil - the increasingly common monoculture of some Asian countries

Palm oil – the increasingly common monoculture of some Asian countries

In this country, we have a localised but more extreme example of the risks of monoculture in our golden kiwifruit. As I understand it, that was not only one crop – it was one clone. That means that pretty much all the golden kiwifruit plants descended from the same original specimen. So when that plant selection succumbed to the dreaded Psa bacterial disease, it affected all plants equally and threatened the very existence of the crop. The race is on now to find clones which are resistant to Psa.

You can’t buy plants of golden kiwifruit in this country because that one clone that was used and the replacement clone are restricted to licensed commercial growers only. In recent years, Mark has been raising seedlings from fruit we have bought and this year we had minor harvests. Because this fruit does not grow true from seed (it needs to be vegetatively propagated), our seedlings will be genetic variations. The fruit so far is not of the same size and consistency of the commercial selection and the taste varies between plants but it looks as if we may have some viable options amongst the crop to keep ourselves supplied.

Raising our own selections of golden kiwifruit gives genetic diversity

Raising our own selections of golden kiwifruit gives genetic diversity

But where do monocultures fit in when it comes to a gardening context? Matched avenues of the same tree. Massed plantings of a single selection in the modern landscape style. Lawns. Of those, lawns are probably the only monoculture in a technical sense, but they are a major issue.

Matched avenues can look fantastic when they are at their best. They give a beguiling formality and structure to a garden or landscape. When they are at their best. The problem is that plants are living things and don’t always oblige by growing uniformly. I am sure some readers will be nodding in wry agreement. Then there is the problem if a plant dies. Matched avenues with gaps are nowhere near as pleasing. And you are faced with a conundrum. Do you leave the gap? Or replace it with the same plant selection which will almost certainly be a different size and stick out like a sore thumb for years to come? And how do you know that the affliction that killed the missing plant isn’t in the soil and therefore likely to attack the replacement plant as well? Replace the dirt as well, maybe? It is often difficult when things go wrong.

Many modern landscapers favour massed plantings of a single plant variety. It is a broad brush technique which can be visually effective, if you like that look. But if you have a problem, you end up with the acne look which is not so nice at all. A few dead lavenders amidst your simulated fields of Provence, massed rust-spotted renga renga lilies which look as if they have chicken pox – this can easily be your lot if you favour the monocultural approach. Or indeed, you may lose the whole patch at once which can be expensive when it comes to a quick-fix replacement.

Nature of course does not generally grow as a single species. In the wild there is often a dominant species but around that, there will be a host of other plants in a natural mixed colony. That is what makes it nature.

Nowhere do we fight nature more than in the highly valued lawn. There, it is often decreed, the only plants to be accepted are the selected grass species – often rye and fescue. Anything else is an interloper to be weeded or poisoned out. That is a never-ending battle yet we persist in demanding the perfection of the monoculture of lawn grass. Lordy lou but I was reading about an obsessive English gardener this week who is so proud of his lawn that he tends it constantly and mows it with pride six times a week! I looked at the photo – a bowling green style with five brown patches where he had clearly sprayed out weeds.

We have made the conscious decision to abandon this futile quest for lawn perfection. As long as it is green, fine-leafed and able to be mown, it can stay. Perhaps more controversially, Mark tells me that he has decided the flowering clover and self-heal can stay. He likes the patches of colour and the fact that these flowering lawn plants feed the bees and butterflies. We are headed down the mown green meadow path rather than the garden lawn. No monocultures here. The more experience we get in gardening, the more we favour a natural style which works with, rather than against, nature.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.