Franklinia alatamaha is the sole species in this genus, a member of the Theaceae.  It’s another bucket list plant to flower for the serious gardener.  It enjoys a long and mysterious history and a reputation for succumbing to one malady or another.  I can’t recount the number I’ve planted and the number of failures endured at SFA Gardens.  Many gardeners can say the same thing.  I remember the very first time I caught the tree in flower.  It was at Akin’s nursery in Sibley, Louisiana.  Sherwood Akin had planted the tree near his house and near a faucet.  He had created a nice berm.  He told me that every time he sprayed fungicides in his nursery, he would clean out the tank near the tree and make sure he soaked the area down.  The tree did flower but in a few years it was dead.  That’s the general story.  The tree lives a few years and then commits suicide.  Good drainage is always recommended.  “Needs even moisture” is another commandment.  Too much sun or too little is often touted as a culprit.  It’s thought to prefer  sandy, high-acid soil, and compacted clay soil is general avoided.  While it appears resistant to insect pests, it is subject to root rot and has a reputation for dealing poorly with drought.  After a dozen or so deaths, I concluded this plant must be related to sheep.  It’s born looking for a place to die. 

All that changed three years ago when we flowered a young tree that we had planted in the Gayla Mize Garden.  In a serendipitous spot that had some shade and some sun and fairly decent soil, we were going to try again.   I actually planted the tree myself and yes, I did give it a few private magic words of encouragement.  For no discernible reason, this particular tree thrived.  I have no idea why.  I do like the soil here, a loamy sand and the drainage is reasonable.  The tree enjoyed a single drip emitter for the first three years of its life, endured some tough times (it’s hot in Texas) but came through with shining colors.  Even though the whole garden is really a bottom land for Burroughs creek, I’ve never seen this particular spot go under water when it floods.  It was obviously a blessed spot. 

 

The tree grew well the first few years and flowered first in 2014.  It flowered in 2015 and 2016 and has grown into a healthy specimen.  A key feature are the flowers which emit a pleasant fragrance, not unlike Gordonia.  In fact, the tree spent a good part of its early history being described as a Gordonia. 

The tree was first discovered near Fort Barrington in the British colony of Georgia in October 1765.  Philadelphia botanists John and William Bartram are given credit for the discovery of “several very curious shrubs”, as he noted in his journal entry for October 1, 1765. William Bartram collected F. alatamaha seeds during a long trip to the South from 1773 through 1776.  He described this in his book Bartram’s Travels published in Philadelphia in 1791.  He brought seed back to Philadelphia in 1777 at which time he reported to his father that he had relocated the plan and collected seeds.  William planted the seed in Philadelphia and first flowered it there in 1781.  William created the new genus Franklinia in honor of his father’s friend, Benjamin Franklin.  The new plant name, Franklinia alatamaha, was first published in 1785 in the catalogue of North American trees and shrubs entitled Arbustrum Americanum. Credit must be given to William for recognizing the rarity of the species in its native range and described a place of only two or three acres where the tree survived.  In spite of other expeditions to the region, it was never found elsewhere and  the tree was last verified in the wild in 1803.

The cause of its extinction is unclear but causes such as fire, flood, over collection by plant collectors, and the fungal disease Phytophthora introduced with the cultivation of cotton  have been given some responsibility.  As a result, all the Franklin trees known to exist today are descended from seed collected by William Bartram and propagated at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia.

While there are over 1000 reported gardens in the world that Franklinia can call home, we believe that this is the first reported flowering in Texas.  With three years of flowering at this writing (January 1, 2017), we’re encouraged.  In fact, this last year we planted another half dozen small trees.  Surely a grove of Franklinia trees here might be prudent.  Who knows, in a hundred years, maybe two, this rare and wonderful plant may find this a fine place to settle in for a century or two.

 

 

 

Almost everyone has a bucket list. It might be a trip to a far away and exotic land.  It could be eating more pancakes at a sitting than any other human.  It might be building the world’s tallest barn.  Plant people fall in that same category.  Whether it’s growing and then blooming a rare and finicky woody like Franklinia alatamaha or finding a never seen before orchid in the wilds of Peru, there’s always a challenge.  Flowering a giant corpse flower – or Titan Arum – fits in there somewhere near the top.  It’s a holy grail deal.  Well, we’ve done that.

Most flowering corpse flowers get a name. We named ours “Jack”, simply because Stephen F. Austin State University’s mascot is the lumberjack.  We’re known as the University among the Pines.

Jack originally came to us from Florida on June 1, 2000. The SFA plant was given to me as a dormant fist-sized corm by Russell Adams of Gainesville Tree Farm in Florida.  Russ is an avid horticulturist focused on growing a wide range of very rare palms, desert plants and Aroids.  During a visit to his nursery after a speaking engagement, I had the joy of touring his collection and talking the wonderful world of plants.  At one point he showed me three small dormant Amorphophallus titanum corms.  There’s no doubt he saw my green-with-envy-I-want-that-plant look in my eye. This was at a time when giant corpse flowers were almost impossible to find. I rarely ask but I said cost was not an object.  He said no, he couldn’t part with it.  I told him I would crawl two miles in the mud to get that plant for the SFA Mast Arboretum.  He said no again.  We continued to tour and talk plants and just as I was about to drive away he said wait a minute and he went back inside the office and returned with a small bag with one corm in it.  Jack was on his way back to Texas.

Jack quickly made his home in a pot and was grown along with thousands of other plants in our shade house. By some miracle the plant was always drug into the greenhouse when  cool weather arrived in the fall and was drug back into the shadehouse when spring was fully in place.  Over the next few years, Jack thrived.  We shifted him up to a 15 gallon pot in 2002.  The plant made some waves in 2003 with an 8’ leaf and thick trunk.  Jack was moved into the greenhouse in the fall 2003 and kept a healthy leaf all the way into February 2004 before crashing back to the ground.

In March 2004, it was decided that Jack had done so well in 2003, he deserved a big new pot.  Jack was repotted by students in a lab and at that time the corm was healthy and weighed in at a respectable 26 lbs and 2 ozs.  As a token of our amazement, I brought the clean corm into our lecture series on a platter covered with a velvet cloth and announced to the crowd how wonderful this plant was and that I would retire when it came into bloom.  I was lying, of course.  I didn’t know it then, but Jack was thinking of flowering.  I left for China in May and when I returned, Jack was poking his head out of the pot.  I studied it a bit and thought, Damn, this isn’t a leaf, it’s a darn flower.  Jack was on his way to fame and fortune.

 

Amorphophallus titanium, Titan Arum or Giant Corpse Flower, is found exclusively in the equatorial rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia.  The plant is said to grow in openings in the rainforest on limestone hills. The plant was discovered by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari in 1878.  The story is that Beccari and his crew stumbled on a very large plant in bloom and high fragrance and retreated to watch it from a distance.  The stench suggested this might be a true man eater, a true Rocky shop of horrors.  The plant is now endangered in the wild.  The species was mined from the wild in great numbers, loaded on to boats and shipped to many of the great conservatories of the world.  Seeds from the wild resulted in the first blooming of this species in cultivation at Kew in England in 1889. The first recorded bloom in the U.S. was at the New York Botanical Garden in 1937.  When Jack flowered in July 2004 at SFA Gardens, there had been only two dozen recorded flowering events in the USA.  A flowering event is often turned into a giant extravaganza for those few botanical gardens and arboreta that have been blessed with a plant that survives and actually flowers successfully.  This Texas plant proudly joins the list.

