The very pink Magnolia Serene in full bloom

For us, Serene in full flower heralds the last chapter of the magnolia season each year. It is the latest and the last of the Jury magnolias to flower. It is also the pinkest. This is another of the series named by Felix Jury back in the early 1970s and the original tree now stands around six metres tall and is pyramidal in shape rather than spreading. In full flower, it is just a mass of large rosy pink bowl-shaped blooms.

Magnolia Serene

Being so late to flower, Serene is an excellent choice for people in colder areas or prone to late frosts. It also tends to miss the worst of the equinoctial winds. Cold conditions will make the plant adjust to blooming even later but Serene does get its flowers through before its foliage. We are picky here – we want deciduous magnolias to mass flower on bare stems before the new season’s leaves unfurl. When the leaves do come, they are a particularly good deep green and tidy in form so Serene stands out as a good summer foliage plant in a way in which few deciduous magnolias do. It will also set a flush of summer flowers which is bonus territory.
Serene was another of the series Felix bred using his wonder breeder parent, slightly embarrassingly named Magnolia Mark Jury. Its other parent is liliiflora.

Floral Legacy - aptly named, perhaps

Even the buds are spectacular

In honour of our Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival which starts today, I had to choose a rhododendron this week and could there be a more splendid choice than the elite nuttallii family? This is like the Rolls Royce of the rhododendron world – a spectacular statement of style. The flowers are the largest of any rhododendron – each flower being about 15cm long, tubular with frilly edges and very fragrant. The leaves are large and what is called bullate – heavily textured and veined, like stiff corduroy fabric. Even the massive flower buds are spectacular. The nuttalliis come from that northern band from Upper Burma across Tibet and India, the sinonuttalliis from China (sino means Chinese in the plant world). This form is a cross between the two, which means technically it still a species and it was done here by the late Felix Jury to get better garden forms. It is quite a legacy.

The nuttallii family have been used in breeding to give cultivars like White Waves, Lady Dorothy Ella, Mi Amor and Yvonne Scott although none of the hybrids I have seen keep the size of the parent flowers and leaves. Both the species and the hybrids have a tendency to rangy, open growth but the beautiful peeling bark and cinnamon colour compensate because this is yet another feature for this handsome family. We are completely besotted with them and luckily we have very good conditions for growing them. There are large parts of the world where it is just too cold to grow these handsome plants.

Auratum lily Flossie - one of Felix Jury's hybrids

I don’t cut flowers to bring indoors very often. When every window of the house looks out to a garden, it doesn’t seem necessary. But as soon as the auratum lilies start to open, I reach for the kitchen scissors and head out. They are just the perfect cut flower – one stem can have up to ten flowers (sometimes even more) and put in a tall, slender vase they not only look superb, they can spread their delicious scent through an entire room.

Auratums are known as the golden-rayed lily of Japan – how lovely does that sound? The flowers are the largest of the lily family, often more than 20cm across, and they are a mainstay of our January garden. Felix Jury adored them (probably for all the same reasons that we do) and dabbled with breeding them, naming several selections. This one is the very large flowered Flossie. The upshot is that we have a lot of auratums in the garden and generally they are quite happy with benign neglect, growing in both full sun and semi shade. They prefer soils with good drainage and plenty of humus but not too rich.

The bulbs are large – fist-sized even – and we tried to get around all the plants last winter to dig and divide them. They haven’t had any attention for many, many years but when the clumps get too congested, the tops tend to fall over if they are not staked. The freshly divided patches are mostly standing up like little soldiers without any assistance. Some of the taller ones can get over 2m high and they need some support though often I will intertwine them through neighbouring plants.

You can sometimes find lily bulbs for sale in garden centres in winter. Make sure you avoid any dry, shrivelled specimens – they do not like to be dried out completely even when dormant. You may be lucky and find some auratums but they are not widely offered on the NZ market despite their spectacular summer display.

When Felix and Mimosa Jury laid out their gardens here at Tikorangi, near the Taranaki coast of New Zealand, it was the early 1950s and rhododendrons were one of the most highly prized plant genus. There were not many different cultivars available but keen enthusiasts around the country imported whatever they could, mostly as seed, and there was considerable exchange of material. In those early years, the species dominated. It was the disappointing performance of many of those cold climate plants which provided the initial impetus for Felix to start hybridising in a quest to create plants better suited to our very mild conditions.

Rhododendron Bernice

Gardening on volcanic soils with regular rainfall throughout the year, one could be forgiven for thinking we are ideal rhododendron territory. However, while we do not have hot summers, neither do we have the winter chill necessary to many of the rhododendron family. Frosts are very light and few in number. The lack of winter chill means that thrips stay alive and multiply. Silver leafed rhododendrons are common. Added to that, the bright, unfiltered sunlight which gives this country the dubious honour of being the skin cancer capital of the world, can burn and crisp both foliage and flowers of vulnerable plants.

While many of the species merely dwindled away here, we certainly tried our best. Our computer data base shows that over the thirty years of the nursery, we have produced and sold around 60 different rhododendron species, although some are merely different forms. Not many of them last the distance as garden plants of merit for our conditions. One of the stand-out species, however, is Rhododendron polyandrum. It keeps good foliage in the garden, its flowers are beautiful and showy (though rather soft so inclined to weather mark), the peeling bark is attractive, the fragrance is such that it hangs heavy in the air several metres away. We don’t mind that it is an open, some would say leggy and rangy, shrub because we don’t want all plants to be the tight, rounded bob that defines R.yakushimanum.

R.polyandrum was the star breeder plant for Felix. Taking its strengths, he thought that it should be possible to extend the range of flower colour and to select for more compact and better furnished cultivars. He was right. The polyandrum hybrids share several characteristics: the foliage is visibly derived from polyandrum being small, dark and almost leathery, showing excellent resistance to thrips and leaf burn. The hybrids, however, are blessed with rather more leaves than the mother (which can be a little sparse in the foliar department). Typically, the hybrid flowers are held in flat trusses like R. polyandrum but there are more flowers to the truss, so many that the plants can look like a wall of bloom at their peak.

Felix only named one of the cross with Royal Flush Townhill and it stands out after several decades as a top performer. Bernice was named for Mrs Bernice Kelly, a dear friend of Mimosa Jury and a favourite of Felix’s. With a crimson throat, the tones change through pink to near white on the edge and it remains one of the more colourful in the maddenii range. It has a light but pleasant fragrance and relatively compact growth to about 2 metres. Year in and year out, it performs consistently well.

Rhododendron Felicity Fair

Rhododendron Moon Orchid

Felix was not as restrained in the selection and naming process of his polyandrum x Sirius series. In fact he named too many of them but it was an enormously successful cross and we still have other sister seedlings performing every year in the garden. Barbara Jury, Felicity Fair, Katie and Moon Orchid are all a little different, but maybe not so very different that all warranted registration. There were fifth and sixth selections, registered as Christine Denz and Sunset but these were never propagated. Barbara Jury is the prettiest, cleanest yellow with a narrower bloom and good scent. Lovely though it is, we discontinued producing it commercially because it is weak in the roots and succumbs to phytophthora – described by Mark as too ready to whiff off. Moon Orchid is a superior garden plant. It has a larger flower with frilly lobes and slightly more apricot toning because the base colour of yellow is suffused with pink on the outer petals and the throat is green. Katie is the most peachy orange in colour because the yellow is now mixed with red tones on the backs of the petals. The flowers are a little smaller, the scent a little less pronounced and the growth a tad more vigorous but the differences are reasonably subtle. The last of the quartet was Felix’s personal favourite – we know this because the name Felicity Fair is a play on his own name. The flower is pastel creamy yellow with definite pink tones on the outside of the throat, combined with excellent foliage and good fragrance. Of this particular cross, with the benefit of experience, we would name Moon Orchid and Felicity Fair as the best selections.

Rhododendron Katie

The polyandrum selections are all late season flowering. The first of the Jury hybrids to open in early season is White Doves (scopulorum x formosum var. inaequale). While not overly spectacular, it is extraordinarily floriferous with white bells held loosely hiding all foliage and it is a consistent, healthy performer.

We have an ongoing love affair with the showy R. nuttallii family here in our garden at Tikorangi, particularly the more tender sinonuttallii which could be described as a Rolls Royce rhododendron with its heavy, bullate foliage, wondrous peeling bark and simply astounding long, lily-like fragrant trumpets of heavy substance. Felix’s Floral Legacy (nuttallii x sinonuttallii so technically still a species) gave an increased robustness of constitution and yet larger blooms. Where space and favourable climate allow, this is a spectacular rhododendron.

Rhododendron Floral Dance

Both Felix and his wife Mimosa laid claim to the original cross of sinonuttallii x edgeworthii which came to be called Floral Dance. While Felix certainly raised the plant, by a process of deduction, Mark worked out that his mother must have done the cross so these days we credit it to her posthumously. It brought a somewhat more compact habit into the nuttallii family, though only relatively so. The really bushy, well furnished plants such as the yakushimanum family hold onto their leaves for at least three years whereas most in the maddenii group are only carrying two years of foliage at any one time so they are always going to appear a little more sparse. Floral Dance shows the most appealing characteristics of both parents – very deep forest green bullate foliage, mid sized, good textured mostly white trumpet flowers with frilly lobes flushed darker pink and strong fragrance. It is simply a beautiful rhododendron.

Rhododendron Floral Sun

This particular breeding direction was continuing the efforts to get more colour into the maddenii group. However, it was not until later when Mark came to grips with the fact that diploid and tetraploid rhododendrons can not be crossed, that he was able to better predict potential outcomes. It explained his mother’s failure to successfully cross sinonuttallii with Bernice.

In his turn, Mark looked at extending the colour range in nuttallii, in combination with more compact growth. I can still recall when he told me he had crossed sinonuttallii with RW Rye, because I quipped that he would likely end up with a run of seedlings with small white flowers and no fragrance. At the time, when I was at home raising preschool children, I was just secretly proud that I actually knew both parents. I was wrong because what emerged was a run of soft yellow, scented seedlings with nuttallii trumpets. From these, Mark named only one – Floral Sun. At last we had a compact habit combined with some of the best sino nuttallii characteristics. After two decades, the original plant has barely reached 130cm in height and about the same in width so it is sturdy and compact. The bullate foliage is mid green but the real joy are the flowers – frilly, fragrant and in soft honey yellow tones. It is still a source of delight here.

Rhododendron Platinum Ice

Working the theme of extending the colour range, Mark crossed augustinii with the excellent white form of maddenii we have here, hoping to introduce blue tones to the good performing maddenii characteristics. He named Platinum Ice which is a lovely rhododendron but, to the hybridist’s disappointment – lacking in some of the better features of the parents. The lilac buds open to flowers with the augustinii form but in maddenii size in a pastel shade which fades out to white. It is a good looking plant with good foliage but it lacks the fragrance and the pest resistance of the maddenii and the intensity of hue from augustinii (which is a beautiful species that does not like our conditions – it is a race between the thrips and the bronze beetles as to who can take it out first). So while Platinum Icemarked a colour break, it is still less than was hoped for in performance.

