Southeastern Conifer

Southeastern Conifer American Conifer Society Southeastern Region Volume 16 October 2013 Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia Inside This Issue From the SE President By John Ruter,GA Page 1 SE Reference Gardens and Announcements Page 2 Grant for Lockerly Arboretum, GA By Beth Jimenez NC Page 3 Barbie Colvin and the SE Reference Gardens Program Page 3 By Flo Chaffin, GA The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, SC By Lindsey Kerr, SC Pages 4,5,6 Cryptomeria japonica Globosa Nana By Bradley Roberts. GA Page 7 Boxed Lebanon Cedars in Washington DC By Maud Henne, VA Page 8 Headline Photos by Maud Henne, VA Events ACS SE Region Meeting in Memphis, TN October 11 and 12, 2013 ACS National Meeting in,atlanta, GA June 13 and 14, 2014 From the ACS SE President As the new President of the Southeastern Region I would like to offer a warm welcome to everyone. I started the job by attending the National Meeting in Mt. Kisko, NY back in August. Everyone who attended the meeting had a great time, and we saw some fantastic gardens. Several of us were able to meet and begin discussions on our needs for hosting next year s meeting in Atlanta, GA. I may be calling on several of you for help during this coming year. If you would like to know a little more about me, please check out the June 2013 issue of Southeastern Conifer. Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit with the good folks at Lockerly Arboretum in Milledgeville, GA and present them a check in the amount of $3,000 from the ACS to expand their Reference Garden. Jim Garner and Bradley Roberts from the Arboretum gave me and Barbie Colvin a wonderful tour, and we had good discussions about the upcoming expansion of their conifer collection. Speaking of Reference Gardens, I would like to welcome our new chair of this committee: Beth Jimenez, from NC. Beth has a good group of committed ACS SE members (Flo Chaffin, Amelia Lane, and Sharon Logan) to help keep the regional Reference Garden program expanding and going strong. Beth can be reached at beth6744@bellsouth.net. Coming up is our Southeast Regional meeting to be held in Memphis, TN, on October 11 and 12. I look forward to meeting many of you there. If you are able to volunteer some time for the meeting, please contact: Sue Hamilton at 865-974-7972 ; e-mail : sueham@utk.edu. All of us would appreciate your efforts Whether you will be coming to the meeting or not, please send lots of cool plants for the annual auction. This is a big money raising function for the society and provides lots of entertainment as well. I am sure that members from your area who are attending the meeting would be glad to bring plants to the auction for you. In addition to the book that Tom Cox and I recently published on Landscaping with Conifers and Gingko for the Southeast, another very nice reference book (actually two volumes) is the RHS Encyclopedia of Conifers. Ron Elardo, editor of our Conifer Quarterly for ACS, is an authorized distributor for this publication. If interested in ordering the books you can reach Ron Elardo at: conifereditor@yahoo,com. And last and certainly not least I would like to thank Dr. Sue Hamilton for her service over the past two years as our SE President. Job well done and I look forward to her help as our new VP. Until we meet in Memphis! John Ruter ruter@uga.edu

