Friday, February 17, 2017

I have read a couple of English nature books recently and I
thoroughly enjoyed both of them. The first was The Natural World of
Winnie-the-Pooh by Kathryn Aalto, “a walk through the forest that inspired
the Hundred Acre Wood.” I somehow skipped Winnie-the-Pooh as a child; I thought
the Honey-Bear was kind of boring. When I was about twenty a sweet girlfriend
referred to me as Christopher Robin, which I took to mean that I was an earnest
and good boy, but that I was also kind of simple. Then a few years ago the
animated Pooh film arrived in theaters which was highly regarded. I agreed: it
was cute and clever and I enjoyed it as much as the kids.

Saya's Pooh slippers

My eleven-year-old is a solid Pooh fan with Pooh slippers, a
Pooh pillow and a few Pooh stuffed animals, and all of that is fine except that
I cringe that the materials were processed in China. Anyway the book was her
birthday present, and while some of the natural history of the Hundred Acre
Woods – which is actually the 6,000 acres of Ashdown Forest in southeast
England – might be above her, I have found that it is better with children to
aim high rather than low.

I devoured the second book, Landskipping by Anna
Pavord, with giddy excitement as I am familiar with her other works such as The
Tulip and The Naming of Names. She celebrates the British landscape
and the book is subtitled Painters, Ploughmen and Places. To those of
us who have visited Britain – somewhat wild with Wales on the west and Anglia
on the east – and then the rugged north of Scotland, we are finally soothed
with plowed fields, stone walls and luscious sheep-cropped meadows in the south
and central of England. Pavord loves the landscape fashioned by the “hand of
man”* as much as any wild place, in fact while climbing in the Scottish
Highlands she feels “terrified, pulverized by the force of the mountains,
ecstatic,” and realizes that “living on a high like that can't be sustained.”

Garden in Shoreham

The Flock and the Star

*Pavord writes about the English painter Samuel Palmer
(1805-1881), whom I had never heard of before. I investigated further – since
the internet can be a fabulous tool – and read a quote from biographer Rachel
Campbell-Johnston that Palmer was “part of a group that gathered around William
Blake,” and that he painted with “mad splendour which makes you think of Van
Gogh.” At other times Campbell-Johnston imagines Palmer “sketching out a poetic
landscape where the peasants were plump and happy, the orchards full of apples
and the sheep obligingly biblical.”

Sugar Loaf Mountain

While Pavord loves the “hand of man” on the landscape she
classifies golf courses as “not useful.” She says: “There is nothing
life-enhancing for a plant or animal on the average green or fairway. As an environment,
a golf course is a fascist state. And a thirsty one.” Pavord is a wonderful wit
and I'd love to spend a day with her, and wouldn't it be wonderful to hike
together up her Sugar Loaf Mountain on the Welsh-English border where she grew
up. It takes two hours to climb to the top, a route she had taken with her
mother “hundreds of times,” and the last climb "with" her mother is movingly
described in the last paragraph of Landskipping.*

*The word landskip is no longer in general use. It is now
considered a “British regionalism,” and first appeared from Dutch “landschap”
for a “view or prospect of natural inland scenery, such as can be taken in at a
glance from one point of view.” (OED)

Picea glauca 'Pendula'

Quercus garryana

These two books prompted me to look at my Flora Farm,
perhaps through the eyes of my children who have spent their entire life living
on a country property filled with their old man's trees. Talk about a fascist
state! – with bushes lined up in rows and metal labels pronouncing botanic
names in Latin. When daughter Harumi was two – almost three – she would walk
around the gardens with her mother and point to the labels and ask, “what's
that?” “what's that?” Mom explained that the labels were the trees' names, and
soon Harumi could spout “Picea glauca Pendula” when I pointed in the direction
of said tree, or “Kurkus garrana” when I pointed at our giant oak. Naturally I
was proud but my older children were certain that I had brainwashed her.

