Stuff Magazines

12 GREAT SPECIES

Maths and cold calculations also come into it, which is how Magnolia ‘Cameo’ survived.

The small, rounded tree of 4.5m produces blooms of red-purple on the outside with white interiors.

“It only made a cameo appearance in my mind, like Alfred Hitchcock in his movies… I didn’t think it was good enough to propagate, but our agent said ‘No, you’ve got to do that’.”

So, Vance did an experiment, planting 10 ‘Cameo’ and 10 ‘Genie’ side by side. “I took the emotion out of it and the only way to do that is with maths, so I counted the flower buds, the branches, the size of the plant. I had two to three others in the same analysis, but ‘Genie’ and ‘Cameo’ came up first and second (in that order).”

Since 2016, Vance has been working full-time in the plant nursery at Magnolia Grove, which has limited his time for producing new hybrids of his favourite tree.

Still, other Vance Hooper-bred magnolias worth mentioning are ‘Deryk’ (rich red), ‘Mighty Mouse’ (red), ‘Billowing Cloud’ (white with a blush of pink), ‘Amethyst Flame’ (pink purple) and ‘Brixton Belle’.

“That’s the nearest to perfection we have got,” says Vance of ‘Brixton Belle’, the pink cup-and-saucer flower that stars on Magnolia Grove’s business card. “I’ve always said, if I had to give up, I would be happy to stop with that.’”

Since 2016, Vance has been working full-time in the plant nursery at Magnolia Grove, which has limited his time for producing new hybrids of his favourite tree.

1 ‘Mahogany Glow’ Bred by Os Blumhardt, this is one of 90 magnolias in Vance’s New Zealand-raised reference collection.

2 ‘Strawberry Fields’ Bred by Ian Baldick, this early-flowering large grower has bright pink blooms.

3 ‘Tinkerbelle’ One of Vance’s unreleased hybrids, its wellformed classical-shaped blooms are great for cut flowers. “It doesn’t flower as heavily as ‘Genie’,” he says.

4 ‘Amethyst Flame’ Bred by Vance, this small-growing, compact but reasonably upright tree produces narrow goblet-shaped flowers in winter and summer.

5 ‘Anya’ Selected as a seedling by breeder Deryk Lawrence in his garden at Te Puke.

6 ‘A Touch of Class’ This is one of the hybrids Vance crossed in about 1990, while working for Duncan & Davies.

7 ‘Pat’s Delight’ An Os Blumhardt hybrid, this is “quite a big grower” laden with while blooms with a blush of pink.

8 ‘Mark Jury’ This is a seedling that came from England. “Felix Jury was trying to import ‘Lanarth’ but he got that seedling,” Vance explains. “It was so good he named it after his son.”

9 ‘Lotus’ A tall Felix Jury hybrid smothered in white blooms.

10 ‘Billowing Cloud’ Bred at Duncan & Davies by Vance, this small rounded tree produces a cloud of white blooms. “It’s one of the few deciduous magnolias that will generate a perfume into the garden,” he says.

11 ‘Aleysa’ A ‘Lanarth’ hybrid from Ian Baldick.

12 ‘Aurora’ An upright tree with pink cup-and-saucer-shaped flowers. “Probably one of Os Blumhardt’s best hybrids.”

PLANTS

en-nz

2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmagazines.pressreader.com/article/282681871003957

Stuff Limited