Genetic Coning

       In September of 1996, I visited the Yulong Shan in NE Yunnan Province in China.  It was my debut in botanizing within that remarkable country, accompanied by a talented contingent of like-minded plantspeople,  and there is hardly a better place to sample its fantastic flora than in the dramatic mountains northwest of Lichiang.  It was there that I collected the seed of Picea likiangensis var purpurea, the Lichiang Spruce, after having previously read titillating tributes to its ornamental appeal.  
      For the past decade plus, before its inaugural fruiting, I have held this Picea in high esteem.  Spruces are, as a whole, a  hard sell in the Pacific Northwest.  Prone to mites and assorted foliar diseases, the truly blue spruces (Picea pungens) are a miserable landscape choice for our cool, maritime climate.  
     Yet the steely blue, medium textured foliage of this conifer has seemingly not  resented our climate in the least.  Last week, I happened upon its first 'flowers', nearly 13 years after sowing its seed.  To say I was startled by, and enamored with, the intensity of the its jewel-red cones is an understatement.
    With the winter of our nightmares behind us,  a full season of gardening ahead and the weather of the Pacific Northwest behaving in a most aberrently friendly manner,   it has been difficult to spend a minute indoors.  In every nook and bend in our garden, I am finding undiluted and unexpected pleasure.  If I have learned anything from the winter storms of 08-09, it is to more fully appreciate the garden moment as the garden grows.

Daniel J Hinkley  6/08/09