Far Reaches Farm

Last Friday I finally got around to making my first long overdue visit to see Sue Milliken & Kelly Dodson at Far Reaches Farm. Far Reaches boasts an incredible array of rare & unusual plants many of them originally from wild collected seed with provenance. The place is a plant lovers paradise! Here are a few of the weird & wonderful plants that caught my eye.

Alniphyllum sp.

Diplopanax stachyanthus

Schefflera macrophylla

A game of conkers anyone :^)

Last Friday I had the opportunity to head North to visit Dan Hinkley at his Windcliff Garden & then on to visit Kelly & Sue at Far Reaches Farm. Great plants & great hospitality at both places! At Dan's I got to see my first ever germinating seedling of Aesculus wangii, what a monster!

A germinating seed of Aesculus wangii.

Cleaning up the cutting house.

First Blog Post in a long time, It's been a busy Summer! We spent some time cleaning up the cutting house today after the latest cold spell.

Our Pewter Stewartia

This is one of two forms of Pewter Stewartia pseudocamellia that we have been working with for a few years.

Stewartia pseudocamellia - Plantmad Pewter Form #1

We're Back!!

Every year by the end of May after a busy Spring Season I'm often a bit burned out with Nursery Work & Plants in general! The work doesn't go away but the desire to keep up with the Nursery Blog & Facebook Page is something I can let slip. This year that slip turned into a full on slide! But now all our plants are potted & our Summer cuttings are almost done & so I can start taking it easy again :)..

The Mist System is almost Full for the year!

Why one should never be too hasty!

I'ts been quite a while since I posted anything to the Plantmad Blog / Facebook Page! After a very busy Spring I was a bit burned out by it all but now the Spring madness is past & I'm returning to my former self!

Why one should never be too hasty to throw away seed, especially if it wild collected. These Chilean Plum Yews (Prumnopitys andina) were wild collected in Chile 2011 & sown in 2012 but didn't germinate until 2014!

Lookin' good in Pink!

Wisteria floribunda 'Honbeni'

Our Wisteria floribunda 'Honbeni' is looking good in the garden at the moment. There seem to be several pink clones out there in the trade & they all appear to be mixed up! We are pretty confident that this is the correct form with good pink color.

Mirranda's Hydrangea.

Hydrangea anomala petiolaris 'Mirranda'

Our Mirranda Hydrangea has woken up after her winter slumber! 

Davidia involucrata 'Kylee's Columnar'

Davidia involucrata 'Kylee's Columnar'

This is another Davidia introduction from Crispin Silva of Crispin's Creations Nursery. Selected for it's columnar form it also has the advantage of blooming at a young age often even before they are potted up from the plug tray!

The Next Step!

The next step in our Wisteria propagation process. After three weeks on the callus bed the grafted plants are potted up into liner pots. The trouble with mature stock plants is that a lot of the wood is full of flower buds! We have to cut these flower buds off before they open so that a second shoot can being growing. If we don't remove the flowers the plants will "flower themselves to death"!!

New grafts of Wisteria floribunda 'Black Dragon'

Wisteria grafting at Plantmad

Wisteria grafting at Plantmad

Last week we had a request from someone wanting to see how we graft our Wisteria so here it is! We first cut up our Wisteria floribunda seedling rootstocks into 4" to 5" sections. This allows us to get 3 grafted plants from each seedling Wisteria. The first being grafted at the very base of the seedling stem followed by 2 more being grafted on root pieces. While grafting I catch up on my BBC Radio 4 Podcasts :^)..

A Winter Casualty

One plant that succumbed to our February Snow & Ice was our large Grevillea victoriae in the front garden. It's come through worse snow storms in the past but this last one nailed it!

Still Grafting!

Still busy grafting at Plantmad, we are about half way through our Wisteria crop. Here Chiyoko is busy putting another days production onto the callus bed.

Our 'Mirranda' isn't a 'Firefly' .........

Recently is was brought to our attention that the plant Hydrangea anomala petiolaris 'Firefly' is sometimes being incorrectly labeled & sold with the name Mirranda™ attached to it. If this is happening then it is incorrect, Hydrangea anomala petiolaris 'Mirranda' is not the same plant as Hydrangea anomala petiolaris 'Firefly'. Even though they are both variegated climbing Hydrangeas and may even be indistinguishable they both arose as variegated sports on different plants in different parts of the Country.