Rhododendron Floral Gift

Returning to polyandrum as a breeder, Mark tried a number of crosses and has named one, Floral Gift. His records at the time state quite definitely that this was Michael’s Pride x polyandrum but the seedling shows nothing of Michael’s Pride and bears no resemblance to other crosses done at the same time. However, there is no doubt about the polyandrum parentage. Sometimes cultivars can take a long time to prove themselves. There was sufficient that was good about Floral Gift to warrant selection – sturdy habit of growth, compact, healthy foliage, an intense fragrance which is the equal of polyandrum but with heavy textured flowers which resist weather damage. It set flower buds on very young plants and flowered earlier in the season. Floral Gift’s blooms are white with a slight pink flush on the petal backs and a yellow throat. We lost a little confidence in this cultivar because it proved to be a tricky nursery plant – easy enough to strike from cutting and grow but fiendishly difficult to get a decent looking plant for sale when grown in containers. It looked sparse in the foliage and generally scruffy. But as plants in settled in and grew around the district and particularly in our local botanic park, we revisited Floral Gift and decided it is a very good plant. In a garden where we shun mass planting of single cultivars, we think this one is good enough to warrant planting in groups throughout the garden.

Faced by a somewhat sceptical buying public who think that rhododendrons should be nice bushy shrubs with full ball trusses (forget all these lovely walls of loose trumpets and bells exuding fragrance), Mark turned his attention to trying to get healthier foliage in the more traditional rhododendron appearance. Meadow Lemon is one of this ilk. It is Percy Wiseman x Lems Cameo, showing greater health than its parents without the need to spray. Pink buds open to a classic full truss of frilled soft yellow flowers. We are told that this cultivar is impressive in the New Zealand Rhododendron Association trials of NZ raised cultivars.

Rhododendron Meadow Lemon

We have other successful seedlings from this particular hybridising direction in the garden – attractive full trusses in lilac, various pinks, reds and colour mixes but at this stage, that is where they are staying. While the genus of rhododendron has retained some of the status of its glory days in this country, it has had a huge slide from grace in terms of market share and a corresponding drop in value. These days a podophyllum raised over a few months from tissue culture will command a higher price in a garden centre than a rhododendron which has taken three years to grow and has decades of breeding history or plant hunting behind it. It simply is not worth putting a new cultivar on the market. We are philosophical. Plant fashions come and go and in the meantime, we derive a great deal of pleasure from the rhododendrons in our own garden.

Mark continues to dabble with rhododendrons which perform well in our climate, of late working with arboreums which show high health characteristics but tend to achieve giant status. Whether any of these reach the market remains to be seen. Alongside this, he has continued with vireya rhododendrons but these are another story altogether.

For the record, other cultivars registered by Felix include Abigail Jury (yakushimanum x Dido) – lovely plant with a beautiful bloom but too difficult to propagate so never a commercial viability, Soft Shadows (yakushimanum x argrophyllum) and Lollipop Lace (williamsianum x loderi) – in the last case merely raised from overseas seed and registered by Felix. The form of Saffron Queen (xanthostephanum x burmanicum) throughout New Zealand is, as far as we know, the Felix Jury form from repeating the earlier Williams cross. In those early days, he felt he had to stick to the grex name. The griersonianum x grande and macabeanum crosses attributed to the Jury family can be traced back to Felix’s brother, Les Jury, who was better known for his camellias. None of Les’s rhododendron hybrids were commercially viable although there are some handsome plants amongst them.

Mark has never registered his hybrids, although Felix and Les Jury were more meticulous in this aspect. Mark does not do paperwork. We do, however, make an effort to keep the information on our website current and accurate.

Cordyline Red Fountain and Mark Jury

Gardening Australia, the top rating magazine and TV show, has named Cordyline Red Fountain as one of the top twenty new introductions in the last twenty years. It was the first of a new generation of clumping cordylines which does not develop a trunk allied to deep burgundy colouring. The hybridising was done by the late Felix Jury at Tikorangi in Taranaki and the plant was raised by his son, Mark Jury. It is widely available in garden centres both in New Zealand and overseas.

The original plant of R.macgregoriae, collected by Felix in New Guinea

Back in the 1950s when Felix Jury first became interested in vireyas, they were pretty much unknown in New Zealand with few enthusiasts internationally.

When Felix started raising seed and trying controlled crosses, he was just after anything that was new and therefore interesting. There was so little raw material to choose from in those early stages. He named maybe a dozen and with the passage of decades, about four of that dozen have stood the test of time very well and may still be around in another thirty years’ time. Unfortunately, the finer details on his crosses were never recorded so it is not possible to state with certainty which were Felix’s own crosses and which came from seed sent to him from overseas and were therefore just raised and selected by him. We know that the Australian, Tom Lelliot was particularly generous with seed and there were others from that country.

Golden Charm

In 1957, Felix went plant collecting in the highlands of New Guinea. He brought back a few interesting plants. Ficus antiarus is still the most asked about tree in our garden. Schefflera septulosa is one of the most beautiful members of that plant family you will ever see. His form of Rhododendron macgregoriae is still rated as one of the best in circulation and, astonishingly, the original plant is still surviving. This is an achievement because vireyas are not noted for being long-lived in our climate. It was that plant of R. macgregoriae which gave rise to one of Felix’s best cultivars – Golden Charm (R.macgregoriae x Princess Alexandra). We still rate it highly after several decades. The foliage is dark and glossy, the new stems are red, the habit is compact and healthy and the many flowers, while relatively small, are in good sized heads and attractive apricot to orange tones. It is also relatively hardy.

Buttermaid

With the benefit of hindsight, we now wonder whether Felix’s other two notable R. macgregoriae hybrids, Buttermaid (R.aurigeranum x R.macgregoriae) and Orangemaid (R.laetum x R.macgregoriae) might not in fact be Lelliot seed, raised and selected by Felix. Alternatively, he may have been sent pollen. Mark is not at all sure that Felix had R.aurigeranum at that stage and he is sure he did not have R.laetum. The R.macgregoriae parentage shows dominance in both the flower form and colouring of these selections but hybrid vigour makes them more reliable and tidier garden plants. Queen of Diamonds (R.viriosum x R.macgregoriae) was indubitably Felix’s own cross, a pink version this time but rather too tall and leggy to be of great merit. [Apparently R.viriosum was misidentified for 70 years as R.lochiae. Most records use the R.lochiae name when it appears that they are all in fact R.viriosum. I will defer to those with a great deal more expertise in this matter and have according changed to using R.viriosum.]

Satan's Gift planted by the Schefflera septulosa

Satan’s Gift (R.konori x R.zoelleri) and Silken Shimmer (R.konori x Dr Herman Sleumer) were selections from Australian seed, raised by Felix. These were spectacular for their day, being big and lush, colourful and fragrant. Satan’s Gift is the stand-out plant which has passed the test of time and is still a wonderful performer. The name amuses us. Felix was a completely non-religious man and to him, Satan merely evoked hot colours. Over the years, more devout nurseries have clearly had a problem with the name and this cultivar has been marketed variously as Jury’s Gift, Satin Gift and, best of all, Santa’s Gift. One wishes nurseries would understand that it is fine to reject a plant because of ethical issues with the name, but it is not acceptable to rename it willy nilly.

Cherry Pie

Felix was very taken with the big, scented blooms of R.konori and his own hybrids were the pink Cherry Pie, red Hot Gossip – both sister seedlings of a viriosum hybrid x R. konori – and Lipstick. Cherry Pie is particularly lush and has good bushy, spreading growth along with a good flower (though much of the scent has gone) and we still rate it as a good garden plant.

Red Rover (R.viriosum x R.javanicum) is another of Felix’s early hybrids that we continue to rate for its bushy growth habit, healthy characteristics and plenty of good red flowers in a mid-size. However his R.jasminiflorum hybrid called Lullaby has dropped off the radar now and, while a good performer, Lulu (unknown) has probably been superseded by modern selections with more flowers to the truss.

By the time Mark started hybridising vireyas, there was a veritable explosion of recently discovered species and newly imported species becoming available. He collected every single one he could lay his hands on at the time and propagated a few to distribute to collectors. Our nursery records show that we produced over 60 different species at that time, and very difficult most of them were too. The death rate in the species was far higher than in the hybrids, both in the nursery and when planted in the garden. It was with some relief that we decided after a few years that the few collectors in the country (there were probably only 5 or 10 of them) had everything we held so we stopped feeling obliged to produce them. Similarly we decided that it was not critical to keep every species represented in the garden. We have never coveted a national collection of any plant genus because we would prefer to garden with plants which justify their position as being garden worthy. Only some of the vireya species perform well for us – we would be sorry to lose varieties such as R.himantodes, R.goodenoughii, R.taxifolium, R.hellwigii, R.macgregoriae and R.konori but many of the other species are either too difficult for us to keep going, or not worth the effort (R.inconspicuum, we have always felt, was particularly well named).

Sweet Cherry

So Mark had a much bigger plant palette to work with and this included an ever increasing number of new hybrids as well as the species. Vireyas were suddenly a fashion plant in New Zealand. They were seen as a wonderful alternative for warmer areas of the country where the hardy rhododendrons do not thrive. Added to that, in a country where we would like to be tropical but aren’t, vireyas fitted that exotic look and often obliged by flowering throughout the year. From being an unknown plant family with no market at all, they were a gardening sensation for a few years in the nineties. Fashions change and vireyas are no longer as popular as they were – they are somewhat harder to keep alive, let alone looking good, than many people realised. But in those heady days, there was an insatiable demand for new varieties which had large luscious blooms with heady fragrance and large, heavily felted foliage. Unfortunately, this sometimes meant using breeder parents which, with the passage of time, have not proven to be particularly resilient in our climate.

Mark was also keen to extend the flower form of vireyas into full trusses which more closely resemble the hardy rhododendrons. Many of the species and early hybrids are quite sparse in their flowering and have few flowers to the truss. He also wanted to explore what could be done with colour.

Mango Sunset

With the benefit of twenty years experience, he has gone full circle and come back to the point his father reached earlier – a conclusion that it is more important to produce healthy plants which stay alive, with compact growth and masses of flowers as top priorities. More hardiness and less flash and dash, one could say. This tends to mean sacrificing individual bloom size, foliage size and often fragrance. It may end up that his R.macgregoriae hybrid, Mango Sunset, proves to be one of his best. While he achieved the much fuller truss, he was looking for, it is just a good all round performer without being spectacular.

Jaffa

Market demands meant Mark made the same mistakes as many other vireya breeders – selecting new cultivars on the beauty of their blooms and on initial performance as a nursery plant. The test of longevity rests, for us, on long term health and performance as a garden plant. More than we would wish have fallen by the wayside. Candy Sunrise (R.konori x Halo series) had beautiful, big fragrant flowers with good colour but was very susceptible to phytopthora. Ditto the red Sweet Cherry (R.konori x R.hellwigii) – wonderful as a garden plant but not easy in the nursery, Strawberry Fields (Satan’s Gift x R.brookenaum) – gorgeous big red flower but leggy growth over time and inclined to die, Orange Sparkles (R.retusum x R.macgregoriae) and cute little Jellybean (Red Rover x R.stenophyllum). Frosted Candy, another of the R.konorii x Halo series hybrids, is performing very well as a large garden plant (now two metres plus which is large for a vireya) and it has huge blooms, but again is difficult in the nursery with an unacceptably high death rate from phytopthora.

