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.