The Firefly clone was introduced by Daniel Benarcik of Wilmington Delaware & patented in 1997. The Mirranda clone was selected & developed by me from a small variegated sport on a one gallon plant of the species here in Oregon in 1992. The plant is named after my daughter Mirranda, hence the spelling with the double R as I also misspelled my daughters name on her birth certificate when she was born! After several years of evaluation & successively propagating new generations from the most variegated shoot tips we released the plant as a stable variegated cultivar without patent or trademark protection in 1999.

The Mirranda™ designation would also be incorrect even if it was on our plant as being the Cultivar Name it is part of the botanical plant name & so not eligible for Trademarking. Hopefully this will help clear up some of the labeling confusion that may be happening out in the industry.

Left to right: Chiyoko, Guy, Anwen & Mirranda :^)

Elk Lake Oregon, August 2009. 

Testing the limits!!

The Arctic Blast of last December followed by the Snow & Ice of February has really tested our Kniphofia northiae to it's limits! It looks pretty ugly at the moment but we are hopeful that it's going to pull through & regain it's former glory!

A Day of Seed Sowing....

We received 2 large bags of stratified Stewartia pseudocamellia seed today from a local nursery friend yesterday. This was doubly good because it meant I could spend time in the greenhouse sowing seed rather than being outside in the rain cutting & collecting Scion wood :)..

Snowpocalypse 2.0 Ends!

Last Summer's rooted cuttings snug under frost blanket in our snow covered mist house.

It was a busy 3 days of raking, banging & knocking snow off the Plantmad greenhouses. Just when we thought we were going to get through the winter without a big snow event this year! We still had time time take a few garden & nursery photos though!

Chiyoko hard at work!

Blue sky, a red Which Hazel & a yellow Winter Sweet!

Photographed on a Blue Sky Day in the Plantmad garden last weekend!

Chimonanthus praecox 'Su Xin La Mei'

Chimonanthus praecox 'Su Xin La Mei'  was imported from China by a friend of ours a number of years ago. It came with this name but this may not be a valid Cultivar name. I believe the "La Mei" part at least is just the Chinese word for Chimonanthus. It looks very much like the the cultivar 'Luteus'.

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Ruby Glow'

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Ruby Glow' is an old cultivar & it's flowers are not that large but it's deep red color is still something that is hard to beat.

Three Nutmeg Yews!

We made a few cuttings of three Nutmeg Yews today Torreya californica, Torreya nucifera & the endangered Torreya taxifolia from Florida. In case anyone is wondering all cuttings were collected locally in Oregon & no endangered plants crossed state lines! Torreya are curious relatives of the Yews, there are 6 species world wide, 3 from China, 1 from Japan & Korea, 1 from California & 1 from Florida. For more information on Florida's rare & endangered Torreya taxifolia your can check out the Torreya Guardians website.

Six Which Hazels!

Six Which Hazels

Six Which Hazels that are flowering in the garden at the moment.

H. mollis 'Brevipetala' | H. ovalis | H. vernalis 'Orange Sunrise'

H. vernalis 'Purpurea' | H. x intermedia 'Winter Beauty' | H. x intermedia 'Glowing Embers' 

Another chilly morning...

I walked around the garden taking some frosty photos last Saturday Morning. Above is Cotoneaster microphyllus 'Thymifolius' and below is Grevillea miqueliana subsp. moroka which with the layer of frost on the leaves is looking more like a Senecio or a Brachyglottis!

A Frosty Dwarf Pagoda...

Just a photo of a Frosty Ilex crenata 'Dwarf Pagoda' taken early morning on 01/05/14

Gettin' Ready........

We cleaned up & serviced our callus bed today then we squeezed a new 4th line onto the side.

Almost time to get started....

A few Wheel Trees!

We have a few different clones of Trochodendron araliodes around the garden & nursery. Here is a comparison of how some of them look after our recent cold Spell.

T. aralioides DJHT 99031 is a Daniel Hinkley seed collection from Taiwan. The new foliage emerges with a shinny maroon color in the Spring. The seedlings in the center photo we grown from seed collected at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle, they have taken on many different color shades after the winter cold. On the right is whats known as the Iseli Clone. I believe it was originally imported from Japan by Iseli Nursery in the 1980's. The plant has wonderfully clean green foliage even during the winter months. Unfortunately it's proved to be the most difficult clone to propagate!