Jaffa (Halo series x R.javanicum) is in the right direction for a full truss. There are now up to 15 large blooms per flower head (which is a big increase from the 2 to 5 range of many of the species and early hybrids) and a good, strong orange combined with large, lettuce green foliage. It is more frost tender and sensitive than the tougher cultivars (which tend to be those with R.macgregoriae, R.viriosum or R.saxifragoides in their parentage). It certainly has the right tropical look and is a better nursery plant than many.

Pink Jazz

Pink Jazz (R.konorii x Halo series) is another splendid large grower with enormous blooms – bright pink with a central star of cream and scented too. It also has the stand out feature of deep maroon new growth and even the old foliage keeps the burgundy tint. It is not easy as a nursery plant and it is too big for many gardens, but the plants we have in our garden are standing the test of time. We have a special fondness for this one. Mark rarely names plants after people, but this one is for our older daughter who, in her teens, was called Jazz by many friends and who nursed a penchant for wearing hot pink.

Mark has always been lukewarm about Peach Puff ([R.phaeopeplum x R.leucogigas] x R.viriosum selfed) because he regards the pastel peach colouring as insipid. It was an interior fashion colour a decade ago and I still find it very pretty. Again the truss is satisfyingly full with big blooms, good scent and felted foliage.

Sweet Vanilla

Of that type of larger flowered, scented hybrid, Sweet Vanilla ([R.leucogigas x R.viriosum] x Silken Shimmer) is probably the best garden plant for fragrance. Its flowers, while not huge, are a good size, opening soft pink and fading out to cream. This is one plant which garden visitors regularly ask about when in flower – always a good indicator of showy performance. Sherbert Rose (Hot Gossip sister x R.herzogii) matches Sweet Vanilla for scent and it is very floriferous but the small tubular mid pink blooms simply aren’t showy enough for most people. We still like it because we don’t want only big showy or blowsy vireyas in the garden, but we stopped producing it commercially because scent alone was not enough to sell the plant.

Practical Matters:

Preparing vireya cuttings - wound both sides

Vireya rhododendrons must rank amongst the easiest of the woody plants to propagate but one of the hardest to produce commercially. Neither are they bullet proof as garden plants. As long as you have firm, green material, it is easy to get cuttings to root. You don’t even need rooting hormone. In fact it is so easy that we routinely showed customers how to take autumn cuttings so they could have back up plants lest their specimen get taken out by a hard frost or wet roots. The one critical issue is to remember to have a generous sized cutting and to take the sliver off two sides of the stem (wounding). Vireyas put their roots out from the exposed cambium layer and having two wounds gives a more balanced root system and therefore more stability. It is keeping them alive after rooting which is the tricky part, especially in nursery production. Vireyas are not only frost tender and deeply intolerant of wet feet (sodden root systems), but they are vulnerable to pretty much every strain of phytopthora and a fair range of other diseases common in nursery production. In the wild, many of the vireya species are epiphytic or semi epiphytic which is an indicator that their roots need open conditions. This is what fits them to a role as permanent pot plants though they appear to last better in pots which are more permeable (terracotta or wood) than in containers which are impermeable (glazed pottery or plastic) and dependent for drainage on one or two holes in the bottom. When producing commercial runs of vireyas, we maintained a rigorous spray programme to keep disease at bay. Even so, we tolerated a far higher mortality rate in nursery plants than we would in any other crop. We have always produced them outdoors, under protective shade cloth and overhead irrigation – identical conditions to most of our nursery crops.

Vireyas tend to put on a lot of top growth, supported by small, inadequate root systems (an indicator of their epiphytic origins), and new growth is often very soft and brittle. As nursery crops in our climate, they grow very rapidly at all times of the year and it is possible to get a saleable plant through in half the time of a hardy rhododendron, but they are correspondingly more vulnerable to damage by mishandling and disease.

Vireyas used in a garden border

We are blessed with a climate which enables us to use vireya rhododendrons as garden plants. We are not entirely frost free so we use them on the woodland margins where temperatures may get cool but never cold enough to cause significant damage. Any frost at all can burn the most tender varieties which includes anything with R.leucogigas, R.konorii, R.hellwigii and sometimes even R.laetum in the breeding. The hardier types will take two or three degrees of frost without damage but more than that can be a problem. Get it up to five degrees of frost and plants can be killed stone dead. The beauty of vireyas as garden plants is that they do not have a set flowering season so if you have sufficient numbers, there are always plants in bloom – even in the depths of winter. Added to that, they are tolerant of hard pruning so easy to renovate. Even when cut back to bare wood, most will force out dormant leaf buds from old wood and can be bushy and fresh again within a matter of months, even if it takes longer for them to set flower buds. It is a misconception that vireyas are all tropical plants. While natural habitats are often in the tropical latitudes, they are in elevated sites which cool the temperatures.

With their climatic limitations, vireya rhododendrons will never have the geographic distribution of hardier plants and, no matter how good the hybrids, they are unlikely to achieve international standing. There is a long way to go yet in breeding reliable cultivars which are likely to stand the test of time but it is certainly interesting to have been in from the early days on the development of new selections and Mark will continue to work with them here, albeit on a rather casual basis.

A promising lemon seedling - the breeding continues

The first instalment of this series was the 2011 article on Jury rhododendrons.

Satan. I’m afraid it is vireya rhododendron “Satan’s Gift”, not Santa’s Gift

The trouble with vireyas is that they have an aversion to frost so they are really only a garden option for those in mild, coastal areas. Inland (where frosts are much greater), you need to be a careful gardener willing to give them protection and maybe bring them under cover. But they can be such a rewarding plant with their extended flowering habits. This one is Satan’s Gift, one of the best varieties named by the late Felix Jury and certainly the showiest and the most fragrant.

Felix was a complete agnostic so the word Satan merely evoked hot colours to him but over the years, we have seen more religious people struggle with the name. Indeed, we have seen it offered for sale as Satin Gift, Jury’s Gift and the hilarious Santa’s Gift. (Note to such people: it is fine to shun a plant because you don’t like its name, but it is not okay to rename that plant to something you find more acceptable). We were once told that it was the only plant in Eden Gardens in Auckland, a memorial garden, without a name plaque. We just think it is a splendid cultivar to have in the garden.

This is a cross between two different species (konorii x zoelleri) which gives it hybrid vigour. It is particularly bushy and well furnished and flowers more than either of its parents.

Besides not liking the cold, vireya rhododendrons need great drainage. The fastest way to kill one is to keep it with waterlogged roots, whether in a container or the garden. In the wild, most are epiphytes and grow up in the trees.

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

It might as well be Felix, but it’s not

Baby Tulip – a small version of Black Tulip

Magnolia time. Many are surprised to hear that Felix Jury only ever named eight magnolias. Mark has only named and released three so far (with a fourth in the pipeline) despite raising and trialling hundreds. Why so few? We are picky. With the benefit of hindsight, we would probably have released only seven of Felix’s eight. Atlas was named for flower size but really is not up to the quality of the others in terms of long term performance.

We can do plenty of ring-ins, generic copies, slight improvements or variations. But while roses and camellias are like buses (there will be another one along in a few minutes), we see magnolias as being for the long haul. They are nowhere near as easily hiffed out and replaced and most people can only fit one or two into their garden. To name something new means it must be a breakthrough, a major improvement on what is already available. It takes years to trial and select a new magnolia and we like to be very confident with our releases. We took another walk around this afternoon, looking at the lookalikes. At this early to mid season stage, it is still the stronger colours that dominate. I will update as the pales and whites come into full bloom.

Or how about Bambino Tulip?

It’s not Black Tulip, but it might as well be

Genie to the left, our seedling to the right

Ruby

Our equivalent of Ruby

Lanarth sets the standard. Is this significantly better? Probably not.

Plenty of generic soulangeanas here

Too much like Iolanthe

But maybe there is a future in patio magnolias?

For the latest update, check out “A Case of the Emperor’s New Clothes?“

How we have been ground down by opportunism and bureaucracy
Can you tell the difference between these two plants? No? That is hardly a surprise to us and we should be experts because one of them is our own Cordyline Red Fountain.

The growing trials – can you pick the difference?

Red Fountain was the lucky result of a sustained breeding programme spanning decades by both the late Felix Jury and Mark Jury. When it was first released, it was unique. There were no other clumping cordylines with rich burgundy leaves which arch outwards. We applied for, and received, the equivalent of a patent (Plant Variety Rights in NZ and Plant Breeders Rights internationally) first in New Zealand and subsequently in Australia, USA, Europe, South Africa, the UK and Canada. This means that nobody is allowed to propagate the plant for sale except under licence and provides the opportunity for a return to the breeder.

Father – Felix Jury (d.1997) in a patch of Cordyline Red Fountain

When Malcolm Woolmore of Lyndale Nurseries/Kiwi Flora in Auckland released a look-a-like plant, we were intensely irritated. This is a man who loudly proclaims that he supports NZ plant breeders – but not, apparently, breeders who are not his own clients. He didn’t mind attempting to compete at home and internationally with us, using a plant which few, if any, can tell apart. He named it Cordyline Burgundy while ours is marketed on the major USA market as Cordyline Festival Burgundy (ref footnote 1). The similarity in names did not seem a coincidence.

and son – Mark Jury with Cordyline Red Fountain

When he applied for Plant Variety Rights here and overseas, we were confident that our interests would be protected. After all, the legislation specifies that a plant must be distinctively different (ref footnote 2) to be able to be patented and his had no distinctive differences that we could see, nor indeed anybody else to whom we showed his plant.

In this country, plant variety rights are decided by the Deputy Commissioner of the NZ PVR Office, a very small division of the new super Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. When we started to suspect that the Deputy Commissioner was determined to find differences between Red Fountain and the ring-in, we began to ask for a blind test. That is where plants of both varieties of the same size and age and in the same pots are mixed up and a group of suitable people are asked to separate them into the two varieties. That, we thought, was a fair test – they were either alike or able to be accurately differentiated. Our requests were ultimately ignored.

Growing trials (pictured above, photo 3) were carried out at an independent location. Apparently, none of the professionals or staff who looked after these growing trials could pick any difference between the two varieties.

In due course, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Chris Barnaby, ruled that Cordyline Roma 06 (marketed as Cordyline Burgundy) was distinctively different and he awarded it PVR. This was based on the trial and examination by measurement of 8 leaves of Red Fountain and 8 leaves of Roma 06. Apparently when you get out the tape measure, the pedicel on Roma 06 is a little shorter, when measured over 8 leaves. The pedicel is the narrowing at the base of the leaf where it grows from the central stem. There is no difference in colour, shape or growth habit.

In the Examination Report it is even admitted that when the 16 leaves were mixed up, the examiners could not tell them apart. In other words, no customer is ever going to be able to tell the plants apart and precious few growers or plantspeople will either but the Deputy Commissioner was not going to let that stop him from granting equal rights to this identical looking variety.

We were stunned by this decision.

