A Plant Introduction Program
       for the Mid-Atlantic and beyond......

Beautiful Gardens® Executive Director’s Report 2007

Dr. Rumen Conev, MANTS, Baltimore MD
 January 8, 2008

Human Resources

Beautiful Gardens program has a new chair: Doug Hensel replaced Fred Duis who was instrumental for building the program from ground zero to what the program is nowadays. Doug’s skills and experience in retail will be crucial in the new phase the program is entering.

In Feb 2007 Rumen Conev moved to Dept of Horticulture in VT where he holds dual appointment as an Assistant Professor in Ornamental Plant Breeding (75% research) and as Executive Director of Beautiful Gardens PIP (25% extension). His role is focused primarily in coordinating the overall day-to day activities of the program and establishing contacts with sources of germplasm (arboreta, university and private breeding programs etc. nationally and internationally, and providing new germplasm himself.

The BG was successful in recruiting Lisa Lipsey as an Extension Program Coordinator. Lisa’s role is to manage all technical aspects of Beautiful GardensTM program: frequent visits to test sites, inspecting the maintenance and providing recommendations for better management practices; secure a comprehensive and timely collection of plant evaluation data from all sites; build databases and collections of digital images; and actively seek for sources of germplasm approved for evaluation in our system. Lisa brings to the program 23 years of experience in green industry. She is a member of Virginia Society of Landscape Designers, Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association, and Southwest Virginia Nursery and Landscape association, where she served as a President in 1998 and 1999. Lisa Lipsey’s office is located in 201 Saunders Hall, Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech.

One of the founders of Beautiful Gardens^TM – Mark Weathington – former Director of Horticulture at Norfolk Botanical Garden moved to Raleigh, NC where he has accepted a position as an Assistant Director of the infamous JC Raulston Arboretum effective July 23 2007. Mark has accepted to serve in his new role as a member of BG advisory committee.  We are privileged to attract one of the most prominent horticulturists of Mid-Atlantic US in our team: Mr. Paul James from Boones Mill, VA, has officially accepted to join our advisory committee as well. 

Financial Sustainability

Beautiful Gardens is working on gradual transition to self-sustainability after 2009, but the program still depends entirely on external funding. A grant proposal for $112,000 has been submitted in mid-August’07 to the Special Projects program of TICRC, and another proposal for 2-year $324,000 project have been developed for submission to Agribusiness program of TICRC in spring ‘08. The first grant targeted mainly continuation of germplasm acquisition, plant evaluation and Marketing and Promotion activities of Beautiful Gardens in 2008. The second grant focuses on enabling a commercial scale tissue culture facility in Danville in early 2008, and retrofitting 2 model tobacco greenhouses for liner production in 2008 and 2009. The second grant is a collaborative effort of Drs. Nowak and Conev from the Department of Horticulture at VA Tech, and Dr. Flinn of ISRR, Danville, and provides future assistance of experts from the AgEcon Department at VT. The first grant (Special Projects Program) has not been recommended for financing because of large amount of the last grant’s budget is still available, and because the TC lab and greenhouse facility in Danville are not going to be ready soon, so the new TC propagator (if meanwhile hired) would be located in VT campus i.e. out of tobacco region. At the moment the program function with the remaining funds from our 2006-2007 budget, this had been updated several times by Jeff Miller and Rumen Conev in order to comply with TICRC’s strict requirements for expenditures occurring only within tobacco regions of VA.

New Plants Acquisition

The summer of 2007 was dynamic and very successful for Beautiful Gardens®.

Conev works closely with Dr. Alex Niemiera in locating unique plant material hold by former VT Horticulture graduates. Rumen finalized the negotiations for acquisition of a variegated Pagoda dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), discovered by Peter Thomasson of Blacksburg, VA. The ownership of the germplasm has been transferred to Beautiful Gardens^TM program with a naming rights and royalty sharing agreement. The suggested name is “Silk and Honey”. Although quite late for budding and grafting I immediately did some very limited propagation for purifying and stabilizing the chimera, with more budding/grafting to be done in 2008. The owner of a variegated oak stated in written his will to transfer the rights when/if the plant recovers from an accidental Roundup spray.

The Magnolia breeder Bill Smith has donated all his 2006-07 hybrids from his Richmond based breeding program to Beautiful Gardens. As the program works with pre-selected and initially tested material, the Magnolia germplasm was transported from Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden to the Urban Horticulture Center at VA Tech, to be overwintered in cold frame house and planted in the breeding plot in the spring of 2008 for evaluation and selection by Conev and his technician Velva Groover.

A germplasm transfer agreement with USDA-ARS’ station in Kearneysville, West Virginia have been achieved as well. Velva and Rumen have evaluated on site the summer ornamental display of 30 potentially interesting ornamental peach accessions, collected and transported budwood, and T-budded 250 rootstocks in the Urban Hort. Center In Blacksburg. 

Our new Program Coordinator Lisa Lipsey delivered exactly what the consortium really needed: in her first months on board she drastically improved our reach to commercial sources of rare plant material for testing. We are making an excellent progress on locating and acquiring germplasm for the evaluation trials in 2008, as well as plants from previous evaluation lists which have not been found and purchased so far. Furthermore, in anticipation of starting our own in-program commercial scale propagation we were able to secure all of the plants on Beautiful Gardens’ tentative 2010 Promotion list. This material will serve as mother stock for initiation of tissue culture propagation and liner production in Virginia. In this way we will be able to plan and control from the very beginning of the process the quantity, distribution and quality of the material for sale in 2010.

