By Wilf Nicholls, the Botanical Garden at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN)


Don’t look now, but over the next few years a lot of eyes will be focused on the far east (the far east of Canada, that is) for new and interesting plants. In these very pages a year-and-a-half ago, we described the beauty and potential of the Newfoundland and Labrador flora. We are now happy to report that The Botanical Garden at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) has received funding to do the research and development work necessary to bring those dreams to reality. In 2000, the Garden formed a new R&D company (New Found Plants Inc.) to evaluate, breed and commercialize novel and heirloom plants for the province’s nursery industry, and thereafter, to the rest of Canada and the world.

     Following crucial initial funding from the Provincial Department of Forest Resources and Agrifood’s Safety Nets Program, it was clear that long-term support for an ongoing program was required. It was the good folks at the National Research Council’s (NRC) Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) who stepped forward and guided us through the process, which resulted in three years of support for New Found Plants Inc.


Spin-off company
Incorporating a brand new company was viewed as a rather bold move for the non-profit MUN Botanical Garden. Are we scientists or business people? Quite honestly, in the rapidly advancing applied field of horticulture, it behooves us to be both. In addition to satisfying funding criteria, we saw this plant development program needed to run like a business. Our major goal is the development of new and improved plants for the marketplace, and in doing so, we will assist the advancement of the nursery industry. But New Found Plants is also committed to generating revenue for its own post-funding continuance and its parent Botanical Garden; it has to operate and act as a business so it was made into one at the outset.

     Businesses, of course, need products and a market; both of these are available in an industry hungry for the new and the unusual. Newfoundland certainly has enough potential products to keep us busy for decades. But, in a province that is home to just 500,000, is there the market? Surprisingly, I think there is; further a-field, you bet there is.

     The low population and consequent limited demand for ornamental plants result in very few mainland nurseries delivering to Newfoundland. Shipping charges are daunting and several growers feel they can deliver their product earlier and easier elsewhere. A further blow is our delayed spring, which results in our request for late delivery. The few who do ship are often sold out of the new, the unusual and the things they had in limited amounts. Furthermore, faced with the high cost of shipping, retailers may be reluctant to take a chance on an unknown, untried variety. The result is unfortunately the same varieties for retailers, save for the more progressive garden centres. This is such a great opportunity for the home-based R&D company, leading to the production and sale of novel plants here. In short, we hope to stimulate:

• more ornamental plant production here in the Province
• opportunities for export
• an increase in the palette of plants available to Newfound­land and Labradorians
• an income for New Found Plants and the Botanical Garden.

     Our most important goal is to become a dynamic part of the rapidly developing Newfoundland nursery industry by using the Garden’s plant collection and the skills of the staff to bring a wider range of plant material into commerce. These are lofty ideals indeed and will come to fruition only through partnerships. We are lucky indeed to have skilled biotechnologists at the Agriculture and Agrifood Canada station, provincial scientists and industrial partners to assist and advise us along the way.

     Plant Introduction schemes are certainly not new to the industry. Continuing development of new products keeps consumers, retailers, designers — in fact, all of us — interested and excited about our work. Plant explorations to exotic places have given us the wonderful rhododendrons, camellias and maples that we see today and introduction programs like those at UBC Botanical Garden and AAC Morden continue to impress with improved and novel trees, shrubs and perennials. New Found Plants Inc. will also be seeking the new but will look somewhat closer to home and also to the past for plant releases. Our targets fit nicely into four categories:


Target: Native selections
While New Found Plants will not be going to Nepal or Sakalin Island in search of botanical delights, our version of exotic includes the Torngat, Mealy and Long Range Mountains; the Avalon and Bay du Nord Wilderness. These are wild and windswept rock and tundra festooned with orchids and crevice-dwelling alpines. Not totally unexplored but terribly under-explored, these areas are chock-full of potential for the landscape industry.

     The 1,400 species or so that comprise the Newfoundland and Labrador flora represent a fascinating collection of extremes. Certainly it is not the richest flora in Canada but it is a curious array of species, which, in many cases, are at their extreme of their distributions. For example, we have the northern most populations of mayflower (Epigaea repens), the easternmost population of false Soloman’s seal (Maianthemum racemosum), the southernmost population of Empetrum eamsii (rockberry) and the easternmost population of the Leopard Marsh Orchid (Dactyllorhiza praetermissa).

     In this land of extremes one looks for the unusual amongst the usual. A case in point was the discovery just last summer of a dramatic form of white spruce (Picea glauca) on the west coast of Newfoundland. Surrounded by hundreds, nay, thousands of normal trees this one individual was a masterpiece of bright lime-coloured foliage in a sea of dark green. Sick? Chlorotic? I think not, though time and testing will tell, for it had put on annual growth and girth equal to its dark green neighbours. Too big to move (and I have never regarded wild digging an option), I took cuttings and will return this spring for more. Next winter we’ll try grafting it and, while we’re at it, try our hand at another local coniferous selection, a prostrate form of Larix laricina (eastern larch).