Our agents, Anthony Tesselaar Plants, immediately lodged an appeal on our behalf, reiterating earlier requests for a blind test and questioning the sample size for the assessment (eight leaves only of each). It became clear that despite having made the original decision, the review was also to be carried out by the same individual, Mr Barnaby. Both our agents and we contacted Mr Barnaby’s superior, the Commissioner, to table our concerns at the lack of independence in the review process and to ask for a blind test. It took a long time and, we assume, a question from the Minister’s office before the Commissioner replied saying nothing of note and declining to get involved.

We went to see our local Member of Parliament, Jonathan Young who appeared to grasp the issues quickly. He raised the matter with the Minister, but all that happened was that we received a reply couched in such bureaucratese that we burst out laughing. “Yes Minister” style, probably emanating from the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner. It satisfied our MP but not us.

Side by side at the garden centre. Is the customer likely to see any difference?

The Deputy Commissioner completely ignored repeated requests for a blind test and ruled in favour of his earlier decision. No surprises there. To rule any other way would be to admit that he had made a mistake earlier, or that the comparison testing wasn’t adequate and that did not seem likely.

All that is left would be to take the matter to court – us vs the Government of New Zealand. We do not see that as an option. We lack their budget and the costs could well exceed the royalty returns even if the court ruled in our favour.

We no longer have any confidence in the Plant Variety Rights system in this country. Clearly all PVR has become is a rather expensive marketing tool controlled by a querulous individual in government employment. The only reason to continue with existing PVRs we hold is to honour contractual agreements already in place. It has become clear it offers no protection at all to existing intellectual property rights.

We have been disappointed at the willingness of Malcolm Woolmore, through his company Kiwi Flora, to take advantage of years of plant breeding and years of establishing a new plant in the international marketplace by releasing a copy product. He claims to have repeated the original cross (banksii x pumilio). For technical reasons of which only a few are aware, we doubt it. To us, it looks as if it is just a seedling from our Red Fountain.

Notes:
1) The marketing name of Cordyline Festival Burgundy for USA was to avoid confusion with an existing plant – Pennisetum Purple Fountain.
2) Distinctive differences, for the purposes of a plant patent, include specified minimal distances between key genetic characteristics.

For the record, in the photos at the top, Cordyline Red Fountain is to the left, Cordyline Burgundy to the right. In the photo below, Cordyline Burgundy (also known as Roma 06) is at the front and Red Fountain is at the back.

Postscript Sunday 27 January
I fully expected Malcolm Woolmore to come out swinging. In fact I would probably have been disappointed had he not, forever wondering whether he had read the piece above. I cut and paste the section from his February eBrief received today, Sunday 27 January because the link to his site appears to be faulty, taking you instead to his December eBrief. I have no desire to enter debate with Mr Woolmore so my only comment is that I will leave it up to readers to decide. Go and have a look at the two plants side by side in your local garden centre.

“A One Sided Tale of Two Plants
Read Abbie Jury’s blog or Google Chris Barnaby, Cordyline Burgundy, Malcolm Woolmore, Lyndale Nurseries and heaps of other words and you will read a one sided story titled ‘A Tale of Two Plants’.
Mrs Jury does not seem to share UPOVS (International Union for the Protection of new Varieties of plants) respect for the Deputy Commissioner of the NZ PVR Office, Chris Barnaby. Chris, a past Chairman of UPOV, has been maligned and misunderstood in an attack that some might consider libellous.
I will not comment further, as Mrs Jury, I believe, says more than enough for most to question whether her story is complete and unbiased.
Suffice to say, that the intention to grant Australian Plant Breeders Rights for Cordyline ROMA 06 or Cordyline ‘Burgundy’ was published last year, after independently being assessed and found to be distinct.
That is, in addition to the decision made in New Zealand.
For the record, Cordyline ‘Burgundy’ has resulted from a collaborative breeding programme established between Robert Harrison of Greenhill’s Propagation Nursery (Vic. Australia) and Lyndale.
It is one of four plants selected, of which you will hear more about at least two. (One of which is dwarf). Cordyline ‘Burgundy’ is represented overseas by Kiwiflora.
Our breeding program did not take decades, but it did involve the application of embryo rescue and other technology.
(More on this when others cultivars are released).
Kind regards
Malcolm & The Lyndale Team”

First published in the spring journal of the American Magnolia Society, Issue 93.

Magnolia ‘Iolanthe’ is one of our star performers here and has achieved considerable stature after 50 years. It has necessitated relocating the vegetable garden

The Jury magnolia reputation has been built on a small number of named varieties. Felix Jury only ever named eight of his own breeding – Magnolias ‘Apollo’, Athene’, Atlas’, ‘Iolanthe’, Lotus’, Milky Way’, ‘Serene’ and Vulcan™ . We don’t include the variety M. ‘Mark Jury’ in that list because it arrived here as a seedling of Lanarth purchased from Hilliers and all Felix did was to grow it and, in due course, name it. There is no record of how many seedlings he raised. Mark’s comment is that it wasn’t a huge number and he guesses somewhere between 50 and 100 in total. Mark curbed his father’s suggestion of naming a few more because they were too close to ones already selected, although we have a few fine sister seedlings from those breeding lines in the garden here.

In his turn, Mark has raised many more controlled crosses. He has never kept track of the number, but a rough guess brings him around the 1000 total of deciduous magnolias grown to flowering size so far. Of those he has named a grand total of four. He is discerning. All were chosen because they represented a breakthrough in some aspect: an ability to produce flowers on young plants, not grow so rapidly as to indicate that they will become forest giants, propagate relatively easily and flower reliably every year while setting buds down the stems to prolong the season.

Black Tulip – good form, solid, dark colour and heavy petals

Magnolia Black Tulip® was selected because it sets flowers freely on young plants and achieves a depth of solid dark color with heavy textured petals in an attractive goblet form which holds its shape. M. ‘Burgundy Star’ offered a totally different habit of growth, strongly fastigiate, and the large star-shaped blooms over a prolonged period are a purer red at their best.Being three parts M. liliiflora ‘Nigra’, he hoped it would also prove hardier and maybe hold its color in colder climates. Felix® is our personal favorite so far. It is big, up to 30cm (12 in) across. It is very showy. With us, it can appear a rich red, but even when the color gets bleached out in colder climates, it retains a good depth of deep rosy pink. It was everything that Felix Jury himself was trying to breed – a big, rich-colored M. ‘Iolanthe’ – and he lived long enough to see it bloom. This is a cultivar that we think is just going to get more spectacular with age and size.

Magnolia Honey Tulip™ is a soft golden version of M. Black Tulip® scheduled for release in 2013. The rounded flower form and heavy textured petals appear to be an advance in the yellow magnolias. (photo by Sally Tagg)

This year will see the first release of Mark’s newest cultivar called Honey Tulip™. It is a golden honey version of Black Tulip® and represents a breakthrough in flower form and petal substance in the yellows. It retains its color through the flowering season where the comparators (Magnolias ‘Yellow Fever’, Sundance’ and ‘Hot Flash’) all become increasingly pale. Magnolia Honey Tulip™ is a soft golden version of M. Black Tulip® scheduled for release in 2013. The rounded flower form and heavy textured petals appear to be an advance in the yellow magnolias.

For our climate, it is particularly significant that it flowers on bare wood, whereas most of the yellow hybrids flower at the same time as they come into leaf. It is also less vigorous, which is to its credit, given that the yellows tend to compete with timber trees here in their rate of growth.

What takes time to sort out is how well these magnolias will perform overseas in different climates. M. Vulcan™ has been patchy at best internationally and washes out to a muddy purple in cold climates. M. ‘Iolanthe’, too, has not matched up in many overseas locations. Yet, here in New Zealand it is a flagship magnolia. The original plant is now somewhere over 50 years old and planted in the most prominent spot in our garden. Year in and year out it takes our breath away with its sheer magnificence. There is a lot of trial and error involved in how these plants perform overseas and we have been particularly delighted to see that M. Felix® seems to be measuring up across a range of climates.

Felix®, bred by Mark, fulfilled the magnolia breeding ambitions of his father, Felix Jury. It is heartening to hear reports of how well it is performing internationally.

Mark continues with breeding deciduous magnolias. The quest here is for a yellow M. ‘Iolanthe’ (in other words, a very large cup-and-saucer bloom in yellow). He is after pure reds which lose the magenta hue common to the first generations of new hybrids and he is getting very close to it. There is certainly room for an improved M. Vulcan™ which would bloom with better color in other climates and fade out with more grace as its flowering season draws to a close. There is a way to go yet in a pure purple.

The process here is to grow seed to a large enough size for planting out, which usually takes about 18 months. They are then planted wherever there is space. Our shelter belts (windbreaks) are rows of trial plants, including magnolias. Some are in groves, some edging a stand of native forest, some lining our road verges and he has now resorted to rows in the open ground. From time to time, Mark heads out with the chainsaw. If the seedlings haven’t flowered by five years old, they get the chop. If it becomes clear that a cross is of no particular merit, the batch will be felled. If one is looking very promising, others will be cleared to give it space. Over time, the first groves have been thinned down from about 120 to the best 20, which will remain in situ. Because, of course, if you are only naming about four out of a thousand, there are a rather large number of also-rans which are too good to cut out, but not good enough or sufficiently different
in the eyes of the breeder to release.

The Michelias

Venturing into the michelia branch of the magnolia family has been much more recent. The first crosses only go back about 17 years, but the turnaround is much faster so the total number raised is already larger than the deciduous magnolias. One has been widely released and is on the market as Fairy Magnolia® Blush. The next two are scheduled to be released this year – Fairy Magnolia® White and Fairy Magnolia® Cream.

The decision to brand these with the trademarked name of Fairy Magnolia® was made by our agent, Anthony Tesslaar Plants. With the reclassification by taxonomists of Michelias to Magnolias, it seems important to highlight the difference between these and the larger, evergreen grandiflora types.

Michelias flower in two to three years from seed so it is possible to use them for further hybridising and to see directions quickly. However, there is an additional hurdle. Deciduous magnolias are usually budded and it is only the occasional one which falls at the propagation hurdle. Michelias are much more of a mass market proposition and have to propagate easily from cutting and in tissue culture. We have a far higher fall-out rate when it comes to trialing for ease of propagation. We were disappointed when a green-yellow full sister to Fairy Magnolia® Blush, which had very distinctive large green buds encased in brown velvet, fell at the last hurdle. It’s a good plant. It just doesn’t propagate reliably. With hindsight, it is a little sparse in foliage, too, so maybe it is to the good that it didn’t make it to international release.

While Mark is getting some interesting colors in the michelia hybrids, none has yet passed the propagation trials.

Similarly, the colored varieties appear to be problematic when it comes to propagation. The breeding program has yielded some good pure yellows which are easily on a par, color-wise, with the yellow deciduous magnolias. None so far have propagated reliably. Even more disappointing have been the purples. Hopes are raised when a plentiful number of flower buds open to good-sized, distinctive purple flowers, but none of these seedlings has so far passed the propagation test with high enough percentages. If they are reluctant to strike from cutting, it appears that they are equally problematic in micropropagation.

Fragrance has been another issue. Even when using two strongly fragrant parents, a large proportion of the offspring are bereft of any scent at all. We have many visually splendid plants, some representing real breakthroughs in form or flower, but doubt the willingness of the buying public to embrace a michelia with no scent. Mark has been backcrossing some of these to scented species to see if he can get the fragrance back.