The plant grows from a large corm which reaches weights up to 200 lbs. in the wild. Typically, the corms are smaller in cultivation but often top 75 lbs. or more.  For most of their life, corms produce solitary, highly dissected leaves over 12’ high and 10’ across. Leaves persist for about a year and senesce.  The plant then enters a dormant phase of several months.  A replacement leaf emerges and the plant moves to growing a new root system and adding to the size of the corm.  After a year or so, the process is repeated.  Infrequently, instead of a replacement leaf, the corm will generate the blessed event: a flower.  In that season, the leaf will emerge only after the flower has collapsed.  The entire life cycle of leaf growth, flowering, and dormant periods is botanically strange, considering that these plants are found only warm equatorial jungle habitats.  Equally curious, in the wild, the stages are evidently quite randomly spaced, with some plants in various stages of growth at any given time.  The evolutionary significance of this is a matter of great debate.  The plant is known to live forty years or more and can flower several times in its life cycle.

First, let’s be correct. Titan Arum has the title of the largest “flower in the world” but technically, the “flower” is really an “inflorescence”, or a cluster of flowers. The spadix can reach over 6 feet tall (the tallest ever recorded was over 10 feet), and when fully open the spathe can reach about 3 feet across. Thousands of true flowers are hidden inside at the base of the spadix (the fleshy central column). The large frilly-edged leafy structure enclosing the spadix is called the spathe. Male and female flowers are separate and in a ring around the base of the plant, with the female flowers below and receptive first, the male flowers above and releasing pollen the next day.  This means that in the wild the plant must be cross pollinated.  A plant will not produce seed unless pollinated from another  plant because of the timing of stigma receptivity and pollen release.  We call this dichogamy.

Very few people have been blessed enough to catch the corpse flower at its most powerful fragrance.  Most bizarre to the general public is that when the flower is fully open, it emits the nauseating fragrance of rotten meat, hence its Indonesian common name ‘Bunga Bangkai’. The odor begins on opening of the inflorescence and lasts for about 8 hours.  The flower typically stays open 18 hours to two days.   The stench, strongest at night, is there to attract pollinators, thought to be flies, carrion beetles and sweat bees in the wild.  The odor is reported to be emitted in waves as a gas and as a colleague of mine at the University of Connecticut recently told me, “a good whiff at the wrong time caused great pain and made my sinuses hurt for several days.”  This sounds like a sure fire way to create a lifelong AAAS, the dreaded Amorphophallus Avoidance Anomaly Syndrome.

The flower is actually hot. Along with the odor, while the flower is first open, the spadix warms itself with metabolic heat, in what is thought to be an adaptation to volatilize and disperse its horrible carrion smell and insect-attracting chemistry.  Temperatures in the depths of this flower are said to reach 5 to 20 degrees above ambient.

We started a website.  We got the word out as best we could.  I called the administration and insisted that they needed to be photographed with the plant.  People drove great distances to see the plant.  We kept up with the growth rates for botanists at Kew England.  Jack eventually came in at 61 inches, no world record for sure.

Keep in mind that this was not a giant conservatory in a famous botanical garden.  This was SFA.  There were no long lines.  We couldn’t afford a cam.  We dressed Jack up with a cowboy hat and guns.  Some large sunshades added a nice touch.  Whole families had their portraits taken here.  One of our local officers arrested Jack for indecent exposure.  Jack became a sassy girl with a boa and a button that said, hey buddy, can you buy me a drink.  I received hundreds of emails and one from a botanist imploring me to stop my students from dressing up Jack, that we were defiling one of the worlds’ great botanical masterpieces.  I replied that it really wasn’t’ my students, it was me, and how many had he flowered?  I’m from Texas.  There were no bands, parades, or dancing girls.  We didn’t put up a rope to cordon off visitors.  No, we actually let visitors touch Jack.

 

When Jack’s flower opened on July 12, 2004, we had a ladder there for folks who wanted to peer into the gloom.  This was the first time I suspect in history that a Titan Arum was made so available to the public.  We made CNN and we made Fox banner.  The website had over 14,000 visits.  This was a singular event in corpse flower flowering.  There was no entrance gate charge, no long lines, just some lawn chairs here and there in the shade house to give folks a rest if the excitement was too much.  We played Isaac Hayes music to set the mood.

 

 

 

In an attempt to make seed, I called some friends and found some frozen pollen at the University of Connecticut. Clinton Morse and Matthew Opel had just endured an exhausting three week flowering event that ended right before our Jack opened.  The pollen was flown in and at when the flower was fully open and stinking we cut a hole in the bottom of the spadix.  Peering into the gloom with a flashlight we were able to see the juicy receptive flowers and with a paint brush we applied our magic pollen.  We sealed up the trap door with duct tape in true Texas style.  The flower soon wilted and the spadix fell over at 9 PM on July 15^th.  Jack’s spadix had been erect for about 77 hours from the first signs of opening.  We waited to see if the pollination worked.  It didn’t.  The excitement was over.

 

We dug up the corm on October 20, 2004, cleaned it up a bit and put Jack on the scales. He weighed 21 lbs. which meant he lost five lbs during his flowering ordeal.  I’m sad to report that Jack never really recovered and eventually succumbed a few years later for reasons we’ve never understood.  Perhaps the excitement was too much.  Jack was a Texan and a SFA Lumberjack.  He loved the attention, the kids, the crowds and he’ll always be a memory to this wonderful garden in the Pineywoods of East Texas.   Thanks to Tony Avent of Plant Delights, we received a fine number of seed and grew many young plants, most of which we distributed and some of those eventually flowered.

Life’s path is always a great surprise.  In China in 2004, I was asked to give a lecture at the Nanjing Botanical Garden on Titan Arum since many Arboreta and Botanical Gardens had been trying to flower the plant for years and failed.  The Beijing Botanical Garden had a plant that had been there thirty seven years in a conservatory and never flowered.  The lecture made the front page of the Nanjing Times which has a readership of 30 million.  I was interviewed by a local TV station in Nanjing and asked what I was going to do after having flowered this plant?  I had never really thought about it quite like that.  I said go back to my real interest in trees.

Years later, my President, Dr. Tito Guerrero, asked if I remembered our photoop and if I remembered telling him that he might not realize it but that day, that event was likely to be the most significant milsestone event in his time at the University.  Well, he wanted me to know that he had been in California at a conference and was flying to a number of cities on the west coast.  On one flight, he sat next to a fellow and they introduced each other and had some small talk.  When Tito told him that he was President of Stephen F. Austin State University, the man hesitated a bit, thought a while and asked, “Hey, isn’t that the place that flowered the giant corpse flower?”

