Touring wholesale nurseries in Oregon’s Willamette Valley at the annual Nurseryman’s convention is very much like Christmas shopping. The new and exciting plants are being shown to buyers from the whole world, many for the first time. I have been riding on a bus with fellow enthusiasts, all knowledgeable and experienced, and all as excited as I.
We started at a grower specializing in conifers, (needle bearing plants, rather than leafy ones) particularly newly released types. These are particularly interesting for us in Alaska, since many are hardy enough for our conditions, and have the added advantage of being evergreen rather than losing their leaves during winter.
In our wild world we have Sitka Spruces, Western Hemlocks, Mountain Hemlocks and Shore Pines. That’s not a lot of variety, even though the numbers are tremendous. We do not see the incredible variety of species that will thrive here, nor the vast number of varieties each species contains.
One of the nicest trees for our zone is the Norway Spruce, several of which can be seen at the end of the parking lot at the Mendenhall Valley Post Office. They are a brighter green than the Sitka Spruce, and more importantly for domestic plantings, they are soft to the touch and do not irritate the skin when you brush by them.
In the species, there are hundreds of forms. Some are tall and majestic like our wild forests, but there are also many smaller ones, slender ones, weeping ones, golden tipped ones, and several like the round balls shaped ones at the McDonalds drive-thru window.
I like to use them in gardens because of the color and texture, but the big ones are just as difficult as the Sitkas because they grow so fast and are so dominant. Just like the natives, they get 30 feet in 20 years, and are 20 feet across. I was thrilled to find one that topped out at 12-15 feet, and was 6 feet wide at maturity. This makes using them in yards so much more appealing.
Those who have seen the one spring flowering Magnolia planted in front of the Dimond Courthouse in the memorial garden dedicated to Chief Justice Jay Rabinowitz, noticed how prolifically it bloomed this year. It had hundreds of 8 inch starshaped pure white blooms in May, the most it has borne in the 20 years it has been growing there. When we planted it, along with the Red Flowering Crabapple and the Yaku Prince Rhododendrons, it was the hardiest of all known Magnolias, and its survival and flourishing were a new experience for Juneau.
Yesterday I was introduced to another one, from the same breeders, that was even hardier, faster growing, and pink. Wow, was I thrilled, the specimens I saw were 8 feet tall, 4-5 feet across and 6 years old. The grower said they would get about 10 feet. Of course we are always going to be slower, given our cool weather, but a bright pink flowering Magnolia that will grow in Alaska will be very welcome. The name of this wonderful new introduction is “Centennial Blush Magnolia.”
Next on the hit parade is a hardy Hibiscus, a type known as “Rose of Sharon”, distinctly different from the tropical ones we use as house plants. These small tree shaped shrubs have flowers like Hollyhocks on woody tough shrubs that get 6-10 feet tall. They are fairly common on the great plains, but have not proven hardy here. The new ones are French, and are said to be zone 2, hardy to minus 50, we will get a few this next season and trial them.
The worry here is not really low temperature, it gets a lot colder in Montana and Wyoming, to say nothing of North Dakota. It’s really about how long they will stay dormant. This spring it warmed to 40 in February, and the world began to come alive. When it went back to 6 in March, it was devastating to many species. The buds that had begun to swell, and the stems where the sap had begun to rise, were frozen to death. It was particularly tough on spring blooming perennials like Bleeding Hearts, and to the normally very hardy Mugo Pines.
If you are interested in helping us trial some of these new introductions please contact us through our new website, www.landscapealaska.com. It’s always interesting to see new possibilities, and to have a new plant to treasure is a delight.
• David Lendrum and Margaret Tharp operate Landscape Alaska, a nursery and landscape business located on the Back Loop Road in Juneau. Visit their website at www.landscapealaska.com, or reach them at landscapealaska@gmail.com. This column “Landscape Alaska” appears every other week.
A new, hardy hibiscus. (Photo by David Lendrum)