I would like to express our appreciation for the generous donations of plants for testing from Bennett’s Creek Nursery and Saunders Brothers, and for the special discount offered by Lazy S’S Farm Nursery and Acer Acres.

BUSINESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

People holding plants with unique characteristics usually establish contact with the program’s director shortly after an oral presentation on BG Plant Introduction Program or exhibitions with banner display and brochure distribution, both of which I continue to assertively deliver across the Commonwealth of Virginia and nationally. This is a clear proof that ongoing presenting across the country does work as a method of spreading the word out, and that our brochures are also an excellent way to reach out for new germplasm.

The popularity of our web site is increasing: (Table 1) and our presence on the Internet helps us for a better coverage in building awareness regarding our program in Virginia, nationally and internationally.

Table 1 – Statistics for www.beautifulgardens.org web site

*          Top referrer domains are: google.com, vnla.org, and yahoo.com

**         Top visited pages are: BG Index, PromoPlants 2009, and PromoPlants 2010

One of the interesting facts is that lately the statistics of the top 10 referrer domains shows that a an increasing numbers of hits are from country-specific search engines in Europe, Middle East, Australia, India, Canada and South Africa: google.co.uk, google.fr, google.com.au, google.com.in, google.ca, google.it, google.de, google.nl, google.pl, google.com.tr and google.co.za.

New promising contacts established: Dr. Kris Pruski – Associate Professor at NSAC, Nova Scotia have been invited by Jerzy Nowak to visit VT Department of Horticulture and give a presentation on PLANT ATLANTIC – a plant introduction program co-founded by him and Drs. Wilf Nichols and Todd Boland of the Botanical Gardens at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada. The program focuses on development of new and promoting under-used plants for the Atlantic Canadian nursery, greenhouse and habitat remediation industry. On October 5 ’07 Dr. Ralph Scorza from the USDA station in Kearneysville, WV and Dr. Dongyan Hu – a visiting scientist from Beijing Botanical Gardens were Conev’s gests at VA Tech and Dr. Hu gave a presentation for faculty, staff and students on her curatorship of the world’s richest ornamental peach collection. Dr. Hu invited Conev for a visit to Beijing Botanical Gardens in 2008 and stated her commitment to provide unlimited access to the germplasm collections in the garden. Dr. Tom Raney of NCSU station in Fletcher, NC invited Conev to visit and give presentation on his breeding objectives and Beautiful Gardens program. Rumen continue to travel and participate the major horticulture conferences and trade shows in the US with SNA Forum in August, and Southern Plant Conference in September being the most recent to attend.  These events proved to be very prolific in establishing contacts as an initial step towards developing stable professional collaborations.

PLANT EVALUATION

·         Adina rubella, Chinese Buttonbush, has been outstanding. Positive features are showy red stems, attractive shiny leaves, no losses, absolutely no pests and diseases so far, attractive unusual blooms and fruit.

·         Stokesia ‘Peachie’s Pick’ has been an excellent performer. It has a bushier habit than ‘Klaus Jellito’, the comparison plant. It starts to bloom later, but it continues until frost, which is a big plus.

·         Callistemon sieberi, which John Wise said he had originally secured from the Strybling Arboretum in San Francisco, seems quite promising. It is a prostrate spreading bottlebrush from Australia/New Zealand with small pastel lemon-yellow flowers. It warrants more watching, especially for cold hardiness.

·         Two viburnums show promise: Viburnum plicatum is very attractive, although had never bloomed and V. prunifolium with its red new growth.

·         Cephalotaxus ‘Duke Gardens’ is looking good now, even though some plants were originally lost.

MAJOR OUTCOMES

·         Beautiful Gardens is initiating its first promotional and sale campaign in 2009. In this relation it has developed own brand – a logo and a slogan (trademark applied for), a website, an overview publication in HortTechnology magazine, and two full color 3-fold brochures.

·         Nine “Plants of Merit” have been selected, and an active dialogue with growers and retailers has been established to finalize the preparation of contracts, promotion materials for points of sale, uniform high-quality hanging plant tags and stakes, and the overall logistics of the campaign.

·         The program acquired property rights on a variegated Pagoda dogwood, and was given 30 ornamental peach accessions for testing, all of which propagated at VT. At the moment a total number of 66 genotypes are being tested with 17 more to be planted in spring 2008.

·         A Program Coordinator has been hired to oversee plant selection, plant evaluation, site management, and plant acquisition from commercial sources.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

·         Continue the efforts towards 2009 promotion campaign and finalizing the planning for 2010 season. More preliminary work directly with industry members is needed to enhance their “buy-in” into the program.

·         We need a clearer propagation strategy and transparent plans – for both limited conventional and mass-micropropagation. Hiring a TC Propagator; and supporting purchasing of equipment, materials and supplies for smoother and faster establishment of the commercial TC lab in Danville;

·         Gradually shifting towards an increased professional assistance in data collection. 

·         Potential sites for future meetings/visits and inspiration for new plants entering into the program: Paul James’s gardens in Boones Mill, Alex Niemiera’s Garden in Blacksburg, Longwood Gardens in PA, National Arboretum, DC.

·         A new Strategic Planning Meeting is needed. The first and only one was in Wintergreen on Dec 6-7, 2005. Many and significant changes happened since then, and even more are going to happen in the very near future. 

·         Applying to the AgriBusiness program of TICRC in order to initiate a 2-year pilot project for retrofitting tobacco greenhouses to liner production facilities, and closing the cycle with establishing a commercial tissue culture lab in Danville

Beautiful Gardens® Executive Director’s Report 2007

Dr. Rumen Conev, (MANTS, Baltimore MD, January 8, 2008)

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Last modified: 11/20/08