 

The silky camellia is one of the rarest small trees in East Texas, known from only a short stretch along Little Cow creek near Burkeville, Texas. This multi-branched, deciduous shrub or small tree to twenty or thirty feet is a show-stopper in bloom.  The showy three-inch flowers have five white obovate petals with purple filaments and bluish anthers and generally appear in late April to early May.

In the southeastern U.S., the species is found as an understory plant of rich wooded bluffs, ravine slopes and creek banks of scattered localities in southwest Georgia, the Florida panhandle, and southern Alabama.  It is known to occur in Arkansas and in the east as far north as Virginia.  There are thirteen known sites in Louisiana.  While always uncommon throughout its range, the species is not on any endangered list.  However, in Texas, the silky camellia must be considered in danger of extirpation from the state and deserves perpetual stewardship for that reason alone.  The SFA Mast Arboretum has been working with the species since the late 1980’s and has found the plant more than just a bit difficult.  The species has been a slow grower and hard to propagate.  Seed propagation is frustrating and unpredictable; seedlings damp off easily.  Asexual propagation efforts generally meet with failure.  Rooted cuttings often fail to survive their first winter; some propagators suggest long days to encourage continued growth and to carry liners in the greenhouse the first winter.  The plant has a reputation for being short-lived and finicky as to site tolerance.  This is not a candidate for the mass market nurseryman.  However, for that southern gardener willing to gamble and work with the plant, few will deny that a properly sited mature specimen in bloom is one of the most beautiful natives of the south.

 

In China, old sweet olive trees ( 桂花 ) are revered, signed and interpreted, and given holy attendance.  Protective fences mark their importance.  Tourists flock to gawk at their size and glory.  In fact, during October when the species is at its best, over ten Chinese cities honor the plant with a wide variety of special holidays.  In a carnival-like atmosphere, Chinese citizens flock to sweet olive festivals to bask in the fragrance and glory of the plant. Flower fragrance is held in high esteem, and I was told that with some varieties, only two flowers floating in a tea cup were needed to fill a small closed room with fragrance. The most ancient plant known in China rests comfortably in the grounds of the Shengshui Temple, Nanzheng County, Shannxi Province and is over 2100 years old.  It’s forty feet in height and this mystical tree was planted by the Xiaohe himself, the Minister of the Han Dynasty.  The most impressive tree that I’ve seen up close was the stately specimen in the landscape of Linggu Temple, Nanjing city, Jiangsu province and this dense-foliaged giant is over 20’ tall, sixty inches in circumference and sports a crown diameter of 25’.  It rests alone in the valley and when in bloom on a still early morning the entire valley is filled with its magic.  Keep in mind that sweet olives are one of the ten “traditional flowers of China” and this is a species planted in the millions.

Ancient sweet olives are status symbols and the rich Chinese will spend thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to own a specimen tree.  With the grand scale of development in China it’s not surpising that many ancient sweet olives have found themselves in the way.  These trees are dug, relocated, cut back, and given special attention for a decade or more before finding a permanent home.  Time is an interesting thing to a Chinese businessman – ancient trees are an investment.

In plant-hunting circles, one of the treasures yet to say hello in southern horticulture is the elusive red-flowered form of sweet olive, Osmanthus fragrans.   I’ve seen O. fragrans ‘Zhusha Dangui’ in a sweet olive garden near Suzhou, China with flowers just a bit spent, but reddish orange enough to drive me to fighting the urge to liberate a cutting.  I didn’t because Chinese jails are reported as Spartan and I’m timid about things like that. Whether or not a true red exists in culture or in the wild is the stuff of legend, rumors and innuendo.

Over many years, I’ve been working in southeastern China on various projects.  During one of my visits in 2004, I was invited by scientist Xiang Qibai of the Nanjing Forestry University to participate in the first International Sweet Osmanthus conference in Shanghai, China in early October, 2004. Xiang’s work is legend.  He is a Professor, Doctorate tutor of Botany and Landscape Plants of Nanjing Forestry University, Director of Research Centre of Osmanthus, N.F.U., and the Vice President, Sweet Osmanthus Branch of Chinese Flower Association.  I soon learned there was a catch to my visit.  I had to deliver a presentation on “The Status and Use of Osmanthus fragrans in Southern USA Landscapes”.  Well, that seemed easy enough but I thought my knowledge the subject might be more or less summed up in a minute or two.  Fortunately, with the help of my friends across the South, I managed a talk that acquainted our hosts with the plant in the USA, the dozen or so varieties available, its production in the nursery industry, and its use in southern landscapes.

The 2004 conference included one day of talks from international and Chinese lecturers and then, best of all, two days of touring gardens in Shuzhou and Hangzhou famous for the species.  Native to China and enjoying a wide range, there are many old patriarchs over 1000 years old.  China has applied to the International Horticulture Society to be the official International Registry for the genus and this certainly makes sense.  After all, China is home to a long history with the plant and harbors most of the world’s ancient germplasm of the species.

There are now over 157 varieties of sweet olive in China divided into four main groups: Fragrans, Latifolius, Thunbergii, and Aurantiacus.  It’s the latter that’s attracted the plant hunter’s eye, for it’s this group that finds the orange and orange-red flowers.  In the last twenty years, an effort has been made to preserve the species in China and select superior cultivars.  Cultivars have been selected for flower size, characteristics of the flower, abundance of flowers, time of bloom, tree form and habit, bark, branch, leaf, pedicel, and fruit. Osmanthus fragrans has been in cultivation in China for over 2000 years, well before it was ever introduced into the west in 1856.  The most exciting recent introduction into the USA is ‘Fudingzhu’, or more popularly known as ‘Nanjing Beauty’.  It’s very floriferous, white flowered, and is known to bloom quickly in the nursery container and over many months.

O. fragrans var. aurantiacus is the orange-flowered form that one can find occasionally in the landscapes of the South and it’s a treasure when it reaches peak bloom and fragrance.  Unfortunately, the blooms only last a few days but you can spend the next twelve months in high anticipation.  Dirr lists nine varieties, but there are others and none have taken the trade by storm.

 

 

There are numerous varieties in China and most have yet to find their way into commerce there or anywhere in the world.

 

 

In the mix of things, there are reports of many “colorful” leaf forms with some sporting red to burgundy to pink new growth. I ran across a form with contorted branches in Suzhou China.   However, I can now say that yes, variegated forms do exist.   In June 2012, I visited a very small nursery near Chang Jie village, Ninghai county, Ningbo city in Zhejiang province in southeastern China.  Knowing my interest in the species, my hosts made arrangements for me to visit Mr. Wang who is a carpenter by trade, but owns a small specialty nursery as a side business.  Mr. Wang wrestles very large and ancient trees from the mountains, cuts them back dramatically, and then brings them to his small patch of ground.  He then nurses them back to health for resale as a large ball and burlap tree to other nurseries, to some of the rich businessmen in the region, or to city parks.  There’s a lot of that in China, and sweet olive is part of that effort.  In this case, it didn’t take me long to see the small grafted variegated trees in the nursery.  With a distinct creamy white leaf margin surrounding a light green center and new growth featuring a pinkish-mauve tone, I was quite taken.  When I inquired about the “name” I learned he called it, ‘Yin Bian Cai Ye Gui’ which simply refers to it as a colorful leaf version.   Good enough for me.

