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The Jade Garden - An Interview with the Authors
This is the first of a new occasional feature on the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research web site – interviews with notable botanists, horticulturists and other people with an interest in plants. It seemed appropriate that the first interview be with UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research's very own Douglas Justice, Peter Wharton and Brent Hine, in celebration of the publication of “The Jade Garden – New and Notable Plants from Asia”.
The Jade Garden highlights one hundred and fifty plants from southeast Asia that are not well-known. Each account is written based off of personal experience. How did you develop an interest in Asian plants?
Peter: During summer holidays, as a six year old, I remember visiting my grandfather's rambling sixteenth century country-house in Hampshire, U.K. One room was always out of bounds to my brother and me. It contained my grandfather's stunning collection of Chinese porcelain and screens. One day the door was fortunately unlocked and I had to taste the forbidden fruit - I entered to discover screens with fantastical landscapes portraying stunted pines and bamboo groves. This sparked my curiosity for Chinese plants.
Douglas: I'm interested in all kinds of plants, but developed an early interest because I was always fascinated by both the diversity of Asian plants and the number that were present in our gardens. For example, Japan, with an area of about 380,000 sq. km (about the same size as Germany or California, or less than half the area of BC) has more than 20 maple species (more than all of North America or Europe), a number of them more familiar to us than our own native species. China is even more species-rich, so much so, that the renowned plant explorer Ernest H. Wilson called China “the mother of gardens”.
Brent: I began by working hands-on with herbaceous Asian plants. What better way to get to know them and learn their expectations and limits? As for the temperate Asian plant material available to me in this botanical garden, it isn't a stretch to say that I still feel like “a kid in a candy store” in the myriad possibilities for trial here, even 12 years on.
Who was this book written for?
Peter: All three authors wanted to bring to the table a fresh body of information to the increasingly sophisticated gardening public in temperate regions of the world. A considerable amount of our own experiences with these plants cannot be found in other garden publications. We felt our choices of new or underappreciated plants would intrigue both amateur and professional gardeners and landscape designers.
Douglas: Students of geography and plant exploration will also find it interesting as the plants are derived from exotic locales that are often described in detail.
How were the plants featured in the book selected?
Douglas: We made lists of our favourite Asian plants that met a number of criteria. They had to be good garden plants first, but they also had to be poorly known regionally (Meliosma pinnata var. oldhamii – this tree has a limited fan-base in the UK) or entirely (e.g., Carpinus fangiana – a species only recently cultivated outside of China).
Peter: Our personal observations for over 30 years helped us gauge some of the other criteria: traits such as superior ornamentation, hardiness, pest and disease resistance, non-invasive characteristics and ease of propagation.
Douglas: I personally chose more than a hundred tree species I'd grown or had some experience with myself. Together, we refined the list to those that warranted higher visibility and settled on the 150 because we had to stop somewhere.
Brent: I think all of us had no trouble selecting enough to fill the book.
Why aren't these plants better known?
Brent: Good question. In the case of the perennials, some are simply brand spanking new to cultivation, some little known, and a few have been “out there” for some time and yet haven't caught on. Sometimes plants, like people, just need to mingle in the right circles to increase their profiles.
Douglas: Most of the plants in the book are only known in botanical garden and collector circles because they were only recently collected (or re-collected after having been lost in the West). Many are from areas of China that have not been accessible to western botanists for a century or more, and some were just overlooked or thought to be unsuitable.
Peter: Some notable species selections, for instance, Camellia reticulata, have always been connoisseur plants for reasons of limited hardiness that has often deterred gardeners and nurseryman alike. New information on hardiness and recent hardier introductions from the wild has now modified our perceptions of this species. New species derived from the wild often require many years to be accessed before they give us confidence to recommend them. Public demand and easy commercial nursery production are often difficult factors to predict. We hope this book will push this process forward for many of our selections.
Do you have a favourite plant from the book?
Douglas: My favourite plant in the book (this week) is Acer morifolium. I'm totally captivated by its beauty and good garden behaviour, and fascinated that a plant from the extreme south of Japan is hardy and thriving in Vancouver.
Brent: Difficult choice! I have to go with a top three list, with those choices vying for number one: Filipendula kamtschatica, Phlomis cashmeriana and Veronica ornata. While this seems a bit like extreme plant snobbery-geekery, I think gardeners will understand.
Peter: Oh boy - this is a hard one! Although I have written the shrub section in this book, I have to choose a tree. As a young arboricultural student I remember visiting the famous National Trust garden at Nymans in Sussex, U.K. and being transfixed by a majestic Meliosma veitchiorum some 19m high. The sumptuous compound leaves, worm-headed buds and stiff architectural habit appealed to my own youthful state. Later, in 1988 I had the good fortune to see wild, mature trees of this species growing on the slopes of the sacred Huangshan mountain in Anhui province, China.