Upper Gardens at Flora Farm

Flora Farm is sixty acres and consists of the Upper
Gardens, the West Hills, and the wild lands down by the Tualatin
River. The lower property floods in winter and along the water edges the blue
herons and the white egrets mate, in the water the ducks dumbly quack and the
geese loudly squawk. Flocks are always coming and going. Hummingbirds begin
darting around the Mahonias in November and don't finish until February, and
when leaves fall from the maple trees we can see their tidy little nests, for
they prefer to zoom in and out of maple foliage rather than prickly Mahonia.

Saya hiding in the Upper Gardens

What it must be like for a child to grow up in the country;
I never had such good fortune growing up in the suburbs. The children
especially love to kick the can and play hide and seek until dusk turns to
dark, especially if an ambitious adult like my son or their mother Haruko joins
in the fun. They don't care if the fir they hide behind is a common species
from Oregon, or the highest altitude Abies squamata from China (16,000'). They
are careful however – more so than their friends – and are aware of the
importance of labels and irrigation drip lines.

Field crops at Flora Farm

With plants a nurseryman can color his scape, choosing to
plant blue conifers next to a row of yellow trees for example. I am free to
plant whatever I want, but I realize that I am only borrowing time.

The mighty oak at Flora Farm

I bought the property because I liked its feel. On the east
side the land drops gently for a quarter mile from the public road down to the
river, and on the west the hills extend all the way to sunset. Two huge
Pseudotsuga menziesii were already growing before the White Man robbed the
ground from the natives, and my beloved Oregon oak was already large when
George Washington was president. Nothing was virgin about the land however - it
had been cleared and managed by natives for years. In more recent times
strawberries was a popular crop (in the 1950's and 60's), but that petered out
when cream-puff legislators decided that school kids like me were being abused
with the hard labor. Ha to that! The strawberry patch, where you were rewarded
solely by your effort, was a better life classroom than anything within four
walls.

Wheat

Crimson clover

Broccoli

The land during my ownership has produced wheat, clover,
broccoli and corn before I stuck ornamentals into the dirt, and the local
farmer used my land rent free, because farming is not profitable enough now if the
vegetable grower has to farm and pay rent. The neighborhood lands are
filling up with vineyards; Oregon is world-famous for its pinot noir and I
wonder if one day my trees will be cleared for grapes.

Eastern morning sky

I agree with Ms. Pavord – I really wish I could call her "Anna" but she is ten years my senior – that the best time to view a landscape is
in the morning or the evening, when the light travels sideways. The Japanese
have the term shakkei which refers to “borrowed landscape,” meaning that
a garden or landscape can continue and include the hills or clouds beyond. My
good neighbor to the east – Grace, the owner of Blooming Nursery – has some
large Douglas firs on her property. Who owns them? Certainly not me as I don't
possess the deed to their plot. Grace knows about them and is probably happy
they exist, but I don't think she appreciates them as much as I do. Between the
trees I know where to look for Mt. Hood, and in some respects I feel like I
“own” that too. The sky, the trees, the mountain – they're all for me, and
looking east: what a great way to begin the morning.

Friday, February 10, 2017

We're racing – occasionally
staggering – down the home stretch of our winter's propagation. The
rooted cuttings are 95% finished...or maybe we're totally done after
all. I don't know if we'll do any Sciadopitys this winter or just
skip them. We get a fair amount to root though they take their time,
but the problem is that the center bud rots out, and a new one will
not develop even if the original cutting stick has roots. It can stay
in that suspended state for years – green but with no new growth
ever to appear. The umbrella whorl traps water and perhaps they are
misted too often; but before they root they have to have mist. If I
was younger I would rig up a fog system or at least experiment with
alternative methods, but since I'm long in the tooth now it is easier
just to skip a year.

Eric Lucas tending the cuttings

Another problem is that we no longer
offer custom rooted cuttings to other wholesale growers, whereas
twenty years ago we produced a couple hundred thousand every year. We
discontinued for two reasons: 1) it was a lot of work for small
profit and 2) due to the recession in about 2009 many long-time
customers went bankrupt or at least gripped about their finances, so
orders were either canceled or never placed. Good, good for Buchholz
Nursery, and now we just produce cuttings for ourselves, and other
surviving nurseries will just have to find them elsewhere. But since
we attempt to root only 10 percent of what we used to, we don't have
a “propagator” anymore. We have ladies who cut and plant the
cuttings, but that's all they do. They want absolutely no
responsibility for the crop – like setting the mist based on day
length and temperature, or checking the bottom heat temperatures...or
checking to see if the boiler is running at all. Consequently Eric
Lucas, our office manager, is also the de facto propagation manager.
He knows that even if all of the cuttings die he won't get fired.