I learned that Mr. Wang must graft these onto older trees to get them to grow. Small stub grafts are stuck in the early spring, wrapped thoroughly and the take is “OK”.  However, they are never rooted as they are “weak” on their own roots and need a big tree to push the top to good size.  He will grow these into a big ball and retrieve a very high price for the ultimate specimen.  Although it takes many years to produce a saleable specimen, he looks at this as a kind of Chinese retirement plan!  This clone is now at SFA and while it grows ever so slowly, it’s alive and well.

 

There’s another species, O. yunnanensis, that is rarely encountered and we are proud to have a large specimen in the Ruby Mize Garden.  While never destined for the mass market, it boasts good fragrance and growth rate.

 

In terms of popularity, sweet olive has a long way to go in the USA.  We visited one nursery near Guangzhou that produces 1.5 million cutting grown plants per year!  While most Chinese nursery plants are destined for the China marketplace, which is huge, there is growing interest in exporting new cultivars and plants to the international market.  For that to happen there will have to be cooperation, marketing and promotion.  Until that happens, southern nurserymen and landscapers are encouraged to take a new look at an old friend, the sweet smelling sweet olive.

 

We’ve long admired Chionanthus retusus, Chinese fringe tree, as a bullet proof plant for the Gulf South.  Our first tree was planted back in the 1980s and finally succumbed to too much shade and poor drainage.  We learned our lesson.  This is a plant that likes full sun and well drained soils. Our first big planting at SFA was in 1999 when 75 of the trees were planted along Wilson Drive next to the SFA Mast Arboretum, a planting to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Stephen F. Austin State University. This planting was made in cooperation with Dr. David Kulhavy’s, Professor of Forestry, and his class in early spring 1999.  If I remember right, the trees came from our good friend Aubrey King, King’s Nursery, Tenaha, Texas.

 

While there was no drip irrigation on site, we did manage to drag some hoses across the street and give them a good soaking two times in 1998, once in 1999, and once in 2000.  They’ve been on their own ever since.  Even in 2010 and 2011, benchmark years for heat and drought, the trees were left unirrigated.  While they weren’t happy in that long stretch of hundred degree days and incessant drought, they survived.  Our conclusion is this is one tough tree.

The form of the straight species is a bit problematic. Chinese fringe trees tend to sprawl with limbs going here and there.  We believe in training the trees to a single trunk and then let branching go as the tree intends, except for some occasional side branch removal.  We’ve seen zero disease and insect problems.  In Texas, the tree is better adapted to East Texas.  Soil pH should be a little on the acid side if possible.  Sprinkler irrigation with alkaline or salty water results in leave burn. Mike Arnold, TAMU, College Station, TX, reports the tree is chlorotic in their region.  Foliage is very glossy and an attractive light green. The tree flowers best in full sun. While some Chinese fringe trees fruit heavily, some do not.  It’s best to avoid the heavy fruiting types as seedlings “can” be a problem.  While we haven’t seen a severe problem, we do find seedlings here and there, particularly if the trees are in a mulched bed.

The tree can actually get to be quite large.  I’ve witnessed giant trees in Karo, Georgia and one of the largest specimens is in the garden at TreeSearch Farms in Houston, Texas.  Heidi Sheesley planted this tree in a perfect spot and it is perhaps the largest Chinese fringe tree in Texas?

There’s one variety worthy of much greater use, ‘Tokyo Tower’. This Don Shadow introduction from Japan is very fastigiate.  In East Texas, ‘Tokyo Tower’ appears to leaf out and bloom about a week after the straight species.  It’s a male with blooms that are quite large compared to the straight species.

It must be grafted and a couple of rooting experiments a few years ago were a total failure.  Our start of ‘Tokyo Tower’ came from Hidden Hollow Nursery in Tennessee and came in bareroot.  Growth in the first year in the container is disappointing  and leaves are characteristically quite small.  However, the second year sees better growth and leaf size jumps.  Chinese fringe tree has a propensity to grow only in the spring and fall, sitting quite still during the summer months in spite of good nutrition and irrigation.  ‘Tokyo Tower’ is a unique small flowering fastigiate tree for the southern USA.  Anyone looking for a tough as nails columnar small flowering tree need look no further.  It’s a winner.  There is one caveat and it relates to chilling.  This tree is not from Taiwan genetics – it’s from Japan.  It has a higher chilling requirement.  Over the last decade, I’ve concluded Nacogdoches, TX is the very southern most spot where the tree performs reasonably.  In low chill years (<700 hrs <45 degrees F), the tree is late to bloom and many buds fail to break properly.  Another issue that arises in low chill years is a tendency to push shoots from below the graft union which must be cut away.  A good rule of thumb might be to stick to 50 miles South of I20 and northward?

The Arbole de Tule is the big one by which all baldcypress are measured.  It is perhaps the largest tree in the world, depending on how you measure craggy patriarchs. A short bus ride from Oaxaca, Mexico, the tree is located in the small peaceful village of Sta. Maria del Tule with a life built around the tree and the church it shades.  El Arbol rises to 140’, and looms over the bell tower of the church of Our Lady built by the Spanish over 400 years ago.  Ahuehuete is a Nahuatl phrase that means “old man of the water”.  “Ahuehuete O Sabino” boasts an astounding 190 feet in circumference.    Some report it as much more, but remember, the trunk is quite ridged and convoluted.  It is reported that it takes seventy eight children holding hands to encircle the tree.  The maximum diameter is reported as 46’, and the wood in this tree is estimated at over 630 tons!  As for age, the tree remains an enigma.  DNA analysis has proven that this is one tree and not a comingling of many trees grown together.  Most age estimates fall between 1200 and 3000 years, and the best scientific estimate based on growth rates is between 1400 and 1600 years.  Local Zapotec lore has the tree planted about 1400 years ago by Pecocha, a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec wind god, which is certainly in agreement with the scientific estimate.   

My first impression of this magnificent tree was March 13, 2005, a red letter day during my honeymoon. Touching the biggest, baddest and oldest “Ahuehuete” has long been on my bucket list. There are other common names for this ancient genus including ciprés, pénjamu, sabino, Montezuma cypress and Mexican cypress.  As a student of this species, I have long admired its back-to-the-dinosaurs heritage.  When you touch a bald cypress, you’re touching 60 plus million years of evolution.   Janet and I had made our vows in December 31, 2014, but we couldn’t break away for a honeymoon until a few months later.

I have always loved Mexico with its majestic mountains, plains, farms, cities, towns, and villages.  The vistas, special botany and the people are singular and I speak enough Spanish to feel comfortable.  I had persuaded Janet that Oaxaca was a great spot to light for a romantic honeymoon.  It was small enough to get around by walking and it was away from the noisy touristy coastal beach vacation spots.  It was low cost.  There was a great center of the city, a shady plaza with evening music and great food.  Of course, there were the special dishes and unique mole of this region’s cuisine.  We could drink sotol or tequila with abandon and dance like there was no tomorrow.   Of course, in the back of my mind I was thinking, hey, I can also get to see this tree.  At dinner that evening, after visiting the tiny town of Sta. Maria del Tule and basking in the glory of the Arbole de Tule, Janet quietly remarked that I had taken over 100 images of the tree, but only two of her.  I replied that I might never see the tree again, that I would see her for the rest of my life, right?  This was her smile.