Page 2 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Leadership Change for ACS SE Region Reference Garden By Barbie Colvin, GA I am pleased to let everyone know that the reins of the Reference Garden program in the SE Region have been transferred to the very capable hands of ACS member Beth Jimenez, NC, and her Reference Garden Committee members Flo Chaffin, GA, Amelia Lane, NC, and Sharon Logan, VA. Over the past few months we have slowly migrated information and responsibilities to this new team and in future updates, announcements, grant information and annual summary requests will come from Beth and her team. All of these Committee members are active in the Reference Garden program, and I am confident that going forward, our region will continue to set the standard for the regional Reference Garden program. Visit a Conifer Reference Garden Visit a Conifer Reference Garden or two on your way to our regional meeting in Memphis, TN. There are 14 ACS Conifer Reference Gardens in the SE Region. By state, there are 4 in GA; 1 in NC, SC, and FL; 4 in VA; and 3 in TN. The following link will take you to a map of the SE region, showing all of our Reference Garden locations. The following link will take you to a map of the SE region showing all of our Reference Garden locations. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms? msid=217947262825748402887.0004a6ca3fc22d38f fda5&msa=0 Volunteers and Auction Plants for our SE Meeting in Memphis, TN, Oct. 11 and 12 We can still use some volunteers and some plants for the silent and the verbal auctions. For more details and if interested to help please contact: Sue Hamilton via phone 865-974-7972 or e-mail: sueham@utk.edu The ACS SE Region Conifer Reference Gardens Florida Gardens of the Big Bend, Quincy, FL Georgia Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, GA Lockerly Arboretum, Milledgeville, GA Smith Gilbert Gardens, Kennesaw, GA State Botanical Garden of Georgia, Athens, GA North Carolina JC Raulston Arboretum, Raleigh, NC South Carolina Hatcher Garden, Spartanburg, SC South Carolina Botanical Gardens, Clemson, SC Tennessee East Tennessee State University Arboretum Johnson City, TN University of TN-Jackson West TN Research & Ed Center Gardens, Jackson, TN University of Tennessee Gardens, Knoxville, TN Virginia Al Gardner Memorial Garden-J.Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Goochland, VA Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA Norfolk Botanical Garden, Norfolk, VA State Arboretum of Virginia, Boyce, VA All of these gardens have websites with addresses, directions and events. American Conifer Society SE Region www.conifersociety.org www.southeasternconifers.com SE President: Dr.John Ruter,GA - ruter@uga.edu SE Vice President: Dr.Sue Hamilton, TN sueham@utk.edu SE Treasurer:Jeff and Jennifer Harvey,TNjenniferharvey@vanderbilt.edu Regional Director on ACS Board: Tom Neff tsneff2003@yahoo.com SE Reference Gardens: Beth Jimenez, NC beth6744@bellsouth.com SE Webmaster: Ben Ford, TN bford15@utk.edu SE Newsletter Editor: Maud Henne,VAwollemi27@gmail.com SE Newsletter Technical Advisor: Tom Cox, GA-coxarb@bellsouth.net

Page 3 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Dot the I s and Cross the T s on the Reference Garden Program By Flo Chaffin, GA Did you ever know someone who was so organized and methodical that you wished you could take them home with you? Well, whether you know it or not, the SE Region s Reference Garden Program has enjoyed the benefit of Barbie Colvin s energy and efficiency here in our midst for the past six plus years. Over that time she has taken a good idea and turned it into a fully formed, wonderful outreach program that embodies the mission of the ACS. I d like to just take a moment to outline her contribution as she hands off her duties to a new and enthusiastic committee. As you know, the ACS mission is to help ensure the conservation, development and propagation of conifers, with an emphasis on the dwarf or unusual varieties. We work to sustain a better understanding of conifers and to educate the public. The Reference Garden Program partners with institutional ACS members (public non-profit gardens) to make this mission a reality. But it hasn t happened overnight. From the beginning, Barbie was instrumental in laying out parameters for garden acceptance into the program, for continued input and feedback for the garden via ACS member sponsors, and for the future support of these gardens via our Southeastern fundraising efforts. The SE Region named its first Reference Garden in 2008, and we now have a total of 14 gardens around the SE Region that serve as a means for our members and the general public to learn about conifers as they are conserved in these collections. In addition, the SE Region has donated a total of $17,500 through Reference Garden Program grants to fund upgrades to conifer collections, signage, and educational events about conifers. In addition, the RG program has now added a means of sharing cuttings and propagules of various conifers among RG member gardens to add to each other s collections and to help evaluate the same plants in various regions of the SE. As near as I can tell, this rounds out the complete mission, and we re doing it! Has it been easy? If you watch the graceful ease with which Barbie runs through a spreadsheet, or a report, or a summary of multiple evaluations, one might get the idea that it was a smidge of a volunteer job. But I ve watched the paperwork expand over the years, and seen it all repackaged into tidy excel bundles. I ve heard about the phone conversations with gardens, garden sponsors, garden friends and guessed that a day does not go by when some moments to literally some hours are donated by Barbie to the cause and success of the Reference Garden Program in the SE. I hope you will join me in thanking Barbie for her time, her dedication and her incredible skills. We now have an active and thriving program which best expresses our ACS mission, and a new committee that can now lean on the sturdy infrastructure Barbie has developed. Thanks also to the new members of the committee who have offered to follow in her footsteps. We in the SE Region are all fortunate to have them. Grant for Lockerly Arboretum in Milledgeville, GA By Beth Jimenez, NC Congratulations to the Lockerly Arboretum for receiving the rotating regional grant funded and awarded by ACS. This grant, in the amount of $3000 is awarded each year to one of the regions (Western, Central, Northeast, Southeast), and this year it fell to our Southeastern Region. Lockerly, located in Milledgeville, Georgia, is a 50 acre property with 4 employees and an extensive conifer collection. The funds will be used to add additional plant material, install an irrigation system as well as adding plant labels and organic mulch to a newly developed 40.000 square foot area at the arboretum. The Lockerly Arboretum was designated an ACS Reference Garden in 2010 and was the recipient of the SE Region grant in the amount of $1500 in 2011. For more information about the Lockerly Arboretum, please read Bradley Robert s article in the April 2012 issue of the Southeastern Conifer.