Pinus mugo 'Carsten's Winter Gold'

Pinus mugo 'Carsten's Winter Gold'

Pinus koraiensis 'Silveray'

Calocedrus decurrens 'Berrima Gold'

I would guess that today we are 88%
finished with our winter grafting, the propagation method that is and
always has been our primary means of producing plants. I generally
juggle three rootstocks at the same time, so today we finished the
two-needle pines with Pinus mugo 'Carsten's Winter Gold' grafted onto
seedling “Scot's Pine,” Pinus sylvestris. Also Pinus koraiensis
'Silveray' was spliced onto Pinus strobus rootstock – both
compatible five-needle pines. Then we also began to bestow upon our
five hundred Calocedrus decurrens seedlings the golden cultivar,
'Berrima Gold', and we'll also do some 'Maupin Glow', the variegated
green-gold “Incense cedar” discovered in central Oregon.

Juana at her grafting station

It can be a drag to stand under the
fluorescent lights and graft all day. Juana can typically perform
550-600 grafts per day if all is prepared and set up for her, and I
suppose that doing two or three different kinds of plants helps
relieve her monotony. I know that for me it does. I hate cutting the
prickly two-needle pines – since I can't and have never used gloves
– so mixing into the day's scions some softer five-needle pines is
a blessing. Furthermore the prickly pines are usually dwarves that
dwell at ground level, and as I age that's a further and farther
distance to reach.

Thuja plicata 'Whipcord'

Thuja orientalis 'Franky Boy'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Butterball'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Chirimen'

Tomorrow we'll tackle the Thuja
standards. In the trade a “standard” is a straight trunk that's
usually one-to-three feet tall with the desirable cultivar
top-grafted. It doesn't matter whether or not I like plants presented
that way – and I usually don't – nevertheless our customers do.
So on Thuja plicata rootstock we'll attach the arching thread-branch
Thuja plicata 'Whipcord', and after about five years of growing we'll
have a Dr. Seuss-like creature. The same with Thuja orientalis
'Franky Boy' which will be attached to straight trunks of the
“Oriental arborvitae.” Finally Chamaecyparis obtusa dwarves will
be top-grafted onto Thuja occidentalis 'Smaragd' trunks. 'Green
Cushion' and 'Butterball' make for cute standards, and for the past
couple of years we have also been producing the relatively new
'Chirimen' that way.

The goal is to have what no one else
grows, and then when they finally copy you, you have moved on to
something that they haven't thought of yet. My nursery career has
been a sprint, with about 13,500 days (so far) working for myself and
my family (ies). Mine is a small company where the primary objective
is to financially survive, and believe me I always run scared. The
young, smarter nurserymen are always nipping at my heels...and it
reminds me of what I did thirty years ago when I stole customers from
the sleepy hicks who preceded me.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana Lutea'

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Aurora'

We also have Thuja occidentalis
'Smaragd' in 3 1/2” pot for low grafting, and the primary
candidates are the dwarf Chamaecyparis obtusa cultivars. This morning
in the rain I cut 'Nana Lutea', 'Aurora' and 'Gold Post', the latter
being a new compact narrow-upright. Every one of these has also been
rooted earlier, and they will eventually grow into salable plants,
but the grafts on the more hardy and sturdy arborvitae rootstock
gives them a couple of year's head start over those cutting grown. So
why not grow all the hinokies via grafting? The answer is that it is
a more expensive process and one usually grows the grafts to specimen
size to recover that extra cost, whereas with cuttings we can sell a
pot that's three or four years old for three or four dollars.
Besides, the same stock tree that yields thirty good scions can also
supply us with maybe 200 (smaller) cuttings.