Seriously, this is one great tree and any search of the web will reveal a plethora of images.  There are youtubes and testimonials for days.  If you’re not into trees, this place may not get your heart to revving.  One reviewer wrote:  “No need to avoid this attraction on the way to Mitla, also no need to seek it out. Huge trunk, a very old tree.  Bit boring.”

There are other ancient Taxodiums in Mexico.  The remnant population in a park near Texcoco are worth a visit.  While youngsters of only 500 plus years, they are still impressive and date back to the time of Cortez before Lake Texcoco was drained.  Lake Texcoco was a natural lake within the valley of Mexico and is recognized as the spot where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake.   After the Spaniards took over, the lake was drained to control flooding and reduce mosquitoes, which led to the modern day sprawl of Mexico City.  While beat up and scraggly, the trees point to a time when the tree was revered and planted in grand allees by the Aztecs.

There’s one tree left in the city of Texcoco worth visiting.  Saved by Dr. Daniel Rivas Torres, a Forestry Engineer, the tree hangs precariously to life in a busy and noisy median and is thought to be over 600 years old.  In 2011 the tree was given special status and is revered as the tree of Texcoco.

‘OAXACA CHILD’ – In 2013, as part of a team of Chinese, American and Mexican team of scientists, we were able to secure several small seedlings of the Arbole de Tule tree.  The organizer of this trip, Dr. Teobaldo Equiluz Piedra is the owner of GenFor, a nursery that specializes in Montezuma cypress and other trees as well.  The image below is at the nursery near the tree and it is this tree we have named ‘Oaxaca Child’.  If you are lucky enough to get one, don’t forget you’re getting a special little piece of history.

The one gallon seedling shown above was a seedling of the largest Montezuma in the world, the grand Arbole de Tule near the mountain town of Oaxaca, thus we call it ‘Oaxaca Child’.  We have offered the tree in our plant sales at SFA Gardens and have scattered it to other botanical gardens, Arboreta and private gardens.    In trials in Texas, the tree has proven to be hardy, fast growing, doesn’t produce knees, quite drought resistant once established, and not prone to chlorosis in the high pH soils of central Texas.  Because this is a seedling of the big one, it’s juvenile, which means it can be rooted rather easily  – and that’s what we’ve done.  We find the clone very easy to root (eight weeks).  The image below is of a young ‘Oaxaca Child’ planted by Laurence Truett in Cypress, Texas.  Laurence reports that the tree is the most evergreen of any of the Taxodium we have given him for trialing.

Kimberly Mighell with a two year old ‘Oaxaca Child’ on the campus of Tulane University, New Orleans, LA – 12-26-2016

Dr. Mengmeng Gu with a ‘Oaxaca Child’ at the TAMU Botanical Garden that needs pruning of side branches

CARE AND CULTURE:

How to grow it: 1) for the first few years, cut back all the side branches.  Make a very upright Christmas tree, narrow and tall.  For first few years, follow the rule of thirds 1/3 bare trunk, 2/3 trunk with foliage.  This will help create a strong leader with plenty of branching, 2) plant in full sun and mulch a wide ring around the tree, 3) water well the first few years, 4) keep the weeds at bay.  5) Fertilize lightly if soil is considered poor.  If a good bottomland soil, fertilizer is less important.  Under good horticulture, the tree can grow five to six feet per year.

Note from March 23, 2015: After the “Tribute to Ab banquet” at Banita Creek Hall several of you asked if I would post my script.  So, I emailed Ab and queried if he thought that was OK.  He came back with a Hell, yes.  “Put it in the New York Times as an article and we’ll have an autograph party”.

In a last odd gesture of karma, Ab called me back to say how much he enjoyed the banquet, that he was amazed at the crowd and, then, in a sentence or two, he did something quite unlike his true nature.  He said a few nice things, kind words, not just to me – but to all of us, to this town.  Then, he said, “Dave, when I look around at everything, I think I’m done.”  And then, that Friday night, March 20, 2015, Ab left the stage.  To me, there’s some rather amazing karma in how Ab showed all of us how to exit in style. No nursing home, no tubes, just an I’m outta here.  As a community, we are so blessed to have had his character in our midst.  Ab represented the last great generation well.  I’m totally convinced no one could ever have left the scene with more class.

The Speech:

Thank you, Jeff.   Wow.  Look at this room. First, let me thank Diana Walker, Jackie Warthan, Camille Bollinger, Francis Shofner and all the others who pulled this remarkable event together.  They get an A+ for event organization.  Folks, this crowd of 400 souls is proof positive this community gets it. Ab, this is your fan club – at least those who could afford thirty dollars a plate – and we’re here to celebrate you – and your amazing gift to the City – the LaNana and Banita Creek trails.

Let me assure all of you, being a trailblazer is not what why Ab received the Regent’s Professor Emeritus status in English at SFA. That title came because of his body of work in English – journal articles, popular press, poems, lecturing widely, the Texas Folklore Society, and books . . . one of which is the just published  “Let the Rivers Run Wild – Saving the Neches”, which is on sale at the back of the room.  That’s what earned him this top award at SFA which means he gets an office, a telephone, postage and email for life – and he knows the secret handshake.

Ab grew up in rural Oklahoma, West Texas and East Texas – doing time as a cowhand and fence builder on his grandfather’s ranch – and shuffling back and forth between Dallas and Palestine. The Depression was not kind to his family but – like my mom here next to me – he survived.  Even at a young age, Ab liked to make things.  He had a penchant for building skate scooters, slingshots and kites.  He developed an interest in Paramecia, photography, arc lights and making gun powder.  That last interest ended when he burned down his parent’s garage.  He’s a self-taught biologist, ecologist and naturalist.  He’s seined salmon in Canada for a living and evidently discovered if he got up real early he could rob the trotlines of others and just skip the fishing part.  He’s been a lifelong spelunker.  He learned to be a tree climber as a lineman for Gulf States Utility.  He worked on a shrimp boat out of Morgan City, Louisiana.  As part of the East Texas String Ensemble, we all know he plays a mean guitar and bass and can sing like a bird.

 

 

 

When WW2 arrived Ab jumped in to serve our country as a sailor on the USS Harkness and he was part of the occupying forces in Japan. As a sailor, he learned the fine art of cursing. If you’ve not suffered the wrath of Ab, I say skip it.  Blistering is too kind a word.  Jeff and I call it our rite of passage. I would call it Ab’s power of positive discontent.

When the war ended, Ab did a short stint as a hobo. He slept in barns, behind stores, and God knows where – picking up work every now and then to keep going.  He swears he was robbed by another hobo but he only had a dollar in his wallet so the fellow let him keep it.

Now at this point, some of might be thinking why can’t Ab hold a job? Why can’t he focus?  When the heck is he going to get it together?

