Hobbiton conifers of the month, March

11 years ago

Another quick trip through my gardens and a late showing. I've been busy busy BUSY here moving plants, staking, pruning, cleaning, heck even watering. This week we're exploding into Spring with temps in the mid to upper 60s and sunshine for the next week or so.

I dig the new photobucket but the brutal advertisements on the garden web are really dampering my parade of photos I'll be sharing. Perhaps it's for the best, as I know some people don't want to see too many photos in the main forum area.

On to the plants!

Pinus mugo 'Sherwood Compact' - Becoming more common which is a great thing as this is a true dwarf mugo growing an inch or two a year.
{{gwi:675043}}

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Blue Gem' - Fast growing but very narrow.
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Pinus densiflora x mugo 'Edsal Wood' - Really compact, beautiful green pine that grows pretty slowly.
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Picea abies 'Gold Finch' - One of the new gold seedlings from Bob Fincham.
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Pinus heldreichii 'Smidtii' - Great dark apple green color and compact form.
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Pinus nigra 'Brita' - Tiny little gal.
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Unknown chamaecyparis. Sure glows in the dark.
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Pinus mugo 'Carstens' and 'Zundert' both in the same image showing their different forms but similarly brilliant Winter color. Picea pungens 'Montana Ave.' Also in the foreground.

A color shot of the lower gardens.
{{gwi:675051}}

-Will

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Comments (23)

Windhaven
11 years ago
I love love LOVE looking at your gardens Will. Seeing the colors mixed in with all the shapes and textures always inspires me.

Thanks for sharing!
outback63 Dennison
11 years ago
Your unknown Chamaecyparis .....

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Melody'

Dave
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Heya Matt. Many of the conifer in pots have been in there five years now. I am planning on leaving many of them in pots until their tops don't allow it. I figure the largest pots can probably contain them for a decade, even if it's not a perfect soil/root setting. They don't need water too often. I don't prune the roots at ALL. The potting mix has been simply a combination of some bark fines, sand and top soil/other soils. Nothing overly special and it seems to drain OK. We regularly get 30 inches of rain in the wet months and they seem to be just fine. -Will
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The person who criticized my posts for being too complicated, better just stop now. I guess it helps to remember the zones are 'USDA', which is the US department of agriculture and really has nothing to do with ornamental plants. Nein. Ornamental plants ARE part of the USDA's mission. That's why the National Arboretum is under their aegis. Remember wholesale nurseries definitely are a form of agriculture. The USDA zone system gives the barest measure of whether a plant can survive in a given area. Obviously, something hardy only in zone 10 cannot survive in zone 6. Beyond that, there are many other factors. The latest revised USDA zone map seems very accurate to me. I know of gardens along the Delaware river in NJ that really do seem like zn 7b. But it took a ridiculously long time to come out...considering the overall crunching of data probably took a few hours on a high perf. workstation or server. 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Hi John, in an effort to keep it friendly, I'm not going to refute your assertion. I've been a member of ACS for 13 years now. I joined in the very first year that I thought conifers were cool. Sara's just gotten going; I believe she's on year 3 and Will's only been going a couple of years beyond that. I guess what I'm getting at is that our organization is a great place to gain experience and education and I believe that quality has a value. Quality is why I buy my plants from specialty growers instead of box stores. I would never speak badly about GW. I've met a lot of friends here and have gotten a lot of information (mostly good, but some bad as well. It's the internet after all). However, I am over-the-moon gaga about the ACS site. It's pretty, the only ads are from conifer growers and there's a certain comradery knowing that everybody on the site is either a professional grower, a scholar in the field of conifers, or a really serious amateur. I hope over time we get scores of "newbies" who join our association for the same reason that they'd pay tuition to attend a fine college. $38 a year. That gets me: o full access to the website o the privilege to attend awesome conferences and meetings. o the Conifer Quarterly - a really cool publication o the seed program and Conifer of the Year Program o and probably a few other things that I've forgotten To me, all that is worth way more than $38. BTW, lifetime membership is only $1000. If I was a bit younger, that's the way I'd go, but I did the math. Well, you know. . . . I hope we're all good here. I'm not going anywhere. I just know where I need to focus my energy. Peace. ~Dave
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tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
11 years ago
Nice pix, Will, thank you. Is that Chammy 'Melody' perhaps?

