Hobbiton conifers of the week, April 13th, 2013

11 years ago

Another handful of cultivar shots. After a warm start, Spring is emerging at it's normal snail-like pace. Plants very very slowly yawn and begin their growth, unlike most of the country where when Spring comes, plants explode into life.

Sciadopitys verticillata 'Janssen's Variegated' - One of the best variegated umbrella pines.
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Abies balsamea 'Bear Swamp'
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Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Les Barres' - A cool plant I picked up from Dragonfly Farms, a nursery the Western ACS gathering will visit this Summer - Bring some dough!!
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Abies koreana 'Blue Standard' - Also from Heidi at Dragonfly Farms.
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Tsuga canadensis 'Everitt Golden' - Slow growing and a nice bright gold in a part-sun spot. Has grown about 2-3 inches a year(5-8 cm).
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Picea engelmannii 'Swan Creek' - Seems the engelmannii's break buds earlier here than many of my other spruce.
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Some pots and colors/chaos.
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I like to include maples at this time of the year given they compliment well with conifers and many people who collect one often grow the other.

Acer palmatum 'Musasaki kiyohime' - This little guy has great looking leaves in all three seasons and is still growing slowly even five years in the ground now. It's one of the first maples I planted.
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Hope you liked 'em!

-Will

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Comments (16)

davidtree
11 years ago
nice looking trees.
monkeytreeboy15
11 years ago
As always, Will, everything looks superb!
Thanks for sharing the photos.

-Sam
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ogcon
11 years ago
Very nice Will,what can you tell me about 'Les Barres'?It
looks to be an eventual tall fastigiate.Doug
Garen Rees
11 years ago
Thanks for enabling the maples too!
whaas_5a
11 years ago
The best news here is in the title. "of the week"

Looks forward to it!
gardener365
11 years ago
You have beautiful plants.

From where did you find 'Janssen's Variegated' Sciadop ?

Dax
firefightergardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Dax, it's a plant Bob Fincham/Coenosium Gardens has in plenty in his back stage area. I imagine if it's not listed yet for sale, it will be shortly - he had plenty of beauties.

'Les Barres' is a new plant to me and seems somewhat compact and somewhat narrow/fastigate but I don't have any history behind it. Perhaps Edwin or another expert might chime in.

More next week, I've picked up some great plants this Spring and I have a bunch to share.

-Will
ladylotus
11 years ago
Things are looking really great in your gardens. Do you know how many conifers you have? Do you even want to know. ha ha. Thanks for sharing the photos.
firefightergardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Hi Ms. Lotus, I keep pretty good records but with plants moving in and out from trades and gifts, it's a bit fuzzy. I have roughly 2700 specimens of conifers with perhaps 1550-1600 cultivars. I never feel overwhelmed in part because I have no problem digging up sickly/unwanted plants and giving them away or returning them to nature.

I will probably have the normal 5-15 plants die this year, which is a pretty low fatality rate given our wet Winter.

Found a few more photos I took,

Pinus parviflora 'Miyajima'
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Pinus banksiana 'Chippewa'
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Glad you enjoyed taking a look,

-Will
gardener365
11 years ago
Willy, appreciate the tip.

Dax
coniferjoy
11 years ago
Will, I enjoyed your pics for sure!

The Sciadopitys verticillata 'Janssen's Variegated' was found by the late Bill Janssen of the Collector's Nursery.

Abies balsamea 'Bear Swamp' is one of of few brooms found on an Abies balsamea var. phanerolepis.
Because of this it can also be written as
Abies balsamea var. phanerolepis 'Bear Swamp'.

Abies koreana 'Blue Standard'.
The blue part wasn't chosen this time for it's needle colour, but for it's beautiful deep violet coloured cones.

The Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Les Barres' was found as a witches' broom by my German friend GÃÂ¼nter Eschrich.
He found it in the Les Barres Arboretum in France.
It's colour is a beautiful dark green, it will grow into a nice slender tree.
maple_grove_gw
11 years ago
Holy moly 2700 conifers! It's a wonder you had any lawn left at all, for as long as you did! How large is your property? Also, do you know how many maples do you have?

This really puts things in perspective for me. I was starting to wonder if, having some 200 conifer cultivars, I might have to slow down soon. You have over 10 times that many and seem to handle it very well. Talk about 'enabling'...

Very enjoyable post, and I look forward to the next installment.

Alex
firefightergardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Edwin, you're tremendous. The value you offer in knowledge to the conifer nuts around the world is hard to measure but it's very valuable indeed! I will look for those beautiful blue cones eagerly!

Alex, I have just shy of an acre to plant on. My garden is not one I'd suggest anyone mimick as it does require a lot of moving/transplanting and in time, culling or finding new homes for many of them. For me, I wanted to have a full landscape early on and I don't mind the moving of plants on a yearly basis. In the last two years I have transplanted some 500 specimens, with about 50 of them leaving the garden for larger pastures.

I am focusing entirely on dwarves and miniatures now and I think in 10-15 years my collection will be closer to 500 specimens.

if i was recommending 'numbers' for fellow collectors I'd say that if you had a nice even mix of miniature, dwarf and intermediates that 200-300 per acre is a fine number. Anything more than that would probably create more work than the average gardener/collector is interested in.

In addition to the conifers, I have roughly 300 Japanese maples(150 varieties), 600 hostas and a few hundred perennials. I don't moderate well. :p

-Will
PRO
David Olszyk, President, American Conifer Society
11 years ago
Hi Will,

the Conifer Society is in store for a real treat when they roll though your grounds this September. If you're like me, you've already started a "full-court press" to get your garden "inspection-ready" by then.

Personally I can't wait to see the evolution. At Hobbiton, a lot can happen in a year. LOL

~Dave
ladylotus
11 years ago
Will,

That is a LOT of conifers for sure. I get it though. I am an obsessive collector as well. Right now I have more perennials than anyone I know and it is very time consuming.

In the next 5 years I'm hoping to have transferred most/not all of my gardens into conifers. I'm going to try really hard to control my obsessive collectors disease and give my trees room. I say that now but I can see my gardens looking very similar to your. ha ha.

I enjoy your photos. Thanks for sharing them.
Garen Rees
11 years ago
Hey Will,

What is the one to the right of Pseudotsuga menziesii 'Les Barres' with the chartreuse balls of needles?