I’m pleased to report – Ab did finally see the light – he came to his senses. He married Hazel in 1948, enrolled at SFA on the GI Bill and ended up with a Masters and PhD from LSU in 1956.  After that, he was a faculty member at Lamar State College for nine years – where he taught Janis Joplin English – and how to play guitar and sing.  I’m not so sure about that last part.  Finally, he arrived at SFA in 1965, settled into the 1888 home on Pillar Street next to the creek he came to love.  Here he raised his family where he could walk to and from his work at SFA.  He’s been here ever since.

Now, John Anderson tells me the vision for the Trails really goes back to 1974. The Bicentennial Commission added the LaNana Creek Trail to its projects – I’m sure Ab’s prodding helped. For Ab, this was an official sanction.  To Ab, there would be no additional paperwork ever needed. He was good to go and permitted for the next thirty years.  Many of you already know that Ab is not fond of rules, regulations, policies, procedures or guidelines.  That’s not his talent.  I’m afraid Ab thinks that if a project is relegated to being important enough to have a committee, then, well, it’s probably not worth doing.  I’ve watched him for years at SFA.  He’s my hero.  He’s gotten away with stuff that would get a normal person prison time.  For instance, many years ago, I remember Ab was especially frustrated with a few obstacles and roadblocks to building what we call the Park Street Plaza – that retaining wall is an interesting piece of architecture – Anyway, Ab finally threw up his hands, said to heck with it.  He got a big truck and trailer and headed to the lumber yard where the crew there loaded up a big load of posts and lumber, and left – waving goodbye to the sales crew to go ahead and bill it to the city.  I’m not sure how that got worked out.

Folks, for all those early trail building years – the army was small – Ab, John Anderson, Archie McDonald, and Carol Schoenwolf – but it wasn’t long before there was a trail moving north. This was a tough patch to work and the privet was thick.  There was hauling out a century of trash dumped in the creek by some of our ancestors; cars, refrigerators and other items we can’t talk about was one chore.  Building the trail was another.  A pattern developed.  If you wanted to visit with Ab about one thing or another – trail related or not – he often suggested to meet somewhere on the trail at some set time.  Just by chance, he always had an extra brush axe or machete or shovel and before you knew it you were persuaded – kind of shamed – to actually do something, run a wheel barrow, knock some brush down, build something, or move some dirt around.  Ab’s philosophy is simple.  “We can talk while we’re actually getting something done”.  I guarantee Ab is looking at this crowd right now thinking what a pity it is that all this machete labor is going to waste.

Jeff and I remember when Ab found the Eyes of Father Margil, the spring that sprung from the rock smacked by the padre himself over three hundred years ago – which saved our valley and its citizens from the grips of a horrible drought. It’s a great legend and this spot of Nacogdoches is really a beautiful vista.  There’s Shady Grove Cemetery just a hair to the west – and the springs flow through and under that landscape – to seep out from a steep bank that falls into the bottom land.  When Ab located the spring, he carved out a basin in the slope, a board walk followed, he parked some rocks around it, planted some ferns, liriope and I think a few azaleas.  Everyone was pleased.  On my first visit there after the find, Ab encouraged me to take a drink which was OK with me.  I wasn’t too crazy it was right next to a 500 grave cemetery but I have Shelby county genetics so what the heck.  I took a good swig and swirled it around in my mouth.  I can report that I found the bouquet interesting, reminiscent of a typical East Texas shallow well; a bit of iron, perhaps a twinge of sulfate and only the tiniest hint of embalming fluids.  Now, let me add that Ab drinks there all the time, which is perhaps a partial explanation for his long life and tough disposition.  Jeff Abt just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Ab’s well preserved.”

Those of you who have worked with Ab know it’s not always a walk in the park. I tend about a mile of LaNana Creek, the part that runs from Starr to Austin through SFA.  It includes the Mast Arboretum, Ruby Mize Azalea Garden, the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, and our newest feature, the Jimmy Hinds Park.  At the west entrance to the Ruby Mize Azalea Garden right next to the creek we created a weeping bald cypress alee, a first in the USA.  It’s a green tunnel that leads folks back and forth between the Mast Arboretum and the Ruby Mize Azalea Garden.  This bald cypress is a special variety called ‘Cascade Falls’ – and those with taste and culture think of it as one of the most graceful weeping trees available. This tree has fans.  Ab isn’t one of them.  He doesn’t like this tree.  I’ve tried to persuade him. I even had Ab to the middle of the treehenge Cascade Falls circle on Austin and yes, he agreed that the place is shouting karma, he could feel the energy.  So, I thought, hey, this is great.  I have a convert!  Well, here’s a recent email I want to share with you.

Dear Brother Dave,

God and I got together and discussed your introduction of the syphilitic cypress on the SFA campus. We agreed that you have done so much for the campus that you need to be rewarded. We concluded that you could put them where they would give you some kind of satisfaction, BUT NOT ANYWHERE ON THE LA NANA AND BANITA CREEK BANKS OR ALONG EITHER OF THE CREEK TRAILS. God is just and merciful to those who heed his commandments but extremely wrathful to those who say “Nay!” Sincerely, Ab, and oh yes, Jehovah.

Ouch. Now, my first reaction was to negotiate an actual distance from the creek this tree could call home – but I’ve thought better of it – and I agree to Ab’s – and God’s terms.  But, Ab, that green tunnel at Ruby Mize stays.

The value of this resource is that it’s all about critical mass. The trails are now big enough and wonderful enough to draw visitors from afar.  At the same time, the LaNana and Banita creek trails add immensely to our quality of life.  As citizens, it’s a shared resource we can all be proud of.  It’s a plus for our ecological and cultural environment.  Most of us in this room understand the value of tourism and what it can do to a community.  But there’s a problem here.  We’re three hours from Dallas, two from Houston, an hour and a half to Tyler, Longview and Shreveport.  People will not drive three hours to take on a 30 minute trail or garden walk through.  You have to be big enough for them to spend some time, spend the night, and enjoy our restaurants.  An eight mile all day walking, jogging, biking adventure on a diverse trail is a draw.  What Ab created here is the bones of a bigger vision.  Ab wants to turn all of us into trailblazers.  Take what he started and carry it to the next level.

I’ve been on many urban trails – and some are better than others. To me, the best are those that are broken up by what we call “points of interest” – a spot in the trail worth wandering around and taking a look.  I call those points of interest the Jewels of the LaNana and Banita Creek necklace.  Think about the lineup.  We’ve got Liberty Hall, El Camino Real Park, Shady Grove Cemetery, the Eyes of Father Margil, Zion Hill Baptist Cemetery, Pecan Acres Park, the Goodman Bridge, SFA Mast Arboretum, Ruby Mize Azalea Garden, Gayla Mize Garden, the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, to the new Jimmy Hinds Park on Austin.  Head West on Austin and connect with Banita Creek and go south to Ab’s Park, Banita Creek Park North, the Farmer’s market, past this fine establishment, down to Banita Creek Park South to end up at Hoya Soccer complex, Coy Sims softball field, and the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden.  Wow.  Folks this is an opportunity for serious tourism – the critical mass is here to attract tourists interested in a day long or longer adventure – an opportunity to absorb the gardens, ecology, history and culture of this special patch of the Pineywoods.

It’s all about plans, plants and people.