Microbiota decussata at the Rhododendron Species Botanic Garden

Microbiota decussata

When I decide what to graft onto Thuja
I first look at our MPL (Master Plant List) to see what my choices
are. I don't graft any Thuja onto Thuja, as they all can be
propagated adequately by cuttings. But I have to remember that there
are also other genera that are compatible with 'Smaragd' such as
Microbiota decussata. This conifer from Siberia is related to
Juniperus and was first discovered in 1921. A nice specimen ( or
specimens) can be found at the Rhododendron Species Garden in
Washington state (shown above), and I suspect they are on their own
roots. Microbiota does root easily but they do poorly in container
culture and it's probably due to overwatering or the excessive summer
heat in a black plastic pot. With the 'Smaragd' roots however,
Microbiota is quite easy to grow.

Cupressus cashmeriana at Buchholz Nursery

Kew Gardens Conservatory

Another surprise is how compatible
Cupressus cashmeriana is with 'Smaragd'. I can't explain why, but
early in my career I learned that the two make a perfect graft union,
whereas the old Thuja occidentalis 'Pyramidalis' does not. It seems
odd that the “Kashmir cypress” is cultivar specific with Thuja,
because it really shouldn't make any difference. 'Pyramidalis' is not
even in the trade anymore, and good riddance since it is inferior to
'Smaragd' (AKA 'Emerald Green'), but if I had a few pots I would
graft cashmeriana onto 'Pyramidalis' to prove to you the difference
in graft unions. Always considered tender, a large specimen of C.
cashmeriana can be found in the Kew Gardens conservatory. Hillier in
Manual of Trees and Shrubs (2014) mentions that it grows
outside in their arboretum in southern England and was 10m tall at 30
years old. The Manual points out that the foliage is a “conspicuous
blue-grey, in flattened sprays,” and so it is the same clone that I
grow. Hillier continues, “Some recent introductions have green
foliage and appear hardier.” I was surprised that C. cashmeriana
grew outdoors at the JC Raulston Arboretum in North Carolina, and it
survived a low of 7 degrees F a few winters ago. I should have
studied it more closely for foliage color, as I now wonder if they
grow the green form which is supposedly more hardy.*

Cupressus cashmeriana at the JC Raulston Arboretum

*I asked Tim Alderton, Research
Technician at the Raulston. He replied:

Talon,

I remember your visit. The specimen
you saw is no longer with us. It froze out the following winter when
we reached the lower single digits. It appeared to be the blue-grey
form to me, but we had no others to compare it to. The parent of that
plant came from cutting that we received from Juniper Level Botanic
Garden in 2002. The one you saw was grown from a cutting in 2008.
When they grow, they grow very quickly into a sizable plant as it was
over 10' tall when it died four years later.

Tony Avent maybe able to tell you
where he received his start years ago.

Sorry that I can't be of more help,

Tim

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Gold Rush'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Green Star'

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Mr. Happy'

We had a handful of Sciadopitys that
were seedling grown, and last year about half of them were of
graftable size at six years of age, and the rest of them this year at
seven years. Unlike with our rooted cuttings Sciadopitys with the bud
rot mentioned earlier, the grafted plants never get the problem. Out
of twenty or so cultivars of “Umbrella pine” that we have I
choose to produce just two now: 'Gold Rush' and 'Green Star'.
Customers always want to buy the few 'Mr. Happy' that they see in the
nursery, but I am discontinuing its production because it is not
reliable. I've come to that conclusion after twenty years of messing
with it. At its best 'Mr. Happy' is spectacular, but I have also
experienced some that have reverted to mostly green. And even worse,
some have become predominantly yellow and those can burn. Perfect are
the half and halfs with green and yellow, and if the majority of ours
grew that way then I would continue to propagate it. Anyway the
reliable 'Gold Rush' and 'Green Star' are in high demand and I can
sell out without any problem. Oops! – actually there is a problem,
for our record snow broke some branches on specimens that sold on our
first day of availability, and we were just waiting to ship this
spring. So we'll see what they look like when the truck is actually
here.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Larix gmelini 'Tharandt Dwarf'

