Paradise planters

Magnolia fanciers round the world know Taranaki's Jury family. ANNE STEMBRIDGE traces the legacy of this horticultural dynasty whose roots were established in Tikorangi in 1872.

TARANAKI gardener Felix Jury brought Vulcan and Apollo down to earth about the same time man walked on the moon.

While this story has nothing to do with exploring space, Felix took his own giant steps for plantkind by introducing these two world-renowned magnolia hybrids, as well as vireya rhododendrons and camellias, to our backyards.

In the wilds of New Guinea, Felix sought breeding material that would survive in New Zealand, because he realised the altitudes and climates were similar. Second son, Chris, remembers that exciting time because Felix promised to bring home bows and arrows for his three sons. “He was head-hunting stuff in head-hunting country,” says Chris. Felix enthralled the youngsters by telling them he used to sleep with one eye open when up in the highlands, as it was not unheard of to get your head cut off.

His botanical legacy is carried on today by youngest son, Mark, at the family homestead at Tikorangi, in North Taranaki.

In a Daily News article in 1990, just seven years before he died, Felix says his interest in horticulture came about simply because “it's probably in my family genes". It began nearly 130 years ago, on the other side of the world in Cornwall, England when the seeds of a gardening dynasty were sown.

His paternal grandparents were Cornish, a people known for their gardening prowess. His mother's family were also interested in gardening. Thomas and Eliza Jury founded the family farm in Tikorangi around 1872. Thomas established a piece of paradise by planting many native rimu, gums and pines, which now shelter an extraordinary collection of some of the world's rarest and most unusual plants. Mark's wife, Abbie, in a 1998 Daily News article says the family looks back and thinks he must have been a remarkable man to have been planting natives back then, instead of clear-felling like everyone else.

Felix's father, Bertram, although a farmer, didn't share the passion for horticulture Thomas and Felix are known for, but he and his wife Myrtle did pass the plant gene on to two of their five children.

Les was the nurseryman and breeder, whereas Felix pursued his interest purely as a hobby in conjunction with farming. Les, who died in 1982, was best known for breeding camellias and rhododendrons, and had successes with lilies as well. Both men worked with similar genre and, in the case of camellias, each produced hybrids, which gained them international recognition.

As Abbie ponders over the brothers' achievements, she recognises Les' reputation was important in its day. He went further in the camellia world, but he did not breed the long-term trees like magnolias, she says. It's the magnolias that will keep Felix's reputation going.

Les is well remembered by the gardening fraternity for being before his time when he opened his private garden in New Plymouth to the public back in the 50s and early 60s, setting a precedent carried on today by avid gardeners. The concept is living testimony to his work and foresight.

One person who marvels at Les' imagination is retired Pukekura Park curator, George Fuller. “I always remember one thing distinctively there (in Les' garden) – and that was an amazing hedge of totara, a native tree clipped to three to four metres high and only half a metre wide. People had never thought of using totara that way.” He may have got this idea from his parents' garden, where a stretch of the original 100-year-old clipped totara hedge remains today.

Felix's eldest son, Brent laughs loudly as he recalls his Dad becoming interested in gardening as a result of not being outdone by wife, Mimosa, who apparently was a strong-willed woman.

“Mum was the one that got him into gardening – she developed the rock garden outside the front of the homestead and he couldn't be outdone so he got involved, too. That's how it started.”

Well not quite, says sister-in-law Abbie: " They certainly worked together in developing the house gardens and Mimosa used to recall a shared love of camellias being initiated by a wedding gift of camellia plants from Les. But Felix's mother, Myrtle, was a keen home gardener and Felix and Mimosa came together at least partly through a shared love of gardens."

Felix acquired his vast knowledge of plants by communicating with all sorts of people from all around the world. Brent and Chris say they got to know the New Zealand horticulture scene well because Felix did not like driving, and as young guys they would chauffeur him around the country. They remember sitting outside nurseries waiting for hours. Sometimes, if Mimosa was with them, she would get so “hot under the collar” that she would go in and give him a blast.

T he breeding of plants started seriously after Felix's New Guinea expedition in 1958. Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust board chairman Alan Jellyman recalls Felix being at the forefront of vireya rhododendrons in the 1960s. “He was before his time.”

His early successes were with New Zealand natives, which he loved. Yellow Wave flax was the start of a long list of plants he bred. Other natives he dabbled with successfully were the ground-hugging astelias with their spear-like foliage, and cordylines, better known as cabbage trees. Mark is in the process of releasing Felix's Red Fountain cordyline internationally, and he tips it a winner because it's small and has exceptional colour.

Meanwhile, Brent's wife, Barbara, points out: “Once Felix produced a product, got the seed, had grown it, and saw it was going to be good, he was on to the next one.”

More success came with trees, and Felix was particularly proud of Pink Cloud and Mimosa Jury - flowering cherries found today in gardens everywhere. Not one to sit idle, he was on to magnolias, which he regarded as the aristocrats of the gardening world.