Thank you, Ab, for having the vision, character and perseverance to make it all happen. Let’s keep planting.

 

 

It’s no secret we like Taxodium at SFA Gardens, Nacogdoches, Texas. We’re home to a wide range of varieties, provenances, hybrids, and new forms – perhaps one of the finest collections in the world.  Well, here’s a cool clone to think about; it’s a unique fairly easy-to-root dwarf bald cypress – plus it’s a Texas native.  It was discovered on the edge of the main lake at JBerry Nursery, which was once Hawkins Nursery at Grand Saline, Texas.  As Jim Berry is prone to do with a new plant, he rooted a few, tested them for a while but finally decided not to run with the plant in his product line.  It just didn’t fit the mantra of his nursery.  It was too slow, too small, no color, and enjoyed a market of maybe ten people, of which he knew I was one.  When he asked if I wanted it I said, “let me think about it.  Yes.”  The image below is the original tree but, to be honest, it had accidentally been cut back a few years ago when the brush along the edge of the lake was being taken care of.  This is the regrowth.  If you peer through the foliage at the base, there’s a six-inch diameter trunk there.

 

I like this plant. I think it’s perfect for the small landscape – enjoying all the attributes of the species, except for size.  From our original small start of one gallon plants, we’ve built up a good number of stock plants for cutting wood.  It takes 12 weeks to build a decent root system on a cutting.  Removed from mist and very lightly fertilized, the liners can be potted up into ones during the first winter.  For the best cuttings, it’s best to cut the stock plant back hard to force strong vigorous shoots that root well.  For my way of thinking, it’s all about the stock plant.

This clone is not available in the trade that I know of.  We think it should be.  For the last few years we have been offering the plant at the SFA Gardens two annual plant sales.  We find it better than other dwarf balds because of it’s form and dense branching habit – and the fact that it can be rooted in good percentages.

Texas A & M University’s extension agent Laura Miller enjoying the shape and form of this dwarf bald cypress 

November 17, 2019

We’ve been growing Japanese maples at SFA Gardens since the mid-1980s and now have over 350 varieties scattered over 16 acres of part shade garden. In 1988, the Arboretum was a small patch of ground next to the Agriculture building.  It wasn’t long before a six-acre bottomland thicket next to LaNana creek was added.  The opportunity to evaluate plants exploded.

One of the first on the list was Japanese maples.  Keep in mind that, at that time, Japanese maples were relatively uncommon in nurseries or landscapes in Texas.  When encountered, Japanese maples were either seedlings of unknown parentage, ‘Bloodgood’ or ‘Atropurpureum’, the latter being a tree type red leafed seedling.  That was about it.  Well, I found Dell’s Japanese maples (Junction City, Oregon) and a box of 50 small grafted bare-root plants soon arrived – 50 varieties, each nicely tagged.  I think they averaged about $4 each which was barely within our budget, but a good start.  When it came to what varieties to send, I said he could just pick the fifty varieties himself knowing summers here are hot, miserable and people shouldn’t live here.  In 1988, after a year in the shade house, a small group of Horticulture students and I scattered and planted them under the high canopy pine and oak forest of the Arboretum.  Most of that original planting is still with us.

Is everything bigger in Texas? With Japanese maples in the Pineywoods, the answer is maybe!  On a visit to SFA Gardens in November 2011, Peter Gregory of Westonbirt Arboretum in England – the author of Japanese maples, now in its fourth edition – remarked that he was going to have to make some changes in his next revision of Japanese maples, at least in the size for age category! For example, our ‘Tiny Tim’ is not so tiny.  In 12 years, this variety has reached 11’ tall and 12’ at its widest and sports a 16” circumference at the ground. Most nursery catalogs and references put this variety at less than half that in ten years.  A ten-year old ‘Goshiki kotohime’ tree is 9’ tall, 8’ wide and sports a 16” trunk circumference.  Our twenty year old ‘Otohime’ and “Shishio hime’ trees are five to six feet tall and eight to ten feet wide.

 

As for favorites, it’s hard to beat some of the showy red foliaged tree type forms. ‘Red Baron’, ‘Emperor’, ‘Boskoop Glory’, ‘Bloodgood’, ‘Shaina’, ‘Moonfire’ and others all perform beautifully here.  We like ‘Seiryu’, a fine tree-type cut leaf form and when given a little sun it has excellent fall color.  ‘Orange Dream’ is incredibly bright in the spring and has been a favorite for years.  However, I have to admit that I’ve become attached to the dwarf toadstool shrub forms like ‘Oto Hime’, ‘Yatsubusa hime’, ‘Shishio hime’ and others.  They just get better with age.   Reported to reach two feet tall and 3’ to 4’ wide in ten years, our dwarf forms have reached twice that in a decade.  Our visitors are always attracted to the dense Japanese maple shrub varieties.  I’ve caught friends and visitors actually petting our big ‘Oto hime’; it creates that kind of response. Unfortunately, we’re at a state university and there are plenty of student pranksters around.  Somebody – or it could be a group – have discovered that they can quickly strip the fine leaves and branches to artistically create their own Pac man face on the shrub.  If I catch the culprit, it’s jail time.

Propagation is normally by grafting and we recommend good vigorous seedling rootstocks. We have rooted Japanese maples at various times of the year but our percentages are very low (<10%).   One thing we have noticed is that the dwarf ‘hime’ types seem to grow as fast and as large on their own roots as when grafted on vigorous seedling rootstocks.  That’s been a surprise and counter to previous reports.  Reasonably priced grafted bareroot plants are available from the Northwest at prices quite a bit less than pre-recession days – and we’ve been surprised how well trees grow off in the container.  In the landscape, our mantra is the same.  We recommend part shade or full morning sun, a slightly elevated berm, composted pine bark as a mulch, good weed control and moisture management for the first few years and only a minor amount of pruning.  We have also discovered that once well entrenched in the garden, Japanese maples are quite drought resistant and appear malady-free.  However, we have had a minor amount of squirrel damage; they’ve taken to gnawing on trunks and branches.  Don’t even ask me how well they hold up to a vicious herd of wild feral hogs.  It’s not a pretty picture.  Anyone need some bacon?

Aceraceae – About 100 M.Y.B.P. the center of origin for maples is generally accepted as central China (Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan provinces). Maples radiated in three directions (westward, southward, and northeast); the latter led into eastern Siberia and then N. America.  The species was most abundant in the Miocene from 25 to 5 M.Y.B.P.  With the ice age, 5-1.7 M.Y.B.P. there was a great reduction in range and Aceraceae pushed into present-day temperate regions.

Today, there are about 150 species with most in temperate regions. There are a few tropicals.  Rarely abundant, the species is often sympatric; that is, several maple species often reside in the same habitat without crossing.

Japanese maples is a term that normally describes the cultivars of Acer palmatum and Acer japonicum (Fullmoon maple).  Although there are two dozen additional species in Japan (more if you count introduced species), these two species have received the most interest and use.  With both there’s great tendency to mutate which has led to thousands of varieties.  There are probably 1100 varieties worldwide with peak interest in the 17^th and 18^th centuries documenting even more.  In the last decade there’s been a surge in varietal introductions as nurseries find new selections with attributes they want to share with the world.  The plethora of names has always led me to wonder, are they better, or are they just new, an opportunity for increasing plant sales?