As for the mugo 'Sherwood Compact', it may start slow but this pic shows its potential. That's it in the middle.

{{gwi:599052}}

tj
ritmatt
11 years ago
Wow, absolutely beautiful! I am so impressed. What state are you in?
PRO
David Olszyk, President, American Conifer Society
11 years ago
Good stuff as always Will. I really like Pinus nigra 'Brita.' Never seen her before. She's a real cutie. The mystery Cham could also be Ch. obtusa 'Lucas.' Both have that really cool, netty foliage.

'Schmidtii'
'Schmidti'
'Schmidt'
'Schmid'
?????

I've seen all these attempts to designate this one little tree. Can we finally settle on the correct name, please. (At least we all finally got the heldreichii part right, LOL).
monkeytreeboy15
11 years ago
'Lucas' would be my guess on that Chamaecyparis as well.
'Melody' would still have a bronze color... unless your specimen is in shade..

Dave, what about 'Smidt'?

-Sam
PRO
David Olszyk, President, American Conifer Society
11 years ago
'Smidt'
'Smid'

I've seen those as well. Absolutely crazy!

~Dave
hungrymind
11 years ago
Always enjoy your photos Will! Fine display of color and texture! thanks.

Rob
Cher
11 years ago
Some great plant choices. I love both Cham's and still think Montana Ave is such a choice conifer to have. The golds on either side make it stand out.
Cher
outback63 Dennison
11 years ago
Will,

Use Monzilla Firefox with Ad Blocker. Put an end to all those advertisements.

'Melody' and 'Lucas' appear to be the same cultivar.

Any back ground on either? Maybe Joy can clear it up.

'Smidt' is correct for the Pinus heldreichii .

Dave

Dave
coniferjoy
11 years ago
Will, I had in mind that you were out of lawn, your last pic is showing some.
But after taking a closer look, I see you took it from your neighbour's side, right? :o)
The focal point for me is your Picea abies 'Elegans'...

'Melody' and 'Lucas' are not the same cultivar.
The 'Melody' was found in the U.S. as a branch mutation on a Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Graciosa'.
The 'Melody' does have a compact, upright growing habit.

The 'Lucas' was found in The Netherlands as a chance seedling by the late Kas Koemans from Boskoop.
This one does have a wide, upright growing habit.

The true name is 'Smidtii' for the the Pinus heldreichii.
This is because it was found by Eugene Smidt in 1926 in the wild in the neighbourhood of Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Because this is before 1959, a double ii got involved.

It was first propagated in 1964 and this makes people think that the correct cultivar name is 'Smidt'.
This isn't true, the year of finding is always determinative...
outback63 Dennison
11 years ago
Joy

Please clarify this. Have you changed your mind regarding this cultivars name?

Read entire post in link.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Schmidtii'
coniferjoy
11 years ago
Dave, yes, I did.
My personal conifer database will be better by the day.
This is because my fellow conifer minded friends around the world are giving me new info regularly.

Because of the formerly not complete info it also was 'Smidt' for me for a long time. The new complete info for me says it's 'Smidtii'.

In fact it must be written as 'ÃÂ midtii'...
maple_grove_gw
11 years ago
Will,

Love that shot of C.l. 'Blue Gem'. It looks fantastic against the flowering Erica and the gold deodara, and the adjacent pungens really helps to highlight its blue color.

some people don't want to see too many photos in the main forum area

I think it's only the GW admins that feel this way. Forum members agree, the photos are the best part of the forum. I do agree that the new GW format has put a damper on the photos. Even with Adblock, the photos are now smaller than previously, with lower resolution and less detail. The format reflects GW's desire to optimize viewability on smartphones and tablets (really there were always a lot of ads). This is a real shame since it's sinking to the lowest common denominator...to cater to phone viewers, I have to suffer with smaller pictures on my widescreen computer monitor? In my book, this is a much bigger blow than moving the photo galleries to the 'Galleries' format.

