So You Would Like To Collect Rare And Unusual Conifers

People are collectors. Almost everyone collects something: stamps, coins, bottle caps, baseball cards, to name a few. Pretty girls even collect broken hearts. I collect a number of different things, but my biggest collection consists of conifers.

Anyone can put together a conifer collection. It does not have to contain every named conifer nor must it contain any special group of conifers. It can merely be an assortment of a person's favorite cultivars. In other words, if a nice assortment of plants is utilized in a landscape with most of them being specially selected conifers, the owner could be considered a conifer collector.

Suppose you decide to put together a conifer collection. Why do you want to collect conifers? Most people collect conifers for the four-season beauty they add to a garden and the wide variety available. Some people even become so involved with collecting conifers that they try to collect them all- a physical impossibility, especially since new cultivars are constantly being found and named.

I have tried to collect as many different conifers as possible and in spite of having almost 2,000 different selections, there are many more I would still like to acquire. I would not be such an avid collector except I have combined my hobby with our business. Since one of my goals is to make the choicest conifers available to anyone with an interest in them, I am constantly selecting and evaluating new plants, thus necessitating a rather large collection.

For the most enjoyable collection, don't try to collect everything. Collect some of the choicest plants that work best in your climate and setting. Enjoy them and try to leave enough space to add new selections as they appeal to you.

Smaller properties are ideal for conifer collections, especially since there are so many outstanding selections of dwarf conifers available to the collector of today. There are any number of ways to landscape a small garden to show off a conifer collection. My personal favorite is the rock garden. Many conifers are native to the alpine environment and perform very well in a rock garden, where they can be mixed with a nice assortment of dwarf, alpine flowering plants.

For those of you who are either not adventuresome enough to attempt a rock garden or just don't like rock gardening, a small, Japanese style garden or even just small plantings in areas of a yard can be very enjoyable. But if you are lucky enough to have several acres and unbridled enthusiasm, go for it!

In order to make intelligent choices about which conifers to collect and where to plant them, the enthusiast needs good sources of information about their merits and their growth habits. The best sources are exisiting collections that can be visited. When such visits are not possible, then books and video references become very important. There are several good books currently available about the cultivated conifers. There are not many videos available about conifers, but I have made two which will fill in some of the gaps in the literature.

For information on the newest additions to the growing list of the world's cultivars, the serious collector must maintain contact with suppliers who continuously offer newer selections and have descriptive catalogs. Since a book is revised only every seven to ten years, the newest cultivars can't be added on a regular basis. For our own active customers we provide not only a descriptive catalog but also this web site.

Large arboreta usually have curators for their special collections who may be helpful in answering cultural type questions.

Another good source of information, and probably the best source, is contact with other collectors, either at meetings, seminars, or through personal visits. Membership in plant societies is one way to meet other collectors. There is the American Conifer Society with an enthusiastic membership. The American Rock Garden Society is another society with a good representation of conifer enthusiasts.

Once you have lined up sources of information about conifers and you are ready to make some selections for yourself, consider the site for the collection. Your climate and soil type will determine the varieties that can be planted. The size of the planting area will limit how many plants can be grown. The topography will influence the type of garden for displaying the conifers.

Weigh all of these factors while making your decisions about the plants. Once you have started listing the plants you want, you will have to locate sources.

Suppliers of rare and unusual conifers can be found, but it does take some effort. Local garden centers and retail outlets will often have some good items, but you must find specialty nurseries to locate the really choice material. These specialty nurseries may be found by talking to other collectors or reading the advertisements in plant society publications and some of the better gardening magazines.

The beginner should not purchase too many of the most expensive conifers. Since collectors most often obtain young plants, due to cost and availability factors, there are occasional problems with survivability. Losing a $10.00 plant is a lot less painful than losing a $25.00 one. As the collector becomes experienced and learns the best ways to handle young conifers, then the more expensive plants are less of a risk.

Conifer collecting is something to grow into. Do it for the enjoyment of the plants themselves and select plants that bring you pleasure. Don't be too competitive and try to outdo other collectors, or you may sacrifice enjoyment for competition.

Don't let price be a major stumbling block in obtaining the plants you want. Sometimes you can wait a year or two to save some money, but unless you are purchasing a large number of plants and want to keep the total cost down in order to purchase greater variety, you may not want to trade years for dollars. If you wait two years in order to save ten dollars on a plant purchase, then you are trading two years of enjoying that plant for those ten dollars.

Just be careful to purchase plants that will do well under your growing conditions, plants that are of an age that you can care for, and plants that fit your financial means. Conifer collectors are first and foremost plant lovers and a friendly group of people. If you become one of us, you are in for many hours of pleasure both with the conifers and with other collectors.

Counter Started March 31, 2002