Richard Bellord's camelias

Camellias At Dusk In A Chinese Garden

If it isn't already on your radar for the trip you will inevitably take to my fair city, Portland, OR. (enough about theirs), do not choose between this and fill-in-the-blank: Powell's, Multnomah Falls, Forest Park, your sister-in-law's. The name of the game here in any weather is the Classical Chinese Garden.

The first red rudbeckia

Posted by Graham Rice on 07 Aug 2008 at 02:02 PM

There are lots of exciting new plants around now and here’s news of the first ever red rudbeckia. ‘Cherry Brandy’ is the result of fifteen years careful selection at Thompson & Morgan Seeds. Click on the pictures to see larger versions revealing the astonishing colouring. “The colour really is as you see in the picture, red with a darker centre,” T&M’s plant breeder Charles Valins told me. “The colour is quite stable, in shades varying from light to deep red.

“This is a breeding program I finished rather than started. Keith Sangster started about 15 years ago to try and get red out of various bronze flowered rudbeckia selections. He thought the red colour was probably present beneath the bronze shades. Ruthless selection for the reddest plants year after year resulted in the colour breakthrough we just introduced.”

(Keith Sangster, by the way, ran T&M’s British business for many years and started them down the road of breeding their own flowers. He is now Vice Chairman of the RHS Floral Trials Committee.)

‘Cherry Brandy' was been awarded a Fleuroselect Novelty Award after trials all over Europe and very narrowly missed an All America Selections award - it was the highest rated annual but just missed out in a year in which no awards for annuals were given.

This looks like a great plant for mixed borders, reaching 60cm/24in in height, it would make a superb centrepiece in large containers and should also make a great cut flower. T&M already have the excellent double rudbeckia, ‘Cherokee Sunset’, in gold and orange and rusty shades, as well as ‘Chim Chiminee’ in similar shades but with fluted petals. I bet they have red doubles on the way.

Seed of Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’ will be available in the 2009 Thompson & Morgan catalogue which will be posted in mid September. You can request a catalogue here. You can also order online from early September. Young plants can be ordered from January 2009.

The light was fading, the rain was falling and the leaves played like fish beneath one of the many pavillions that provide respite in the garden. Not a great many maples were still holding their leaves on this 1st day of December, but this little poser kindly obliged. Need sound? Give a listen to this story.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

I am no indiscriminate city booster. And never mind that my voice is on the audio tour (snore). I have watched this garden grow and mature since its opening in 2000 and I now consider a good many of its plants my personal friends. As such, I can think of no other garden open to the public where it's absolutely always a good time to visit (OK, so skip it when it's crowded). Of course there are richer moments than others -- particularly when fragrances float on the air -- but the garden is simply too complex to reveal itself in any single day.

The last fruit on a persimmon tree as shown off by a shower of weeping willow and the peaked roofs that take wing throughout the garden. I like to think of them as directionals to more celestial planes.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

I fear you're going to want to know the name of the persimmon tree above. The number of Diospyros species is frightening so as of this writing I can't say for sure, except that because it's in the Chinese garden, it ain't going to be one of our native trees.

It was probably 4:15pm when I stopped by to grab a few pictures, almost too late for natural light but high time for a tripod. Alas, none to be had. This low-growing camellia's blossoms were spread out in such a way that its flowers seemed to float along the ground.