Others are rejected because they are too fertile, setting far too much seed, which will lead to a scraggly plant over time, and a scraggly plant with weed potential in some conditions. Some crosses have simply been too vigorous in growth to contemplate them as garden plants of merit no matter how lovely the blooms.

New Zealand’s borders are now well and truly closed to any imports of new species of any genera so Mark has not had access to recent introductions. In fact, he is working on a limited range – mostly M. doltsopa, M. figo, M. laevifolia and M. maudiae. M. alba and M. champaca have proven to be blind alleys so far and the obscure and as yet unidentified wild-collected michelia species brought back from Vietnam by the late Os Blumhardt has little merit or breeding potential. Mark observes that he has not seen other new species that he covets or that he thinks will add much of significance to the hybrids, so the closed borders have not been the problem that he initially feared. He has ruled out using allied plants such as Mangletias because they lack the floriferous characteristic that is a bottom line for any hybrid. By this stage he is down to about the sixth generation of crosses and back crosses using the sought-after characteristics of favored species and hybrids, so the genetic makeup of individual hybrids has become increasingly complex.

Fairy Magnolia® Blush clips very successfully. These plants are kept to this size with trimming in late spring and a light follow-up in late summer.

Fairy Magnolia® Blush brought consistent pink coloring into the range along with bushy growth and floriferous characteristics over a long season. The natural bushiness and the ability to take hard trimming are both important characteristics. The early M. doltsopa x foggii crosses from Os Blumhardt (particularly ‘Mixed Up Miss’ and ‘Bubbles’) make splendid juvenile nursery plants, but as they mature, they become leggy and open and most people would not look twice at them. We have had many seedlings the same and discard any which make only tip growths. Blush has a light and pleasant scent and, despite having doltsopa and figo in its parentage, it has proven much hardier in the US than we dared to hope and appears to be coping as low as zone 6 with winter protection and comfortably dealing with zone 7b conditions through the years of pre-release trials in the USA. It is hard to breed the perfect plant – the foliage can be a little more olive green than we would like and it would be good to get a larger, pinker bloom, but it is maturing well here.

Fairy Magnolia® Cream has very fragrant, large cream flowers over a long season and will be released internationally in 2013. (photo by Sally Tagg)

Fairy Magnolia® Cream, to be released this year, is similar to Blush in breeding and performance, but with desirable brighter green foliage and a very strong fragrance. Its peak flowering season extends into months and the blooms are a little larger than Blush, measuring at least 10cm across. Fairy Magnolia® White is from a different breeding strain. It has been selected from a very consistent run of seedlings which we have long referred to as the Snow Flurry series. It is one of the earlier flowering michelias, opening in winter, and with a higher proportion of M. doltsopa it is not likely to be as hardy in cold climates as Blush and, we hope, Cream. Where climate and space allow, we think it should prove to be a big improvement on existing doltsopa types. It has smaller leaves and wonderful
velvet brown buds opening to the purest of white starry flowers with excellent fragrance. It is much bushier in habit and has never shown the tendency to defoliate after flowering which can be problematic with some doltsopa types (and indeed with many M. laevifolias here). While it forms a plant of some stature (maybe 5m x by 4m, or 16 ft x 13 ft, if not trimmed), it is not going to become a giant like the M. doltsopa, which now takes up a greater area than an urban house plot in our park.

Fairy Magnolia® White is from a different breeding line and we see it as a garden friendly M. doltopa type with very beautiful, perfumed flowers. (photo by Sally Tagg

In recent years, we have wound up the wholesale and retail nursery here in order to concentrate on the garden and plant breeding. At the rate he is going, Mark may eventually end up naming and releasing a few more cultivars than his father, but the selections will have been made from trials involving a much greater number of cultivars.

Magnolia Burgundy Star – as yet unproven overseas but we are hopeful it may prove hardy and keep good flower colour

Manna from heaven for the tui

Taiwanese cherries, Fomosan cherries, Prunus campanulata – they are one and the same and around this time of the year are explosions of candy pink which bring tui to the garden. In our case, it is not one or two tui. We could count them by the score if they would just sit still long enough for us to carry out a census.

Mark was not too sure about the tui which seems to have mastered the sound of vuvuzela. But I digress.

Love the trees or hate them, the tui have no qualms at all. The nectar is manna from heaven to them. And therein lies the problem. I was contacted recently by someone who is crusading against the sale and planting of campanulata cherries and I was only relatively sympathetic because I think we are in danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The problem is the seeding habits of some campanulatas. Many set prodigious amounts of seed which is then spread far and wide by our bird population. There is an alarmingly high rate of germination. The seedlings grow rapidly and after the second season, plants are too big to hand pull out. If you cut them off, they grow again. So bad is the problem that they have been banned in Northland and this correspondent would like to see them banned everywhere.

“There are loads of better trees for Tui such as Kowhai, Rewarewa that can be available at the same time” he claimed. I don’t want to be picky with someone who genuinely cares for the environment, but on a property packed with food for the birds, I have never seen a plant as attractive to tui as the campanulata cherries. Besides, in late winter, neither kowhai nor rewarewa are in flower yet.

I mentioned babies and bathwater because the problem is seeding. There are sterile forms of campanulata and both gardeners and tui alike may rue the day if ALL campanulatas get banned, even the named forms that never set seed. This is a problem we gardeners have brought upon ourselves. The record of garden escapes into the wild is not a proud one and too many gardeners don’t take responsibility for their weeds.

Prunus Pink Clouds – one of the sterile forms raised here by Felix Jury

Mark’s father, Felix, was a fan of the campanulatas and he bred a few. “Pink Clouds” has an attractive weeping habit and an avenue of them has been a feature at Auckland Regional Botanical Gardens. I assume it is still there. “Mimosa” is more upright and flowers a little later. “Petite Pink” is probably no longer available commercially but is a dear little tree that never gets much over two metres in height but has all the appearance and shape of a proper tree. The thing that sets these three apart is that they are all sterile. They don’t set seed so are never going to become weeds. All three are in that candy floss pink colour range.

Prunus “Felix Jury” was named for him by Duncan and Davies (it is not the done thing, dear readers, to ever name a plant after yourself) but it was of his raising. It is a much deeper colour, carmine red, and a small growing tree. What it is not, alas, is sterile so if you see it being advertised as that, the nursery or garden centre is wrong.

It seems to be quite difficult to find reliable information on the seeding habits of other cultivars on the NZ market. If anybody knows more on this topic, please let me know. Every year at this time, Mark starts to talk about doing some more work with campanulatas to raise more sterile forms. We know which ones are sterile in the garden but the best one is a rather large tree for most people on small urban sections. It would not allow you to fit your house on the plot as well.

Petal carpets supreme

I can also tell you that one of our most common weeds here is seedling cherries and we are vigilant and persistent. If you live anywhere near native bush or a reserve, you should take great care to grow only sterile forms or to avoid them altogether if you are not sure. If you live in town with a seeding specimen, your neighbours probably grit their teeth at the seedlings that pop up in their place.

If you can manage the weed potential, the explosion of bloom in late winter is wonderful. Taiwanese cherries flower much earlier than their Japanese counterparts and are nowhere near as susceptible to root problems in wetter climates, so they live longer. Nor do they suffer from witches’ broom which can take over the Japanese types. It is when part of the tree grows much more densely and vigorously and fails entirely to flower. Left to its own devices, witches’ broom can take over the entire tree and the only way to deal with it is to cut out affected sections. It is very obliging of the campanulatas to be resistant.

The tui would be most grateful if we could just get this right for them before all campanulata are banned are noxious weeds.

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

First published in the Royal Horticultural Society’s 2014 Journal of Rhododendrons, Camellias and Magnolias

Camellia Water Lily (Felix Jury)

Long before the Jury name became associated with magnolias, there were the Jury camellias. There are rather a large number of these because there were actually two Jury brothers breeding them at the same time and a market which was very keen on new releases. These days we find that most of the Jury camellias are attributed to Felix when in fact the lion’s share was bred by his older brother, Les Jury. In his later years through to the 1980s, Les Jury had the greater reputation, partly because he entered an arrangement with the powerhouse nursery, Duncan and Davies, to distribute his material internationally. They took over the material from his breeding programme and continued to name and release cultivars well after his death.

By the time Mark Jury (Felix’s youngest son) showed an interest in 1980, Les Jury was elderly. He had little contact with Felix but was particularly encouraging to Mark, giving advice and making suggestions.

This made three Jurys on the quest for new camellias at the time of their heyday in New Zealand. In camellia terms, these were heady times. Only roses ranked higher in popularity, measured by sales volume. It was a rare garden in this country that lacked several camellia plants. This meant there was a substantial local market. In addition to that, there was considerable interest from overseas, particularly the USA, and both Les and Felix picked up awards. Camellia societies were very strong and both men were active at local and national level.

At the time when Les and Felix started breeding camellias, the range was dominated by large old varieties of Camellia japonica which grow so easily throughout New Zealand. Alas many of these don’t like the bright sun and the foliage can turn yellow. Worse is their failure to shed spent blooms so they are often covered in a mass of pink, red or white flowers interspersed with sludgy brown. Examples of these early japonicas can still be found, particularly on abandoned rural house sites where nothing survives but the house chimney and huge old specimen camellias.

Camellia Jury’s Yellow (Les Jury)

Nowadays, we wouldn’t even consider naming a camellia unless it was self grooming (the term used to describe dropping spent blooms) but it was a breakthrough fifty years ago. It was the extensive use of C. saluenensis that brought this characteristic to the fore. In addition to that, Les Jury liked large, showy flowers in abundance and was keen to extend the colour range. With the passage of time, he is probably best known for ‘Jury’s Yellow’. It isn’t a true yellow camellia but it came before the yellow species were even known to the west. Mark remembers him talking about his theory that he could get the stamens to bleed colour into surrounding petaloids and that is what he achieved in ‘Jury’s Yellow’ – a white camellia with pale yellow petaloids in the centre. Had Camellia ‘Sir Victor Davies’ been a better growing shrub (and given a more appealing name but it was labelled thus by Duncan and Davies management after Les’s death), he might have been similarly remembered for one of the early purple breakthroughs. I am particularly fond of his ‘Antique Charm’ which moves pink along the colour spectrum towards apricot. I should comment that Les gave this cultivar to Mark under the name of ‘Antique Rose’ but the Camellia Nomenclature only records ‘Antique Charm’. Alas there is nobody left to clarify whether they are one and the same.

Camellia Dream Boat (Felix Jury)

Felix Jury also looked for self grooming characteristics and large flowers and he had a love affair with the formal shape. His most enduring cultivars fall into that category – ‘Water Lily’ was an early selection and is still around but it was ‘Dream Boat’ that seemed to capture the imagination of the gardening public. The incurved petals of the latter give it a distinctive appearance. We rate his ‘Mimosa Jury’ as probably the most beautiful flower he named. It is a very pretty shell pink and shows good weather hardiness in our conditions. Added to that, it has a particularly long flowering season. Felix clearly liked it because it is named for his wife (although equally, it may have been she who laid claim to naming rights).