Page 4 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Conifers at the Pearl Fryar Topiary Gardens, Bishopsville, SC Text By Lindsey Kerr, SC - Photos Courtesy Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Inc. On any given day, visitors to the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in Bishopville, SC, will find Pearl outside talking to visitors and trying to sneak in a few minutes of pruning. Pearl loves to talk and, at 73, he seems to be doing more of it than ever. Nevertheless, he still finds deep satisfaction from spending an hour sculpting a juniper from the top of his cherry picker or painstakingly zip-tying together the young branches of an oak tree. Overflowing with trees and shrubs trimmed into fantastic shapes, Pearl s garden attracts visitors from across the US and internationally. Pearl Fryar is originally from Clinton, NC, a small farming community. After a stint in the Army and years living elsewhere, he moved to Bishopville in the mid-1970s with his wife and young son. After a few years, Pearl bought property outside of town and went to work on making his yard something different, unique, a cut above. In 1985, he won the coveted Yard of the Month award, but didn t stop there. He said that something clicked when started trimming and shaping plants. Over the next 30 years, through countless hours of work and heavy doses of talent and determination, Pearl transformed his yard into a masterpiece of abstract art in the form of topiary. Since the very beginning, Pearl s garden attracted attention. At first, it was more of a local curiosity, but artists and journalists quickly saw his talent and spread the word of his remarkable garden. Since the 1980s, he has been featured in many publications, from Southern Living to the New York Times. In 2005, an independent production company filmed a documentary about Pearl titled A Man Named Pearl. It was released in theaters to critical acclaim in 2006 and has since been shown on many television stations. He has also appeared on various television programs, most recently the Martha Stewart Show in 2010. Thanks to publicity and word-of-mouth, Pearl has become a world renowned topiary artist. Visitors come from around the world to witness his art and to shake his hand. Today, it is estimated that 20,000 visitors come to Pearl s yard every year. Unknown Conifers When Pearl began his garden in the early 1980s, he did not want to spend money on plants. What was the point of buying perfect specimens if he was just going to cut them up? Instead, Pearl collected most of his plants out of the throw-away pile at the back of local nurseries. No matter how ugly and broken they were, Pearl took the plants he found and placed them around his yard. Consequently many of the cultivars in Pearl s garden are unknown. It is difficult for even an expert to identify the plants because they are cut into abstract shapes and pruned frequently.

Page 5 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Interesting selections Horticulturists and gardening enthusiasts who visit Pearl s garden often exclaim You can t do that! when they see how he has cut certain conifers. When giving tours, Pearl likes to point out a juniper ground cover (cultivar unknown) that he has trained to grow up a light pole in his back yard. After 30 years, the juniper looks like a large conical tree. He tells visitors: I didn t have any limitations because I really didn t know anything about horticulture. I just figured I could do whatever I wanted to with any plant I had. A row of eastern white pines (Pinus strobus) and loblolly pines (Pinus taeda) are topped and cut into lollypops or Dr. Seuss trees near the south side of his house. Pearl cuts the new growth off at least once a year with his electric hedge trimmers. Inspired by Pearl, Moore Farms Botanical Garden near Lake City, SC, now has several pine topped and cut into tiers. Over the years, Pearl has collected a few trees that generally do not do well in his zone 8a climate. In the mid-1980s, each winter Pearl planted the live tree he had purchased for Christmas. Until he recently replaced it with a metal sculpture, he had a 30 foot tall Norway spruce (Picea abies) growing next to his house. He also has at least one Fraser fir (Abies fraseri), a Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens), and Balsam fir (Abies balsamea). Favorite conifers When Pearl first started working with plants, he took what he could find. Now, however, he is a bit pickier about the plants he works with. One of his favorite conifers to work with is the genus Juniperus. On the south edge of his property, there is a fantastic hedge of 30 foot tall Hollywood junipers (Juniperus chinensis 'Torulosa' syn. Kaizuka ) cut into shapes that some people describe as sailing ships. Pearl trims these junipers once or twice a year. The last cut comes in late fall or early winter. He takes time in the winter, when growth is slowed and there are fewer visitors, to clean out the dead needles that get caught between branches and to take off any small shoots that get in the way of what he calls his skeleton look.

