Conifer Quarterly Vol. 24 No. 4 Fall 2007 Picea pungens ‘The Blues’ 2008 Collectors Conifer of the Year Full-size Selection Photo Credit: Courtesy of Stanley & Sons Nursery, Inc. CQ_FALL07_FINAL.qxp:CQ 10/16/07 1:45 PM Page 1 The Conifer Quarterly is the publication of the American Conifer Society Contents 6 Competitors for the Dwarf Alberta Spruce by Clark D. West 10 The Florida Torreya and the Atlanta Botanical Garden by David Ruland 16 A Journey to See Cathaya argyrophylla by William A. McNamara 19 A California Conifer Conundrum by Tim Thibault 24 Collectors Conifer of the Year 29 Paul Halladin Receives the ACS Annual Award of Merits 30 Maud Henne Receives the Marvin and Emelie Snyder Award of Merit 31 In Search of Abies nebrodensis by Daniel Luscombe 38 Watch Out for that Tree! by Bruce Appeldoorn 43 Andrew Pulte awarded 2007 ACS $1,000 Scholarship by Gerald P. Kral Conifer Society Voices 2 President’s Message 4 Editor’s Memo 8 ACS 2008 National Meeting 26 History of the American Conifer Society – Part One 34 2007 National Meeting 42 Letters to the Editor 44 Book Reviews 46 ACS Regional News Vol. 24 No. 4 CONIFER QUARTERLY 1 CQ_FALL07_FINAL.qxp:CQ 10/16/07 1:45 PM Page 2 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Conifer s I start this letter, we are headed into Afall. In my years of gardening, this has been the most memorable year ever. It started Quarterly with an unusually warm February and March, followed by the record freeze in Fall 2007 Volume 24, No 4 April, and we just broke a record for the number of consecutive days in triple digits. The Conifer Quarterly (ISSN 8755-0490) is To make things worse, prior to yesterday, we published quarterly by the American Conifer had no rain for more than two months. This Society. The Society is a non-profit organization incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth is when gardening challenges the soul and of Pennsylvania and is tax exempt under section separates those in it for the long haul from 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Service Code. the faint of heart. You are invited to join our Society. Please On the positive side, with the exception address membership and other inquiries to the American Conifer Society National Office, 175 of a half dozen or so new conifers that were Charisma Lane, Lewisville, NC 27023-9611. not established, all others survived and are Membership: US $30 (indiv.), $35 (joint), looking great. When compared with the $30 (institutional), $50 (sustaining), $100 many angiosperms in the arboretum, the (corporate business) and $130 (patron). If you are moving, please notify the National Office 4 weeks conifers are the centerpieces in early Sep- in advance. tember. More and more people in the South All editorial and advertising matters should be are beginning to come to this realization. sent to: Evelyn Cox, 342 North Main Street, Suite I had the good fortune to attend both the 202, Alpharetta, Georgia 30004. (770) 663-7576 or email [email protected]. Central Region Meeting in Madison, Wis- consin, and the National Meeting in Seattle, Editor Washington. Both were well attended, and Evelyn Cox from my vantage point, both went exception- Technical Editors ally well. This is due in large part to the hard Ethan Johnson work of many dedicated volunteers. I espe- Susan Martin cially want to thank our national secretary, R. William Thomas Kathleen Pottratz, for her tireless efforts in Advisory Committee helping ensure that the National Meeting was Ellen Kelley, Committee Chair such a success. Kathleen had a triple chal- Anne Brennan lenge: a full time job at Fischer Farms Nurs- Marvin Snyder ery, preparing the meeting packets for the ex officio: Tom Cox ex officio: Don Wild Board of Directors meeting, and planning the ex officio: John Martin National Meeting. I want to now depart from my tradi- Copyright © 2007, American Conifer Society. All tional president’s letter to update you on sev- rights reserved. No material contained herein may be reproduced in any form without prior written eral fronts. permission of the publisher. Opinions expressed by authors and advertisers are not necessarily Board of Directors (BOD) meeting: The those of the Society. summer BOD meeting was held on July 26, Note: Hardiness Zone references in the 2007. Conifer Quarterly are USDA classifications unless Financials – Every significant revenue cate- otherwise specified. gory is ahead of last year; including mem- 2CONIFER QUARTERLY Vol. 24 No. 4 CQ_FALL07_FINAL.qxp:CQ 10/16/07 1:45 PM Page 3 GE BY TOM COX bership dues (3%) and Conifer Quarterly ad- coordinator. Walter Cullerton has stepped up vertising (31%). The 2007 Collectors Conifer to run this program. His job is to work with of the Year (CCOY) has outperformed the the press in all areas of publicizing the Soci- total of last year’s 2006 CCOY and National ety. If you have questions or input, Walter Meeting auction combined (a special thanks would love to hear from you. His e-mail ad- to Ridge Goodwin who oversees this pro- dress is [email protected]. gram). Two additional life memberships have been purchased. The National Operating 2007 National Meeting – The 2007 meeting Fund account balance of $212,140 is 132% was held in Seattle, Washington, July 27–29. higher than the balance on hand of $91,379 at We had 190 paid attendees, which ranked this this point last year, reflecting meeting and the third highest attended meeting in the his- Post Tour income that has yet to be offset by tory of the ACS. We had seven past presi- expenses for these events. We are operating dents in attendance, a fact I regretfully failed in the black. to acknowledge during my welcoming Membership – The total number of mem- speech. These were: berships in the Society as of June 30, 2007, Bob Fincham 1983–1987 was 1,899 compared with 1,889 on January Frank Goodhart 1996–1997 1, 2007, when the membership year began. Jordan Jack 1997–1999 One area of concern is the rate at which we Larry Stanley 1995–1996 are attracting new members. While our mem- Marvin Snyder 1999–2002 ber retention rate is around 80%, high for an Dennis Groh 2002–2004 organization such as ours, this is the fourth Don Wild 2004–2006 straight year that we have had a decline in the We were blessed with perfect weather new member component over the previous and beautiful gardens. Based on the feedback year. This suggests several things: a) we ap- that I received, both the National Meeting pear to be doing a good job overall in meet- and the Post Tour went well. As with any ing the needs of the current membership event, there are always things that we can do base, b) our recruitment efforts are falling better, and effective with this meeting, we short of where we need to be, and c) as our have implemented a standard “after action” current membership ages, it is imperative that report and attendee feedback form. A book we make this an area of high priority. This will be created that will contain all feedback, will be a topic of focus at our Winter BOD as well as lessons learned. The intent is that meeting in February 2008. If you have sug- this be passed on to the region hosting the gestions or want to volunteer, please contact next meeting. Hopefully, we then don’t re- me at [email protected]. peat areas where we did not perform as well ACS Web site – The Web site continues to be as we would like. updated and significant improvements have Lastly, I had the honor of presenting our been made. If you have not accessed it re- two Awards of Merit to two deserving indi- cently, I suggest you give it a look. The plant viduals: Maud Henne and Paul Halladin. database is quite extensive (4,600 records Read the complete details inside this issue. with more than 2,000 photos) and is most helpful for those doing research or verifying Have a great fall with lots of rain, where a plant name. Thanks, Bill Barger. needed, and cooler weather. Publicity – The ACS now has a National PR Vol. 24 No. 4 CONIFER QUARTERLY 3 CQ_FALL07_FINAL.qxp:CQ 10/16/07 1:45 PM Page 4 EDITOR’S MEMO BY EVELYN COX ur theme for this issue is “Unusual, a few seeds. Once home, they work hard ORare, and Endangered Conifers.” I to cultivate them for future generations. thought about the word “endangered” Were it not for the efforts of individuals while watching television coverage of a such as these, many plants would face cer- recent plane crash into one of the Great tain extinction – especially in China Lakes. The hero of the story must have where rapid development is claiming had something similar to the word endan- much of the native forest. gered in mind when he jumped into action We have some photos from Dr. Clark in response to this tragic event. West of some seedlings he’s unsure about Perhaps assuming that all on board and from North Carolina, we have a story were not lost but endangered, he thrust a about Bruce Appeldoorn’s unusual expe- small boat into the water and frantically rience in the plant world. At our recent rowed, even as darkness settled. By taking National Meeting, Bruce told me he was immediate action, and after much search- writing an article for us about the difficul- ing, he was able to rescue a seven-year- ties that can occur when gardeners run old boy who otherwise would have into extra large problems.