Acer – “the sound of sharpness”

In Japanese: the Japanese maple is “Momiji” or “Kaede” – baby hand and frog hand

Cultivars are divided into eight groups by Vertrees: palmate, dissectum, deeply divided, linearilobum, dwarf, semi-dwarf, variegated, unusuals.

Variegations: In Japanese, markings on the leaf are “fu” and over twenty kinds of variegation described.  Many are available in the trade.  There’s some tendency to revert but easily controlled with a snip or two.  Butterfly – (matures at 8’, narrow tree, white and green variegation); Beni schichi henge – shrub to 8’, tri-color variegation

Landscape uses ae numerous, whether as a specimen small tree, maple glade, varieties available for the large estate gardener to patio containers; rock garden, companions with azaleas and camellias and other part-shade lovers, high canopy pine forests, etc.

Propagation: Seed generally collected when it turns brown, stratified 90 to 120 days. Most improved varieties are grafted; some can be rooted.  Some cultivars are reported as weak on their own roots.  Varieties are generally grafted on vigorous A. palmatum seedlings.  Dwarf, cascading types often grafted high which often costs more.

Locating the Japanese maple in your garden: Think sunlight first. Part shade best but some cultivars do quite well in almost full sun in East Texas (straight species, green palmate cultivars). Morning sun is fine but it’s prudent to avoid the blast of a full western sun.  Dissectums and heavily divided cultivars need protection from western sun and drying winds.  Variegated forms generally need additional protection – again depending on the cultivar’s degree of variegation. Think drainage second.  Tolerant of sands to clays – generally prefers slightly acidic soils – performs best under a good mulch.  Plant “high” – do not plant too deep – planting in a raised bed or on a berm is best.

 

Care and Culture: Japanese maples are really trouble free once well established in the landscape.  Reliable even moisture in first two to three years – particularly on plants with strong exposure to direct sunlight. Mulch with pine straw or pine bark.

Sources: Japanese maplesare becoming more available locally.  Rare and unusual varieties via mail order means homeowners can now receive robust 1 gallon plants in well-packed boxes from reputable mail order firms.

The following table is a list of strong performing maples in our collection at the SFA Mast Arboretum and in the Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden, SFA, Nacogdoches, Texas.

Acer palmatum

‘Orange Dream’ was introduced in the late 1980s by the Fratelli Gilardelb Nursery, near Milan, Italy.  This variety was selected for its unique spring colored foliage. Orange Dreamis a beacon in the shade of the Ruby M. Mize Azalea garden.  New growth is yellow green with leaf edges trimmed in hues of salmon and pink.  Fall color is red and green and less than inspired, but quite pleasing to those who appreciate a more subdued display.  Orange Dream is reported to develop into an upright bushy shrub reaching ten feet in that many years.

‘Orangeola’ was introduced in the USA in the 1980s and has found great favor in many gardens.  This is a dissectum blessed with a strong weeping habit.  With burgundy-red spring foliage, this variety greens up for the summer and is known for late summer and early fall new growth that is bright orange-red.  This is unique among Japanese maple varieties and worth noting.  In the fall, ‘Orangeola’ carries burgundy-red foliage into late December in our gardens, depending on the severity of winter freezes.  At any rate, it’s a first class specimen and should be given space to develop.  This variety is probably best trained to a 6’ to 9’ tall bamboo pole to give the variety some height.  It is strongly weeping and tends to be taller than wide.  This is a relatively new cultivar in our garden but it’s performed well in a number of spots and looks very promising.  It appears durable enough to take Texas heat and sun in good stride, at least in our region. New growth in September is red.

‘Fireglow’ is similar to ‘Bloodgood’. It’s more upright, leaves are less divided and the colors more intense.  ‘Fireglow’ foliage emerges in the spring a bright pink which quickly turns to red and then holds well into early summer.  In our garden, this variety fades to dark green foliage with a nuance of burgundy in the summer.  Fall foliage returns with the first cold spells in November, reaches a peak in December, and can be as intense as the spring with distinctive splashes of red and burgundy dominating the celebration.  ‘Fireglow’ was selected by the Fratelli Gilardelli Nursery, near Milan, Italy over 35 years ago – and it has found favor in many gardens in the southern USA.

‘Omure Yama’ wins my best in fall foliage for a Japanese maple. This variety grows relatively fast and car reach 15’ tall and as wide.  Lime green new growth in the spring has an orange leaf edge that always brings a smile to the first timer with this species.  .  But it’s the fall show that gets the A+. In my mind, this is just the right combination of reds and yellows to say “Hey! Look at me!”  ‘Omure Yama’ is fast growing and upright as a young tree.  Once a small tree or large shrub in the landscape, this variety begins to exhibit a slight cascading habit with new growth that is quite attractive.

‘Crimson Queen’ is a USA cultivar which has achieved a good presence in the southern USA. Plants can reach 10’ high and 15’ wide when well grown and time is not a problem.  Crimson Queen is a special weeping mounding form blessed with highly dissected leaves.  The variety features vibrant burgundy foliage in the spring.  In our region, the species greens up for the summer.  Fall color can vary depending on plant location.  Plants in plenty of sun – for at least part of the day – can be dramatically red and yellow.  Fall foliage on plants grown in the shade lean to the burgundy end of the color range.

‘Oto Hime’ is the SFA Mast Arboretum’s favorite toadstool award winner year in and out. Actually, this is the tree world’s version of the ugly duckling transforming into a beautiful swan.  In the container, it’s a sad looking fellow in its youth.  No doubt it’s kind of slow at first, but with a little time and good position, this plant can take off.  It’s one of those plants that just get better and better with age.  Six or seven year old plants should reach four to five feet wide, and two to three foot tall.  Our twenty year old specimen is now xx’ wide and xx tall.  We have rooted this cultivar and, as we’re prone to do with student-generated goodies, we’ve planted a good number in the SFA Mast Arboretum and Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden.  Fall color is somewhat below Japanese maple quality, but early spring growth is attractive.  Small lime-green leaves sport salmon-burgundy edges, which soon green up for the summer.  The tree is appears to be quite drought resistant once well established.  Why doesn’t someone high graft this variety on a vigorous Japanese rootstock.  Aim for a trunk of three to four feet with this toadstool-like beauty parked right on top.  Who wouldn’t like that?

Acer japonicum – Fullmoon maples

‘Vitifolium’ is a fullmoon maple that has found a happy home at SFA. We don’t have many full moon maple varieties here and most of what we have are slower growing than this cultivar.  Located in the Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden, the tree can be spotted from a good distance.  The fall color has been described by visitors as “iridescent”, “outrageous”, “striking” and foliage transitions between yellow, red and orange to make a big splash in the fall.

References: Japanese maples by Vertrees, Timber Press,4th edition, 2008; Maples of the World by V.M. van Gelderen, Jong, and Oterdoom, Timber Press, 1994; Maples for Gardens by C.J. van Gelderen and D.M. van Gelderen, Timber Press, 1999.