There's been a trend toward using native plants in the landscape. This book seems to go against that movement. Are these plants recommended for use in personal gardens or just for viewing in a botanical garden? Any risks with these plants, e.g., invasiveness?
Douglas: The authors of the Jade Garden do not take a position in opposition to native plants or native plant gardening. Locally native plants are excellent choices for gardens, especially where they can restore natural landscapes or help to promote those values; however, exotic plants are not incompatible with naturalistic gardens nor are they necessarily dangerous.
Peter: I agree. In my mind, the use of Asiatic plants and native plants should not be mutually exclusive. Some of the finest gardens in the private and public domains integrate both native and exotic elements to the benefit of designer and visitor alike. I have always distrusted extremist views that promote exclusive and sometimes dogmatic positions. I have mentioned in my text some native Pacific Northwest plants that associate well with Asian exotics.
Brent: These Asiatic plants should serve to widen our appreciation for local nature, rather than diminish or compete with what surrounds us everyday. By far, the majority of the plants will enhance our gardens, and if we let them, our lives too.
Douglas: With regards to invasiveness, it is a serious issue and the authors recognize the risks inherent in growing certain kinds of plants, such as those that grow aggressively and reproduce freely, and where natural checks on their success (e.g., native pests and disease) are not present in the garden environment. We have consciously steered clear of those plants with obvious invasive potential and have outlined in the book the factors that contribute to invasiveness so that readers are better equipped to recognize that potential.
Both the book and the David C. Lam Asian Garden at UBC reference historical Western plant explorers of Asia. What is the importance of plant exploration in the modern world?
Brent: The most obvious and pressing example being “brought home” by Peter is germplasm conservation. As the planet shrinks, botanical gardens are akin to islands, preserving rare and imperiled specimens at the same time as introducing the rest of us to a wider world.
Peter: Right, the need for plant exploration and scientific investigation worldwide has never been more urgently needed. At the moment we are quite simply unable to keep pace with describing species before they go extinct, whether in China or Nigeria. These centinelan extinctions rob us of a vast wealth of knowledge. We humans have indeed as Tim Flannery describes, become “future eaters”. I believe plant explorers can play a vital role in investigating the rich and still poorly described forest floras of China and other areas of southeast Asia. The Botanical Garden and UBC have a vital role to play that requires much greater political and financial support.
Douglas: Plant exploration is important to botanical gardens in the same way that new artists and their art is important to art galleries. We continue to benefit from studying the plants we already have, but new plants (particularly unfamiliar and unexpected kinds) breathe new life into research and education, and often force us to re-examine what we think we already know.
Place this book in the context of the institution. UBC is a university botanical garden in Vancouver and we're currently at the beginning of the 21st century. How did this book emerge from that combination?
Peter: UBC is simultaneously devoted to research, education and community interaction, which allows us to unite those three facets in all that we do. Geographically speaking, our climate gives us a huge advantage over other similar institutions. Similarly, we have an enviable geographic location facing a part of the world [Asia] undergoing perhaps the greatest economic, social and environmental upheaval of humankind's history that will give us immense plant research opportunities and responsibilities.
We have a golden chance to develop a garden that reflects the diversity contained in the “The Jade Garden”. The gardening public will benefit with the availability of new, fascinating plants and the ecological knowledge they are starting to demand. I believe this can be the start of firmly nesting gardening into the broader environmental concerns of today whether in China or British Columbia.
Other than UBC Botanical Garden, share with readers a garden they can visit to experience these plants.
Brent: Finding all of them in one place is not likely to happen – each botanical garden, like each plant, is unique! But there are a number of vital gardens that need support through visitation, where we can at least see some of them. How about VanDusen Botanical Display Garden? It's local, and its staff also care about central issues of plant conservation, excellence in collection management and communicating the beauty of nature.
Peter: I also have no hesitation in directing readers to The Van Dusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver. It is a great garden with great plants. For readers in California and the western U.S.A. – the superb Quarryhill Botanical Garden near Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California is certainly worth visiting with a wealth of wild collected plants from China.
Douglas: Many of the plants mentioned in the Jade Garden can be seen in botanical gardens that specialize in temperate Asian plants, such as the Arnold Arboretum (Boston), San Francisco Arboretum at Golden Gate Park, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Thanks to the authors for kindly taking the time for the interview.
For more information about this new book from UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, including where to purchase, visit “The Jade Garden - New and Notable Plants from Asia”.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM on June 21, 2005