That said, I really hope these format woes don't dampen your enthusiasm for posting pics Will. Your photo posts are always a treat, plus they're a great resource for other ACS co-dependents.

Alex

This post was edited by maple_grove on Sat, Mar 30, 13 at 13:40
jinxz5
11 years ago
Will, I also enjoy your photos. Your garden is a delight. It seems your posts always bring about interesting civil discussion which I also enjoy. Thank you. Jay
firefightergardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Wow, thank you for the flattering comments. My gardens are chaos and overwhelming to most gardeners, but I am glad some of my conehead forum buddies enjoy them.

Ritmass, I'm in Washington state, near Seattle.

TJ, that's a GREAT looking specimen and still wonderfully dwarf to my eyes. Looks to be 15-20 years old as well. I can only hope mine looks that nice down the road.

Edwin, you're correct, it's the neighbors, who stubbornly insists on an acre of turf. Moles, watering, brown messy turf in late Summer. Fertilizer, mowing, I just don't get it but to each their own. I DO love the 'Elegantissima' as well and it will remain in my lower gardens and I'll move others out of it's way(or prune it up ever so slightly).

Dave, I don't actually get popups but as Alex alluded to, it's the shrinkening of the photo space that annoys me, and most of it, once the adds at the upper portion of the screen are gone, is 40% blank!

I don't use a 'smartphone', and find them still pretty dumb but I do understand their cattering to the masses. It just makes me a little less eager to post photos and visit their site. I'm not going anywhere though. Fine people like you guys and gals keep me here.

-Will
unprofessional
11 years ago
I'll admit your gardens are too busy for my tastes, but I still enjoy seeing your pictures and generally note one or two conifers I'll probably end up getting down the line, such as that Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Blue Gem'. Just how fast is it growing?
PRO
David Olszyk, President, American Conifer Society
11 years ago
Edwin, I'd like to reexamine the 'Smidtii' problem. Since the the finders's name is Eugene ÃÂ midt, don't we as people who don't use that particual letter in our alphabet have to spell his name:

Szmidt

and therefore, shouldn't the cultivar name actually be:

Pinus heldreichii 'Szmidtii'

I'm applying the "umlaut rule" of German to the Czech language here. What do you think? . . .

~Dave
coniferjoy
11 years ago
Dave, you're right.
The thing is that I learned the "umlaut thing" at a young age at high school.
The "Czech language thing" I learned here at the forum recently ago, I guess nobody knew this before and that's why they got rid of the special marks and wrote it furthur the same way.
The strange thing is that even collectors and nurseries from the Czech Republic write it like 'Smidtii'...

Btw did you copy and paste the ÃÂ midt name or did you find the right buttons at your keyboard?
Simoni
11 years ago
Hi Edwin
Finder is Eugen Smidt (in the year 1926), no hook over S...

L+M S (sorry no S but ÃÂ )
PRO
David Olszyk, President, American Conifer Society
11 years ago
Thank you Edwin and Lenny. This information brings the story to a close.

I did a cut-and-paste, Edwin. I don't know what buttons to push. LOL. Have a great day my friends!

~Dave
coniferjoy
11 years ago
Lenny, I'did my homework well in advance, his name is Eugen ÃÂ midt with the hook above the S...

Here is a link that might be useful: Eugen Å midt
Simoni
11 years ago
Hi Edwin,
we have other information sources 8-), but in our list of plants we let Smidtii ..... thanks for the information
L+M S

Hobbiton conifers of the month, March

Comments (23)

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