     No better example of how we overlook what is close at hand is that of the Leopard marsh orchid. First noticed just six years ago by a road-building crew and initially thought to be a weird lupine, or maybe a fireweed, this purple beauty was soon identified by a plant lover as an orchid. There they were, hundreds of them, within city limits and hitherto completely undiscovered. It turned out to be Dactyllorhiza praetermissa and the only population in North America of this western European species. How did it get here? Is it a stunningly gorgeous weed? Was it a garden escape from a local, long-since-abandoned farm? Or is it truly a rare gem from natural long-distance dispersal? There are many questions and few answers, but this plant is a winner! Young foliage is black/purple spotted and this stout two- to three-foot plant is topped with a long-lasting raceme of bright purple flowers in mid-summer. A few were saved from imminent asphalt demise (digging is acceptable at times) and transplanted into the Botanical Garden, where they continue to thrive. Division of the rhizomes is simple but micropropagation is required to raise this quickly to decent numbers.


Target: Heirloom selections
Newfoundland can boast a number of firsts in North America. The Vikings were hardly active in the realm of horticulture when they arrived a thousand and one years ago, but following John Cabot’s re-discovery of this New Founde Lande in 1497, Europeans have established homes and communities here. With those homes came gardens, and to those gardens came plants from across the Atlantic.

     Many of these old varieties have been lost amidst the forest of new and improved (and not so improved) cultivars. But they remain a valuable genetic resource for breeding programs, and many remain valuable garden plants in their own right — and have not been surpassed by anything other than fashion. There they are, still poking up through the hedgerow of a long-since demolished outport house or handed down from generation to generation to thrive in today’s gardens. They’re tough, they’re beautiful and their time has come again.

     A good collection of these gems can be found at MUN Botanical Garden’s Heritage section and from it, we hope to re-release and renew people’s love affair with these old cultivars. Take for instance the Fair Maids of France (Ranunculus aconitifolius ‘Flore Pleno’). Brought to Trinity by a Norwegian whaling captain in 1830, this cultivar is difficult to find today. However, here in Newfoundland, this early blooming, brilliant white double buttercup has gone through plenty of winters and deserves a wider audience again. Don’t send for seeds though, this plant is totally sterile and divisions are underway as are other heirloom selections like a dusty pink monkshood and a double filipendula.


Target: Rock StarsTM
While not the most loved moniker for this island, “The Rock” is pretty good description of Newfoundland’s soil (or lack thereof). The shallow, peaty and acidic soil, the cool rather short summers and the usually long snowy winters makes many parts of Newfoundland perfect places for rock and alpine gardens. At MUN Botanical Garden, the rock garden has been a star for 20 years, showing residents and visitors alike a wide array of species and cultivars that relish these rather Spartan conditions.

     Plants, such as a dwarf form of Inula, just eight inches tall and covered with yellow daisy flowers in early summer, the native Crantz’s cinquefoil, a four-inch carpet of bright butter yellow that doesn’t know when to quit flowering, Sedum (or Rhodiola) rosea and the later flowering Chrysanthemum wyrechii are all little known performers that deserve greater use and recognition. These and other stars are already in production.


Target: New hybrids
The genetic resource that Newfoundland and Labrador’s flora contains, coupled with the cultivars of our past and present is a vast source of additional novel combinations and variation through plant breeding. Add in the newer techniques of embryo rescue and our hopes are high for the future.

     Hybrids are possibly the most exciting of all introductions, but they are also least guaranteed and the slowest. Nevertheless, work is in progress and our initial hybrid releases are expected to be a mock orange and lily once test site data is complete.

     We will turn our attention this summer to our native shrubs, particularly the viburnums and hollies for some crossing experiments.


Release and marketing
The four groups of targeted plants described above can be regarded as two pairs. First are the more numerous star performers and the old cultivars over which we can claim no proprietary rights. Stock plants of these will make the earliest entrance onto the market and be sold industry-wide within Newfoundland and Labrador, and then beyond. The immediate aim is to increase the palette and interest of retailers and consumers in these unusual garden gems. Far more restricted will be the release of the novel introductions obtained through breeding, selection and exploration work. These are proprietary and will go to a single licensee and thereafter sub-licensees for production and marketing. Their entrance onto our stage is still a little way off but, in time, a constant trickle of brand new plants surrounded by a bevy of proven performers should make for some interesting new offerings at the garden centre, with eyes focused on Canada’s far east for the next ones.