‘Rose Bouquet’ is another that has stood the test of time. It has an abundance of large blooms which are rose form and rose coloured. It has been described as the closest thing in appearance to an herbaceous peony that can be grown in our climate.

Camellia Itty Bit (Felix Jury)

Arguably, ‘Itty Bit’ was the most significant breakthrough from Felix Jury. Most of the japonicas and the hybrids that Les and Felix named grew to be substantial plants. After a few decades, some of the original plants are sitting around the four, five or even six metre mark in our conditions. As town gardens shrank in size, the demand grew for smaller growing plants. ‘Itty Bit’ was a breakthrough – miniature flowered and miniature growing. It has never reached more than a metre to a metre and a half, though there are sister seedlings here that are substantially taller. This is less desirable in colder climates because this type of plant is just too slow to grow, but in this country, camellias that flowered profusely but stayed small and developed a natural bonsai form opened up new possibilities for use as garden plants.

The plant world is as driven by fashion as any other sector. By the time Mark started breeding camellias, he was reading the signs that the market wanted an abundance of small flowers on smaller growing plants. The love affair with the japonica was waning and New Zealand gardeners were working out that many of miniature flowered varieties then available grew into huge plants. The first project Mark undertook was saturation coverage of an established C. pitardii in a nearby garden but he was also after scent. He was reasonably dismissive of his first selection – Camellia ‘Fairy Blush’. While he rated it as a pretty little flower with good scent, it was open pollinated, not a controlled cross. The seed came from C. lutchuensis and appears to be a cross with C. pitardii.

Camellia Fairy Blush (Mark Jury)

Even today, twenty years after we released it, we still regard ‘Fairy Blush’ as the one that got away from us. If we knew then what we know now, we would have applied for plant breeder’s rights. It is particularly galling when Australian nurserymen tell us how well they do out if it. The realisation that it shows no ill effects from petal blight is an added virtue. Being small leafed with red new growth, satisfyingly fragrant, and with an extraordinarily long flowering season of several months, ‘Fairy Blush’ has many positive attributes. We find it makes a particularly good hedge, clipped to about 120cm.

Camellia Volunteer (Mark Jury)

Ironically, the second most successful selection of Mark’s was another chance seedling. ‘Volunteer’, as he is wont to say, volunteered itself. It was amongst the root stock to be grafted when it first bloomed and it was clear that it was something different. The solid flower is a pretty white and pink bicolour at the start of the season, deepening to a white and red combination as the season progresses with late flowers having the same anemone form but in red with no white. It is clearly a japonica and was named for the United Nations International Year of Volunteering in 2001.

Of his controlled crosses, ‘Jury’s Pearl’ is probably the one that has pleased Mark the most. The cream to palest pink flower has an opalescent glow which lights up dark areas of the garden and the peony form means it is a pleasingly full flower.

Camellia Jury’s Pearl (Mark Jury)

Mark was in full flight hybridising camellias and had named and released eight different cultivars (now ten with two recent additions) when the news came that petal blight had reached New Zealand. We both remember the day, about twenty years ago, when senior members of the local branch of the Camellia Society arrived unannounced to break the news. Mark understood instantly what it meant. He stopped working with camellias and turned his attention to michelias (now magnolias) instead.

It took a year or two for Ciborinia camelliae to arrive here at Tikorangi. We collectively held our breaths and hoped that it would only affect late season blooms but it has settled in to making its appearance at the end of May or the very beginning of June which is the start of the season for all but the sasanquas. The effect has been devastating and cut the floral display substantially. Controls are not practical. Petal blight is a fungal spore which appears to travel unimpeded at least 5km in the air. The camellia is such a ubiquitous plant in this country that even if we could clear our own property, we would get reinfected from the neighbours. It was apparent we had to learn to live with it. Alas the worst affected types are the large flowered, show blooms so valued by both Les and Felix Jury. To keep a good display on these types of camellias, we have to groom the plants. The sought after characteristic of self grooming doesn’t apply with petal blight. The flowers stay solid, turn mushy brown and hang on unless removed by hand. This type of grooming is not a problem if you only have one or two plants but we have hundreds. Camellias here are used as utility hedging plants (both clipped and casual), wind breaks, small trees, back of the border fillers, topiary, clipped feature plants both large and small – they are wonderfully versatile in our conditions and we have too many to groom.

Only now, after two decades of petal blight, is Mark turning his attention back to camellias. We have not found any evidence of camellia petal blight on any of our sasanquas. Red blooms carry the disfigurement better. But above all else, the stars are the miniature flowered types which set a mass of flower buds over a very long period but where each bloom is short lived. It is not that they are immune, though some show a level of resistance. It is just that the individual blooms fall before they are taken out by the blight so the floral display remain clean.

Camellia Roma Red (Mark Jury)

In fact ‘Fairy Blush’ probably remains the very best camellia performer we have in the garden. It may forever be the one that got away from us but it is also the marker by which we will measure the next generation of camellia hybrids bred for the post Ciborinia camelliae era. I recall the customer who asked: “You know how Fairy Blush flowers from April to September? Do you have one that flowers from October to March?”. “What? A camellia?” I replied. “Yes,” she said. Such a question ranks alongside those customers who, looking at a plant in flower, ask: “Does it come in any other colours?”

Camellia Pearly Cascade (Mark Jury)

Les Jury cultivars

As there are at least 71 registered cultivars attributed to Les (not including variegated sports), it seems excessive to list them all. Not all are significant and even fewer are still commercially available. Full details are available in the Camellia Nomenclature. A short list of his more popular cultivars would include ‘Anticipation’, ‘Avalanche’, ‘Ballet Queen’, ‘Debbie’, ‘Elegant Beauty’, ‘Jubilation’, ‘Jury’s Yellow’ and ‘Les Jury’.

Camellia Mimosa Jury (Felix Jury)

Camellia Rose Bouquet (Felix Jury)

Felix Jury cultivars
Debbie’s Carnation (saluenensis x japonica ‘Debutante’)
Dream Boat (saluenensis x japonica ‘K.Sawada’)
Dresden China (saluenensis x japonica ‘Joshua E. Youtz’)
Itty Bit (saluenensis x Tiny Princess)
Julie Felix (saluenensis x japonica ‘Joshua E Youtz’)
Mimosa Jury (saluenensis x japonica ‘K Sawada’)
Pearly Shells (saluenensis x japonica ‘K Sawada’)
Red China (reticulata ‘Trewithen Pink” x reticulata ‘Cornelian’)
Rose Bouquet (saluenensis x japonica ‘Tiffany’)
Softly (saluenensis x japonica ‘Joshua E Youtz’)
South Seas (saluenensis x japonica ‘C M Wilson’
(Spencer’s Delight an early saluenensis x japonica hybrid never put into commerce, as far as we know)
(Tiny Bit An ‘Itty Bit’ sister seedling never put into commerce although the original remains a fine specimen by our back door)
Waterlily (saluenensis x japonica ‘K Sawada’)

Camellia Fairy Blush (Mark Jury)

Mark Jury cultivars
Apple Blossom Sun (pitardii var pitardii open pollinated)
Cream Puff (pitardii x ‘Tiny Princess’)
Fairy Blush (lutchuensis open pollinated)
Gay Buttons (tinsie x ‘Snowdrop’)
Jury’s Pearl (pitardii x ‘Tomorrow’)
Moon Moth (C.pitardii var.pitardii x C.japonica ‘K. Sawada’)
Pearly Cascade (C. pitardii hybrid)
Purple Pompom (‘Fuyajo’ x ‘Zambo’)
Roma Red (tinsie x ‘Dream Boat’)
Topiary Pink (pitardii seedling)
Volunteer (japonica seedling)

The inimitable Magnolia Iolanthe

I cannot let the season pass without celebrating magnolias. At this time of the year we live and breathe these flowering trees and the settled weather has meant a particularly good season this year. Not all of them get as large as this glorious specimen of ‘Iolanthe’. In this country, it is a lucky tree that is permitted to survive into its sixth decade without being unceremoniously severed from its roots.

Iolanthe was the product of Felix Jury’s first attempts to hybridise magnolias. He was looking for larger blooms with good colour. Certainly the bloom is still exceptional with its large cup and saucer form. The colour has been criticised for its lavender hue, but I can tell you that it remains spectacular. Because it sets flower buds down the stem, it has one of the longest season of any of our many magnolias here. Some only set buds on the tips where they all come out at once. As soon as they pass over – or if they are hit by strong wind, heavy rain or frost – that is it for the year as far as floral display goes. Not so with Iolanthe. Twice we have seen the display turned to mush by extraordinary frost events but a few days later, a fresh flush of blooms has opened and the display is back. From first to last spring bloom, we get about two months of flowering, of which maybe three weeks is full glory. It repeat flowers in summer, though as the tree is then in full leaf, it is nowhere near as showy or prolific – more a bonus than a mainstay.

Iolanthe and Serene are the only plants for which Felix ever received external payment. We recall this because it was in our early married days when we were impoverished students. He gave the fee of a couple of hundred dollars to Mark. It was not the sort of event one ever forgets.

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

Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’

Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’

Magnolia ‘Burgundy Star’

Mark’s quest is a pure red magnolia, losing the purple tones that dog the earlier hybrids. He is getting very close – not quite there yet, but close enough to think that it is achievable. Like his father before him, Mark prefers large flowers with solid colour both inside and outside the petals (technically tepals).

Magnolia ‘Genie’

Felix named one purple – Apollo – and one into the red tones, Vulcan. Mark has named only three reds so far – Black Tulip, Burgundy Star and Felix Jury. Of these, Burgundy Star is arguably the reddest but it is the one he named for his father that brings us greatest pleasure. As a juvenile plant, it started off with OTT giant pink blooms but as it matured, the colour deepened and we now get enormous red flowers – though I admit they fade out to pink. This magnolia represents what Felix himself was trying to get to – a rich coloured, very large bloom of the Iolanthe-type.

It is a source of quiet satisfaction to us that Felix lived long enough to see his son achieve this outcome and it was for this reason that Mark named it for his father. We were most gratified to learn that it has been given an Award of Garden Merit by Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society.

I have never forgotten the customer who came in to buy a magnolia some years ago. She didn’t want a red one, was sick of seeing them – too common, she declared. No, she wanted a white one. I think I remained steadfastly polite but as our forest of colour blooms each August, I rememer her blissful ignorance.

First published in the August issue of New Zealand Gardener.

‘Lanarth” is in full flower and looking particularly fine this week

Back in 1973, when Mark and I were impoverished university students, his father, Felix, gave us the cheque he had received from Os Blumhardt for the right to release Magnolia ‘Serene’. It was for NZ$150 and that was the only money Felix ever received for any plant he bred. At the same time, Duncan and Davies released his Magnolia ‘Iolanthe’ but, despite being the powerhouse nursery of the southern hemisphere, paying breeders for their plants was never part of their operation. Sometimes we ponder how different the family finances might have been had Felix received even a very small royalty payment for his Phormium ‘Yellow Wave’, but that is another story. The remaining Felix Jury magnolia cultivars were not released until the late 1980s when Mark set up the plant nursery here. With the exception of ‘Vulcan’, where the immediate public response took us by surprise, the releases were all very low key.

