A Summer Display of Bonsai and a Viewing Stone by William N. Valavanis

On June 13th Bill Valavanis gave us a tour of his summer bonsai display.

Roy
Very nice vidieo. Bill has a nice looking place , I would like to visit some day.
Thanks for posting.
Mitch

Here is a beter photo of the Gardenia displayed in the summer video. It is an unusual Gardenia cultivar with single flowers and later on it will form interesting orange fruit. I believe it is the cultivar 'Little Gem,' but will get it correctly identified next week in Japan.

Bill

Thanks Bill. Looking great.

Best Regards
Mike

William N. Valavanis wrote:Here is a beter photo of the Gardenia displayed in the summer video. It is an unusual Gardenia cultivar with single flowers and later on it will form interesting orange fruit. I believe it is the cultivar 'Little Gem,' but will get it correctly identified next week in Japan.

Bill

Bill,

This looks like the one sold in the nursery trade here as 'Daisy'.

Btw, I had a beautiful 'radicans' for years then suddenly lost it to nematodes - even in a bonsai pot. It just looked "hungry" and potbound, but when I went to repot it I found it had no roots! 'Radicans' is now almost impossible to grow in the ground here, but 'Daisy' and the other big shrub gardenias are fine.

Really pretty bonsai!!

R

Nice informative summer display video. I enjoyed it.
And the Gardenia looks beautiful too with summer flowers.

Regards
Morten

Mr. Valavanis.
I was interested to see your Amethyst Falls, it is a variety of Wisteria which burst onto the scene in the UK at garden centres a couple of years ago but seems to have disappeared to a large extent now. I found it to not be strong in our climate.
As you described the flowers are wonderfully small being about palm sized, unfortunately I found the racemes smelt of tom cat lacking wonderful perfume of the larger varieties.

Is it a strong grower in the US?

Roy, (I think we met at Julian's in February)
Thanks for showing the video of Bill and his garden. Did you shoot the video? Nice job and great stories; particularly about "Yuji's" waterstone.
I love the contrast of the rough bark maples! Really puts our art into perspective. Seeing the New York Summer makes me think about moving back to Upstate ...then I think about the Winters
HAve a great Summer and please say hi to Bill for me. My Beech trees are are doing well!
Best,
Todd

Todd,

Yes, I shot the video. It is a new experience for me and I am enjoying it.... and learning a lot. Bill's garden is always interesting. I will have some more videos shortly for some of the remaining shots I took the other day.

Roy

Dave Martin wrote:Mr. Valavanis.
I was interested to see your Amethyst Falls, it is a variety of Wisteria which burst onto the scene in the UK at garden centres a couple of years ago but seems to have disappeared to a large extent now. I found it to not be strong in our climate.
As you described the flowers are wonderfully small being about palm sized, unfortunately I found the racemes smelt of tom cat lacking wonderful perfume of the larger varieties.

Is it a strong grower in the US?

Dave, since no one has touched this I thought I'd jump in.

First, let me say that we here in the USA often ignore what's growing right under our noses in favor of plants from Asia and other far off places. I can't begin to tell you how many plants only gain acceptance here AFTER they become the lasted rage in Europe. American gardeners are then stunned to learn they could find the exact same plant growing wild nearby if they had only taken the time to look!

Wisteria frutescens is one of those plants. Very little work has been done to introduce this native into American (and world) gardens with the exception of 'Amethyst Falls'. And probably the only reason it is commercially available is because someone spent the time and money to patent and market it. Funny thing is that there isn't really anything special about it. W. frutescens grows across most of the eastern US, and has countless variations in color and flower size. One of the best is actually 'Finch's Favorite', discovered just north of here in the Mobile-Tensaw River delta. It's flower is showier (tri-colored with a bluish tint) and much larger than 'Amethyst Falls'.

To your question as to if it's a strong grower here - yes. But maybe not so much for you. Remember it's coming from a place with long, hot summers so it may be slower in other environments.

Rusell,
thank you for your reply.
I believe you are right regarding the patenting of Amethyst Falls. It is quite funny that here, when it was introduced it was announced as a new type of Wisteria, no mention of Frutescens in the labelling at all, another sales ploy I suspect.

The racemes as I say are an excellent size for bonsai, but the perfume is a different kettle of fish, still perhaps it is a candidate crying out to grown in CAT LITTER

I'm actually surprised that the name frutescens wasn't included. Here it's touted as a non-invasive native alternative to the Asian species, a BIG selling point. It blooms here sporadically throughout the summer so I'll have to pay more attention to the smell. I do recall that it's not like the Asians - but that's about it.

Like I mentioned before, the sad part is that there are far superior selections to 'Amethyst Falls'. But with the economy in the toilet it will be years before any make it into production.