Tag Archives: Veitch Memorial Medal

A purple parcel day

In a week of more greyness and rain, the colour purple took my fancy this week. How pretty is my purple flower lay? I was surprised how many purple flowers I found in the rain and the first blast of winter cold. I included some pastel lavender flowers; had I extended into the pinker lilac hues, I could have doubled the number of different flowers.

It was not the coronation of King Charles that made me think of purple. It is the traditional colour of emperors, reserved for them because it was so difficult, tedious and expensive to extract the purple pigment to use as dye from snail mucus. Charles 111 may have many titles but emperor is not one of them, I think.

I saw very little of the coronation but it seemed, as the king changed his cloaks of many colours, that the colours of the British crown are more about red, white and royal blue with liberal lashings of gold.

No, it was the arrival of Mark’s Veitch Memorial Medal accoutrements. These were despatched by rather slow mail from London, on account of us not being able to travel to the official ceremony. Some of us remember when airmail was the expensive Fast Post option and the cheap alternative was slow boat. These days, airmail is a great deal more expensive but without the speed of delivery. Indeed, it can take as long as the old slow boat option. The certificate is impressive – a full A3 size. Oddly, because we are not given to public displays of such things, Mark felt it warranted hanging so it is destined to join the rogue’s gallery of family photos and pictures that adorn the private area of the spacious upstairs landing.

The purple boxes were discreetly impressive. One holds the medal while the other holds a golden and enamel lapel pin. They can go in the sideboard that holds his father Felix’s matching Veitch medal.

Mark is a reserved man but his delight was palpable.

The golden glow of the Veitch

In different times, we would have been in London now for Mark to attend a special presentation. He has been awarded the RHS Veitch Memorial Medal although I don’t expect many people in this part of the world to understand just how big that honour is.

Felix’s medal. Mark’s may take a while to arrive from the UK. International mail is much slower than it used to be.

The Veitch is the highest honour Britain’s prestigious Royal Horticultural Society award to people who are not citizens of that country. It is also the highest international honour we know of in our field – a literal medal that is gold in colour but I rather doubt that it is made of gold. I draw a comparison to the medals earned by sportspeople when they win a world championship. For us, the honour is in that league.

Mark Jury

We have known for about two months that Mark is one of this year’s recipients but were asked to keep it quiet until after the presentation ceremony in London yesterday. They usually award about four Veitch medals a year, covering the globe. For us, it is doubly special because Mark’s father, Felix, was awarded it in 1992 and this is one of the very (very) few times, that two generations from one family have received it. I still remember Felix’s quiet pride to be honoured internationally for his work in plant breeding.

I trawled the list of recipients down the years and oh my, but the company is very elevated internationally. As far as I could see, Mark is the thirteenth New Zealander to have been honoured since its inception in 1870, of whom only three others are still alive (Alan Jellyman, Keith Hammett and Bev McConnell).

For Mark, it is even more of an honour to have been nominated by international colleagues. Last year alone, over 425 000 of his cultivars grown under licence were sold internationally. This does not include production and sales of plants he has bred but we did not retain ownership rights over.

Our thanks go to Anthony Tesselaar Plants, our Australian-based agents, who have had the role of managing Mark’s cultivars on the international market over many years and who have always acted in his best interests.

In the manner of magazine writers these days, I interviewed Mark with quickfire questions on his plants. Well, to put it more accurately, as we sat having an afternoon cup of tea, I double-checked my preconceptions.

Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’

Favourite magnolia you have bred: Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’. (Named for his father because it was what Felix was trying to get to in his earlier generation of breeding).

Rhododendron ‘Floral Sun’

Favourite rhododendron: ‘Floral Sun’. (To quote Mark from an earlier time when he was unusually extravagant in his assessment or maybe had been drinking wine, “If I never breed anything as lovely as that again, I will die happy.”

Vireya rhododendron ‘Pink Jazz’

Favourite vireya rhododendron: ‘Pink Jazz’ (which is why it is named for our first-born child in an oblique sort of way).

Camellia ‘Fairy Blush’

Favourite camellia: ‘Fairy Blush’ (known here as the one that got away from us in terms of retaining ownership rights. It was the very first plant of his own breeding that Mark named and released on the open market).

Fairy Magnolia Blush

Favourite michelia: “RFA,” he replied. “Room for improvement”. The michelias are on ongoing project at this stage, but of those already released, he named ‘Fairy Magnolia Blush’ because it is the first to bring colour into the range.

Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’

Biggest surprise: Daphne ‘Perfume Princess’.

It is not so much a red letter day here as a gold medal day and that does not happen often.