Magnolia Apollo

Magnolia Athene

Magnolia Lotus

Magnolia Milky Way

It takes time for magnolias to prove themselves and it is only in the last couple of decades that the Jury magnolias have become known internationally. There aren’t many of them. Felix only named eight of his own breeding – Magnolias ‘Apollo’, ‘Athene’, ‘Atlas’, ‘Iolanthe’, ‘Lotus’, ‘Milky Way’, ‘Serene’ and ‘Vulcan™’ . We don’t include the variety M. ‘Mark Jury’ in that list because it arrived here as a seedling and all Felix did was to grow it and, in due course, name it. Mark vetoed his father’s suggestion of naming a few more because they were too close to ones already selected, although we have a few fine sister seedlings from those breeding lines in the garden here.

In his turn, Mark has named four deciduous magnolias so far – ‘Black Tulip’, ‘Burgundy Star™’, ‘Felix Jury’ and ‘Honey Tulip™’ – though he has raised many more controlled crosses than his father ever did. Records here do not include total numbers of plants raised but certainly Felix never raised a large number – maybe 50 or so. Mark has been much more focussed and a rough guess puts the number of deciduous magnolias raised to flowering size in excess of 1000. If a particular cross shows promise, Mark will locate the plants in places where they have the space to grow to maturity and, as the years pass, the display just gets better. There are a lot of what we call “also-rans” – not destined to be named but too good to chainsaw out. Late winter and early springtime here is simply glorious.

Magnolia Atlas

When it comes to naming a plant, consideration is given to whether it represents a breakthrough in some aspect and is significantly different to anything already named. It must also produce flowers on young plants, bloom on bare wood in our climate, not grow so rapidly as to indicate it will become a forest giant, propagate relatively easily and flower reliably every year while setting buds down the stems to prolong the season. That list may be why Mark has only named four so far.

At the time when Felix started crossing magnolias, there were few varieties available in New Zealand and most were species. He wanted to see if he could get large cup and saucer blooms with good colour, flowering on a young plant. His lucky breeding break came with the cultivar he imported from Hilliers. It was meant to be M. campbellii ssp mollicomata ‘Lanarth’ but when it bloomed for the first time, it was clearly a hybrid, probably ‘Lanarth’ x sargentiana robusta. He named it for his youngest son, Mark Jury. It proved to be an excellent breeder plant and five of Felix’s eight named cultivars used ‘Mark Jury’ as pollen donor.

Magnolia Iolanthe

We rate ‘Iolanthe’ as one of the very best he named. The original plant is still located beside our driveway and has now achieved magnificent stature at about 10 metres high and a canopy the same distance across after 50 years. Every year it takes our breath away with its beauty. The blooms have stayed very large (some cultivars produce smaller blooms once past juvenility) and because it sets flower buds down the stem, even the worst spring storms do not ruin the display for the year. At about two months in flower, it has one of the longest seasons.

Magnolia Serene

Serene is the last of the season to bloom for us and we have always been surprised that this top performing strawberry pink variety has not gained the reputation and market traction it deserves. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and with the passage of time, we think ‘Atlas’ would not meet the selection criteria today. Despite a huge flower, possible unequalled at the time, with good form and a pretty colour, its performance falls short because it only sets buds on the tips of branches. A storm can take out the flowering for the year. That said, it is one that appears to perform well in Britain. ‘Athene’ and ‘Milky Way’ are both wonderful performers but probably too similar to have named both. ‘Lotus’ is lovely but the pure white magnolia field is very crowded now. ‘Apollo’, while abundantly floriferous and more compact in its growth, does not have the same beauty of flower form that the others have.

Magnolia Vulcan

It was ‘Vulcan’ that cemented Felix’s reputation, even if this cultivar has never proven itself in the cooler climes of Britain and northern Europe. You will just have to take our word for it that in milder climates, it can be the most remarkable red colour and, for its time, it represented a colour breakthrough and set the standard for the next generations of red cultivars. We have a remarkable intensity and quality of light in New Zealand even in the depths of winter, and the first red buds to break in July never fail to impress. For many years after we first released this cultivar, we could track its flowering from north to south by the phone calls we received. That is a rare plant.

Over time and with many competing unnamed seedlings of the next generations flowering here, we certainly concede that ‘Vulcan’ blooms do not age gracefully and later flowers are much smaller and in murky purple shades. It appears that those later flowers are the best most British gardeners can ever expect to see in their conditions. Mark is still on the quest for the perfect Vulcan upgrade – a large bloom on a smaller tree, flowering later in the season to extend the climatic range and with colour that ages more gracefully, which means losing the purple undertones that the parentage of ‘Lanarth’ brought in. He is tantalisingly close to pure red but not yet ready to take the plunge and name another in his red series. Having named three so far, a fourth must be something different, special or a significant improvement.

Magnolia Black Tulip

‘Black Tulip’ was the first release of Mark’s cultivars and we were gratified by the immediate public response. Mark’s personal preference is for solid colour in blooms and in the windy climes of New Zealand, we have to select for heavy textured petals and firm blooms that can withstand the equinoctial winds that often strike at peak flowering. ‘Black Tulip’ certainly fitted these criteria and is suitable for smaller gardens though it will never be as bold and showy as grander specimens.

Magnolia Burgundy Star

‘Burgundy Star’ has yet to prove itself overseas. Being three quarter M. liliiflora nigra, the hope is that it may prove to be hardier in colder climates. The original plant in our carpark is exceptional –  fastigiate in its growth which is to its credit as a driveway or courtyard specimen, with a mass of good-sized, red, starry blooms over a long period of time. Only time will tell if this translates to other climates and locations.

Magnolia Felix Jury

Magnolia Felix Jury

So far, ‘Felix Jury’ is the stand-out performer of Mark’s selections. He named it for his father because it was what Felix had been trying to get to – a rich-coloured, large-flowered cup and saucer bloom with a long season. It is a source of pleasure to us that Felix was still alive to see the first blooms. On the first young plants, we described it as rich pink, but with age and maturity, the blooms have deepened to red in our climate and this is a specimen magnolia that just gets better with age and size. We have been delighted to see specimen plants well established in the UK, particularly at Wisley and also The Garden House in Devon. While we haven’t seen those plants in bloom, we are assured they are impressive, though probably more pink than red.

Magnolia Honey Tulip

Mark’s latest release is ‘Honey Tulip’, his best yellow cultivar so far. Again the flower shows excellent heavy texture in the petals, unlike the softer texture we see in the American yellow varieties we grow here. The form is different with a solid cup and the colour does not fade out as the season progresses. We are also pleased with the generous bud set we see on the plants here and it does not look as if it will ever get as large as some of the yellows. It is still early days – ask us in another twenty years how we rate it.

The ultimate goal would be to get to a pure yellow cup and saucer bloom of ‘Iolanthe’ or ‘Felix Jury’ size and splendour, along with the performance characteristics of those two cultivars but that is still a long way off and may not be attained in Mark’s lifetime. The pure red magnolia is closer. The deciduous magnolia programme is ongoing here.

The property is planted out in seedlings

The evergreen magnolias are a separate thread. We are with the Chinese – it is much easier to continue to refer to these as michelias and differentiate them from the better known grandifloras. Mark became interested in these 20 years ago and they are very much a work in progress. When he started, there were only a small number of species to work with and even fewer hybrids but he wondered whether he could extend the colour range and the habit of growth to get more garden-friendly options. In the time since, there has been an explosion of new species collected, particularly in China and Vietnam but New Zealand’s borders are now closed to new plants and he has had to rely on the original species he has access to – particularly M. figo, M. doltsopa, M. maudiae and M. laevifolia (formerly known as Michelia yunnanensis). He is not overly worried about this situation because most of the recent discoveries have been tropical and he is keen to increase hardiness overall, not to decrease it by introducing tropical genes. He had already decided that M. champaca and M. x ‘Alba’ – both of which we have here – were blind alleys when it came to his breeding programme.

Fairy Magnolia White

Most of the hardier species are white or cream flowered but the advantage in terms of colour has come through the most common form of M. figo in New Zealand being more colourful than those we have seen in other countries. Our form includes yellow and purple and that has extended the colour range in the hybrids.

Fairy Magnolia Blush

Michelias have a much quicker turnaround than deciduous magnolias and the number of hybrids here already greatly exceeds the number of the latter. A number of the hybrids show exciting promise in colour and flower size and are certainly extending the range. But the selection criteria includes several critical new factors. The hybrids must not set too much seed, they must make foliage growth down the stems and not just on the tips and they must not show the tendency of some michelias to defoliate either at flowering time or in wet spring seasons. Even more problematic are the issues of fragrance and ease of propagation from cutting. There is frequent disappointment. Mark oft bemoans the fact that he can cross two of the most fragrant of michelias and the offspring lack discernible scent. And the best coloured michelias have so far failed the propagation test. He is also after clean colours. With purple and yellow being the available colour genes, there is a disappointing number of murky coloured offspring which are rejected out of hand. There is a long way to go yet and the downstream crosses are getting ever more complex although he continues to work with the same narrow, original species base.

Moving large Fairy Magnolia Whites into the new garden where the plan is two pleached rows

The upshot of this is that only three cultivars have been released to date and none of these show the exciting colour breaks. It is heartening, however, that these three are showing more hardiness than expected, considering the use of two somewhat tender species in M. figo and M. doltsopa. These cultivars are being marketed internationally by our agents, Anthony Tesselaar Plants, under the Fairy Magnolia® branding. ‘Fairy Magnolia Pink’ is a foggii x laevifolia hybrid and brought indubitably pink tones into the range. It is floriferous over a long period of time and particularly good as a clipped specimen. Our row of five clipped lollipops are a real feature and easy to maintain at a set size with an annual hard spring prune and a light autumn trim. On the downside, the foliage is a little more olive green than we would like.

Fairy Magnolia Cream

The selection released as ‘Fairy Magnolia Cream’ is from similar breeding lines and has beautiful flower form, excellent fragrance and foliage in a cleaner hue of green. ‘Fairy Magnolia White’ is different breeding, bringing in more M. doltsopa and is therefore larger growing but with correspondingly larger blooms, also fragrant. We doubt that it is as hardy as the other two and see it more as an improved, garden-friendly version of the M. doltsopa parent. In recent times, we have planted a double avenue of ‘Fairy Magnolia White’ with a view to pleaching them and we have been pleased with how well this cultivar is responding to clipping and training.

A collection of blooms, showing the range in size and colour

The breeding programme will continue. There is a long way to go yet, although really what Mark would like is for one of our children to come home and take it into the next generation. With all three of our human offspring living overseas, this is one aspect of the breeding programme that is not looking hopeful.