Page 6 Southeastern Conifer October 2013. Visiting the garden Pearl s garden is just a mile off of Interstate 20 in Bishopvile, SC. It is approximately 30 miles west of Florence, SC, or 50 miles east of the state capitol of Columbia. If you re in South Carolina, it s well worth a detour. Visit www.pearlfryar.com for more information and photographs. In the past five years, the Leyland cypresses (Cupressus xleylandii) in Pearl s garden are becoming diseased. This includes his signature Fishbone Tree. Fortunately, in 2009 Pearl started to shape a possible replacement using the Green Columnar juniper (Juniperus chinensis Hetzii Columnaris ). In the past 5 years, Pearl has started using the Spartan juniper for demonstrations and recommends it for novice topiary artists (Juniperus chinensis 'Spartan'). He installed one on either side of his driveway in 2010; they remain works in progress. Conclusion The species and cultivars of conifers in Pearl s garden might not be immediately exciting to the enthusiast or collector. Instead, it is the way in which Pearl trims and trains his plants that demands admiration. To Pearl, plants are a medium and his outlet for artistic expression. Thus, many people have come to Pearl not just as a gardener, but as an artist, a sculptor of plants. Lindsey K. Kerr is a second year Longwood Graduate Fellow at the University of Delaware. She worked in the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden 2009-2010 and currently serves as Communications Director for the non-profit Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden. She can be reached at lindsey@pearlfryar.com.

Page 7 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Cryptomeria japonica Globosa Nana By Bradley Roberts, GA As I have often stated in previous articles, I love landscaping with certain conifers for their texture, accent, and effect in a mass planting. Cryptomeria japonica Globosa Nana or Dwarf Japanese Cedar satisfies all of these requirements. Globosa Nana is native to Japan, and is a moderate growing shrub that reaches 6-8 feet in height and roughly, 3 5 feet in diameter, although we have a specimen at Lockerly Arboretum planted in the early 1990 s that is well over 12 feet tall. This compact dense plant is useful as filler in a border, but due to its bright blue-green fine textured foliage, it makes a wonderful specimen plant for the landscape. It is especially useful to add texture to a planting to wake up a border or display garden. It also makes a wonderful ornamental addition to rock gardens or as an accent piece in a container. Globosa Nana expresses only slight winter bronzing; it re-greens once spring arrives. Cryptomeria japonica Globosa Nana is fairly disease-resistant, but may develop leaf blight. This blight causes the interior foliage to turn brown. Proper use of fungicide and proper planting techniques prevent the development of this disease. In order to avoid leaf blight, the foliage of the tree should be kept as dry as possible. Planting the tree in a position where it will receive the most morning sunlight will greatly reduce the risk of this fungal disorder. Another great benefit of Cryptomeria japonica Globosa Nana is that deer rarely browse it! I know all gardeners love to hear that. Tom Cox and John Ruter list this conifer in the top five dwarf Cryptomeria selections, and I have to agree with them. A must have for any home garden or public landscape. This conifer is hardy from zones 6 through 9 and grows in a densely spherical form. It is lowmaintenance and does not require regular pruning to achieve its desired globe shape. In addition, it tolerates most soils, including sand, clay, or loam. However, it thrives in well-drained acidic soils in either full sun or partial shade. It is best to plant Dwarf Japanese Cedar in a sheltered position that is south-facing, west-facing, or east-facing. Alkaline soil requires enhancement with organic material. Globosa Nana requires weekly watering; drip irrigation is preferred, sometimes more in dry summer months. Adding mulch will aid in water retention. Winter Color

Page 8 Southeastern Conifer October 2013 Lebanon Cedar Discovery in Washington DC Text and Photos: Maud Henne, VA Whenever I spend a day in Washington, DC, I visit the US Botanical Garden. I am always surprised and delighted to find many unexpected conifers there. A year ago, in the October 2012 issue, I published sights of conifers with the Capitol in the background and some unexpected conifers. They are growing in wooden planters, two plants in each of the two boxes. They are tweaked to grow along a metal frame shaped as a gate and then meet in the center. This year I discovered an unusual arrangement of weeping Lebanon cedars, Cedrus libani Pendula.