Ginkgo biloba

Geeze – propagating: There is never a
guarantee that one's effort will be rewarded with success. I've
whined in previous blogs that I experience gut-wrenching insecurity
throughout the entire process, and in spite of thirty seven years of
relative success, I still fret about the current crops. I obtain some
relief, however, when I walk through the deciduous conifers grafted
six weeks ago in GH18B. The Metasequoias and Larix scions are
swelling – as they do every year at this time – and before long
we'll have to sell or pot up the damn things so they don't over-crowd
with new growth and rot. Likewise the Ginkgo scions look active, and
I'm reminded that we also grafted them at about the same time. The
deciduous conifers – and that would include Ginkgo – are easy and
reliable to propagate, and our success with them helps to fund the
trickier stuff that we do...

Stewartia monadelpha 'Pendula'

...for example, a long-time customer
(15 years) showed up the other day and wondered about the story with
our Stewartia monadelpha 'Pendula', about why they were never on our
specimen availability. Groan – I explained how hard they were to
propagate and that rootstocks cost a fortune and that 10% grafting
success was the best that we ever achieved blah blah blah...and that
if I ever did sell them it would be a few years later when they were
worth many hundreds of dollars...and that these were likely the very
first in America – from Japan – and that my Japanese wife –
beautiful at age 25 – sweet-talked the old Japanese nurseryman into
sending me a start when he never intended to do so at the beginning
of our visit. Our long-time (male) customer said, “But I noticed
that two were flagged for sale.” Ohhh...he was right! Out of ten
plants I did flag two – though I didn't really want to –
for a Seattle customer. Ah – I explained to him – ah ah, well
actually she's better looking than you. There, there you have the
truth.

Pinus aristata 'Lemon Frost'

Pinus bungeana 'Silver Ghost'

The page above is one out of about 15
which gives you an example of what we graft and in what numbers. With
some we would have done more if scions were more plentiful, such as
Pinus aristata 'Lemon Frost' and Pinus bungeana 'Silver Ghost'. I got
my start of 'Lemon Frost' from Don at Porterhowse Farms about eight
years ago and I didn't want to abuse it by cutting too much. It is a
slow-growing bristlecone with a light dusting of gold on the needle
tips, but certainly not a very profitable pine to grow. One problem
is that there's not a good rootstock to use for P. aristata – none
of them are really compatible unless you could find P. balfouriana or
P. longaeva seedlings which I've never seen offered for sale. We have
used P. strobiformis in the past, and then this year P. strobus. Most
of the 18 grafts will take, but then the scions will just sit there
on their nurse stock, with only 4 or 5 actually taking off to produce
healthy growth.

Healthy Pinus bungeana cultivar on left and unhealthy on right

The Pinus bungeana 'Silver Ghost' is
another story, where I used to do a couple of hundred each year, but
in the past few years I have cashed out on my older stock trees, so
all I could do was scrape up 32 scions from one tree left in the
Conifer Field. As with the 'Lemon Frost', 'Silver Ghost' – and all
P. bungeana cultivars – also do not have a perfect rootstock. Over
the years I would guess that only 60% of the grafts that take will
ever make it to the 6-7 or 8-year size. Some will die at the
one-gallon pot size, and some others will “live” but be
perpetually off color. After a couple of years of watching these
struggle I'll finally issue the edict for their removal. For those
that stay green and healthy there is a ready market, if the foot of
snow doesn't smash the brittle branches before harvest.

These examples illustrate why I worry
so much, why success is not a given. And also why I am not wealthy in
the nursery business. Sometimes people interpret that for me to mean
that I put up with my chosen livelihood because I love plants,
and have a passion for what I do. Probably not as much as you
think. There comes a point where financial security sounds a lot
better than watching pines struggle.

Yesterday I walked around the
neighbor's bankrupt nursery. I was uninvited but no one was around.
It was a chilling experience to see hoop after hoop full of
distressed plants with a healthy crop of liverwort covering the tops
of every pot. Euonymus, Prunus, Berberis, Hibiscus etc. – all
“cheap” plants relatively easy to produce. When times were good
they made more money than I did; when times got bad they went under.
Maybe my life's course wasn't such a bad decision.