Fairy Magnolia White

Apollo (probably liliiflora nigra hybrid x ‘Lanarth’, bred by Felix Jury) Released 1990

Athene (lennei alba x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1988

Atlas (lennei x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1989

Black Tulip (‘Vulcan’ x, bred by Mark Jury) 1998

Burgundy Star™ (liliiflora nigra x ‘Vulcan’, bred by Mark Jury) 2006

Fairy Magnolia Blush (M. laevifolia x foggii hybrid, bred by Mark Jury) 2008

Fairy Magnolia Cream (M. laevifolia x foggii hybrid, bred by Mark Jury) 2013

Fairy Magnolia white (M. laevifolia x doltsopa, bred by Mark Jury) 2013

Felix Jury (‘Atlas’ x ‘Vulcan’, bred by Mark Jury) 2000

Honey Tulip™ (‘Yellow Bird’ x ‘Iolanthe’, bred by Mark Jury) 2013

Iolanthe (lennei x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1970s

Lotus (lennei alba x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1988

Milky Way (lennei alba x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1988

Serene (liliflora x ‘Mark Jury’, bred by Felix Jury) 1970s

Vulcan™ (liliiflora hybrid x ‘Lanarth’, bred by Felix Jury) 1989

Fairy Magnolia Blush – the original stock plants, now lollipops

After posting my piece on petal carpets this morning, it was such a gorgeous spring day I headed down to the park with camera in hand. And today, it was Felix’s magnolias that were at peak glory. It’s often an odd feeling living on a family property steeped with the history of earlier generations. Not ghosts, more like an enduring presence. And I wanted to pay tribute to Felix’s little collection.

Felix Jury in 1985, photo by Fiona Clark

I have recorded the history often enough here  so today is just the pleasure of the sight of so much in bloom. Sure, some have been superseded over time but these were ground breaking hybrids in the 1960s and created a special place for New Zealand in the world of magnolias. They also provided the platform for Mark to build on with his next generation hybrids.

The purity of ‘Lotus’, Felix’s best white, is hard to beat on its day.

‘Apollo’ was Felix’s best purple. This and the other magnolia photos were taken this morning. Did I mention what a glorious spring day it has been?

This one was never named and is the only unnamed seedling I am including today because at its peak, it is so very pretty. We just refer to it as “Apollo’s sister” because it is from same cross and batch of seed.

Magnolia ‘Athene’. There was a certain classical theme running through the naming of some of these cultivars.

Magnolia ‘Atlas’, which appears to perform better overseas than it does here. The flowers are huge and very pretty but it weather marks badly in our rains and wind.

‘Milky Way’ and I am not sure what inspired Felix to use that as its name bar the fact it is predominantly white.

‘Iolanthe’ which remains one of our flagship varieties and a superb performer year in and year out.

Magnolia ‘Mark Jury’ – not one of Felix’s own hybrids but a seedling that arrived here from Hilliers that was meant to flower as ‘Lanarth’. It was the secret weapon that Felix used in the majority of his new hybrids and he named it for his youngest son.

The only two not in bloom today are Magnolia ‘Serene’ which has yet to open and ‘Vulcan’ which has finished already for this season. But here is a photo I prepared earlier of the latter at its peak three weeks ago.

Felix died in 1997, but his spirit and his presence remains very much part of our lives here, never more so than at peak magnolia season.

Mark’s ‘Floral Sun’ is a great performer for in our conditions

Rhododendrons have long been a part of our lives. The first ornamental plants we bought in our twenties for our first home in Dunedin were three rhododendrons, chosen with great care from a local specialist grower. They were ‘Mayday’, ‘Princess Alice’ and, obscurely, R. oreotrephes.

Mark is not exaggerating when he says he started the nursery here from one wheelbarrow up. We will give credit to his parents, Felix and Mimosa, for many things but starting the nursery was not one of them and attempts by others to credit Felix as a nurseryman never fail to irritate. The first mail order list we ever posted out in 1982 comprised fifteen rhododendrons and Magnolia Iolanthe. Five of those fifteen were first releases from his father’s breeding and the others were mostly species, including the rare R.bachii. Rhododendrons remained a key part of our mail order offering for the next 22 years, with a wide range of both species and hybrids.

Mark gathered up all the new hybrids he could find which meant a fair swag of material out of USA, very little of which thrived in our conditions. In our time, we grew all those popular varieties of their day – ‘Lems Monarch’, ‘Lems Cameo’, ‘Ostbo’s Low Yellow’, ‘Markeeta’s Prize’ and ‘Percy Wiseman’ amongst many, probably scores, of others. Very few of them are in the garden now. Most needed a colder winter and somewhat drier conditions than we could give them. They were particularly vulnerable to thrip, giving them silver leaves and weakening the plant over time because we were not prepared to routinely spray plants in the garden.

Felix’s maddeni hybrid ‘Barbara Jury’ 

Just another unnamed seedling from Felix’s breeding but it wasn’t that easy to sell these types of rhododendrons to customers who expected tight, ball trusses

Felix had dabbled in breeding for years and his interest in the maddeniis was because of their excellent foliage, high health performance and fragrance. He named about twelve which we released onto the market but they were always a bit of a hard item to sell because they didn’t have the full truss that most people associate with rhododendrons. No matter that they put up a wall – or maybe curtain – of gorgeous blooms, often well scented, and kept healthy foliage all year round, it took a more sophisticated gardener to appreciate their charm.

Mark’s ‘Floral Gift’ is proving to be a bit of a star over time in local gardens at least

In his turn, Mark took his paintbrush to the task of pollinating rhododendrons. He has only named four so far, three from the maddeni group and one, ‘Meadow Lemon’, with a full truss. There are more, quite a few more here but the rhododendron lost its elevated social status in the New Zealand garden. Sales declined and the earlier abundance of specialist rhododendron nurseries either changed tack or closed down. A highly competitive market became instead one of very limited supply and little specialist knowledge.

The row of latest hybrids ‘across the road’, as we say

A fair number of readers will know Our Mark. He has never let the changing market deter him and he has continued to potter away breeding rhododendrons, albeit without the sense of urgency because we don’t see any immediate commercial potential in them. He does it very quietly so when he asked me if I had seen the rhododendrons across the road (we have another block of land that is more Mark’s domain than mine), I knew he must be pleased. These were the latest lot of crosses that had hung about the nursery for a while and were finally planted out – a ragtag collection that had not received any tender, loving care and were put out into full sun in the field a year ago. They have never been sprayed or had added fertiliser so it is a regime which separates the good performers from the strugglers.

Just a few of the promising seedlings

I was impressed. I admit that I am not a huge fan of the full trusses. They are not my personal preference. But I could see the commercial appeal of these, were they presented in their pots in the garden centre, tidy little mounds in full bud and bloom. What impressed me most was the foliage. We are too well acquainted with grungy rhododendron foliage and, as our winters have become milder, the issue with thrip infestation is getting ever worse. I photographed a fine specimen at the cemetery last week – so badly thrip damaged that it was silver all over. Not a green leaf in sight. But it wasn’t a good enough photo to use.

We know plenty about grungy foliage

Look past the flower – that foliage! Grown in hard conditions and never sprayed. That foliage is a breakthrough.

To see plants growing in what are not coddled and managed conditions with perfect foliage is a joy to a gardener’s eyes. For readers with a technical interest, these are highly complex hybrids. Mark started many years ago with the red R. arboreum, ‘Sir Charles Lemon’ (for its indumentum), ‘Pink Delight’ and ‘Helene Schiffner’ and he introduced other genes from good coloured rhododendrons that did not thrive in our conditions. Because he has kept breeding with each generation of seedlings, the finer details of the genetic make-up of this latest lot is largely a mystery, even to him.

We have no plans to release any of these. Mark will no doubt carry out some propagation trials to narrow the selections down to those that root easily from cutting. Over time, we will replace some of the under-performing rhododendrons in the garden with better selections. The hybrids may just be a little legacy that he leaves to whichever child of ours eventually comes home – a collection of market-ready, high health, proven performers with commercial potential. By that stage, the rhododendron may have returned to popularity in good gardens again.  And who knows? His next generation of seedlings may be better yet.

The gorgeous nuttalliis are a favourite of mine though not a commercial viability 

The big full trusses are not so much to my taste, even when it is R. macabeanum to the left. The giant pink is another unnamed seedling of Felix’s

We used to take perfection in camellia blooms for granted

Why did this camellia make me so sad that I picked it to photograph it? It is just a pretty, formal japonica-type that is an unnamed seedling, known here as ‘Mimosa’s sister’ because it is of the same breeding that produced the beautiful pink formal that Felix Jury liked so much he named it for his wife, Mimosa Jury. The answer is because it is a rare sight, now – a perfect, undamaged bloom.

When we set up the nursery in the early 1980s, rhododendrons and camellias were our main lines. The former have fallen from favour these days, the latter have been decimated by camellia petal blight. Mark’s dad, Felix, loved the formal flower shape so much that most he named were of this form – ‘Waterlily’, ‘Dreamboat’, ‘Softly’, ‘Julie Felix’ and ‘Mimosa Jury’. The first two are international classics now and ‘Mimosa Jury’ deserves to be there, too.

These days, this is a more common sight – blooms showing various stages of unsightly damage

We still have many camellias in our garden, both of Jury breeding and named cultivars from around the world. Right now should be peak display for the japonicas, hybrids and reticulatas but camellia petal blight has dealt a death blow to that. It is maybe two decades since we have had a good early spring display and we will never see it again from that grouping of mass bloomers. It really is a bit sad to lose a major family of flowers. We keep the plants we want for shelter, overhead cover and as background filler plants but now without the pleasure of a clean floral display.

Sadly, even the interesting tropical yellow species like Camellia nitidissima suffer from petal blight in our conditions 

More of botanical interest than rewarding garden plant – Camellia nitidissima again

Camellia petal blight is a problem throughout much of the world. Australia hasn’t got it and long may their border control keep it out. As I commented after attending the International Camellia Congress in China,  it is not as devastating in other areas as ours. It is nowhere near as bad in dry climates. But here, with our generally mild climate, high rainfall and high humidity all year round, it is as bad as it can be. I doubt that we will plant another japonica or reticulata in our gardening lifetime. Were we still selling plants, we would have contracted our range to sasanquas, the garden-worthy species and some of the tiny flowered cultivars that don’t show a problem with petal blight because each individual flower only lasts a few days.

There is work going on to try and breed for blight-resistant choices but they are limited to tiny flowered cultivars as far as I have seen. I do not think we will ever see the japonicas and reticulatas free of blight. The progress on trying to find a treatment for petal blight is painfully slow and if it comes about, it may be suitable for treating individual specimen plants but not for the mass plantings that New Zealand went for in the past.

At the time it was discovered, it was only in four places in Wellington and could have been eradicated but it wasn’t seen a priority, either high or low. So it spread – everywhere. The theory back then was that it may have come in on a corsage being worn by an airline passenger from the west coast of USA where it was already well established. From such minor events can a major change be brought about.

Most of our camellias look more like this now – hanging on to blighted blooms

I just feel a bit sad that I won’t see the mass display of beautiful blooms that we took for granted for so long. If you live in a drier climate, they are probably still a viable option. Look around and see if the garden plants in your area are putting on a clean display and dropping their spent blooms (blighted blooms usually stay hanging on the bush). If, like here, there are no mass displays of blooms any longer, I would be looking at planting other options than the larger flowered camellia types. When you come from the camellia family of Jury, that is bleak advice.

Ever the Pollyanna, I should finish on a positive note. Fortunately there are plenty of other beautiful flowering plants we can choose from for this time of year. Look at the range of colours Mark is getting to in his breeding work on garden-friendly michelia shrubs. Most of these are also blessed with good fragrance which is not common in camellias.