His first successful magnolia was Iolanthe, for which he received an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. “Felix was very proud about getting that,” says Abbie. It is still one of the top six magnolias in the world and marked the beginning of a new generation that flower at an early age. It went on to be rated one of the top six magnolias in the world.

Abbie tells the story of Felix hybridising magnolias in the 60s and putting a number of seedlings into the vegetable garden. It was here Iolanthe flowered and its large, pink and cream cup and saucer flowers were so impressive at that early age that it has stayed there ever since, to the detriment of the vegetables.

It was named in part as a sign of respect and affection for retired Pukekura Park fernery manager and good friend, Iolanthe Small, who says the honour took a while to sink in. “I didn't realise the magnitude of it then – of having a shrub named after one,” she muses.

Magnolia lovers worldwide have heard of Athene and Milky Way, varieties with abundant heavenly-smelling flowers. Other superior hybrids include the already mentioned Apollo, with scented star-like flowers, and its sister seedling, Vulcan, which has been described in Rosemary Barrett's book, “Magnolias” as “breathtakingly beautiful,” with its rich ruby-red flowers. Abbie: " Arguably Vulcan is the most significant and recognisable of Felix's magnolias because it was a colour break in the genus."

Besides being plant enthusiasts, Felix and his brother, Les, were competitive. Fuller remembers getting nervous about the sometimes-serious sibling rivalry. “I always felt as if I was treading on dangerous ground whenever I talked to either of them about lilies, because they were very competitive in that field, and it didn't do to commend one of them for the development of a lily when it was possibly the other brother who had (developed it). It was a minefield.”

Not content with competing with his big brother, Felix had a good set of friends at Massey University. They were also involved in hybridising and were all quite competitive, Brent recalls. “He always seemed to be able to hit the nail on the head and get the results. He might only raise 30-40 seedlings and in those there would be some gems.” This remarkable ability saw Felix awarded the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society's Veitch Medal in 1992.

That interest in plants passed on to yet another generation. Brent saw the monetary value in plants, and with his wife, Barbara, ran a nursery business from home at Pukeawa, near Waitara, in North Taranaki. During their 30 years in the nursery world, they exhibited Les' and Felix's attributes of foresight and patience.

In their time, Brent and Barbara Jury have experimented with a wide range of plants, but their obsession is for cycads, a winning trend in gardening today. Starting with perennials, they graduated to South African proteas, leucodendrons, and leucospernums, before specialising in the pre-historic plant wonders. They introduced several new palm and cycad species to New Zealand.

Barbara says that everything they seemed to do, people copied. “You used to have people who used to travel around from nursery to nursery to see what you were growing, and then go and compete with you the following season.” They got so sick of this they decided to divert their nursery totally into cycads, a long-lasting species which is much harder to copy. Although they closed their retail business in 2001, they have continued with the cycad breeding.

Y ounger brother Chris knew from an early age he wanted to be a farmer. He has turned the farm into an organic operation, specialising in macadamias and avocados, as well as running Perendale sheep. Felix got him interested in macadamias, and Chris has been to Australia to collect breeding material. “I probably would have one of coldest macadamia orchards in the world,” he says.

He realises that as an organic farmer he needs to develop his hybridising skills, although his horticultural skills led him down another garden path. He hopes to pursue that hybridising avenue on his release from prison where he is serving a six-year sentence for cultivating cannabis.

Of all Felix's children, Mark is said to be the closest hybrid of his father. Mark's interest in plants came about as a natural progression from childhood. Like his father before him, he states simply: “I grew up in a garden.”

Abbie says Mark always grew plants, even back when she first met him at Massey University in the 1970s. She remembers counting about 120 container plants they moved out of their first flat. There was also the time when the plants came off second best. “We had a lot of bonsais he was creating at that point that the dog destroyed. It got bored one afternoon and pulled everything out and marched them round the lawn.”

They returned to Taranaki 25 years ago from Dunedin, where they spent three years after finishing their studies. Mark says they were heading north with the idea of growing plants for a living, and called in to see the family. They were offered the use of land Felix had subdivided, which they accepted and, as they say, “here we are today.”

Mark began breeding camellias about 23 years ago. He bred smaller flowering varieties, which have the added advantage of being less affected by the dreaded petal blight. He cont inues the work instigated by Felix. “Mark and his father have always been interested in producing plants that will perform well in the garden for ordinary people,” says Abbie. Garden lovers have been treated to the next generation of recently released Jury magnolia hybrids, which include Black Tulip and Felix Jury, impressive red-toned varieties.

New Zealand garden writer Rosemary Barrett predicts magnolia hybrid Felix Jury may become known as one of the best of the Jury hybrids. The International Magnolia Society's top prize, the Todd Gresham Award, received by onl y about two dozen people, was given to Mark last year for his - and Felix's - contribution to the promotion of the magnolia genus.

Not only has Mark continued his father's vision, he has also fulfilled a dream of his mother. His best-known rhododendron, Floral Sun, a sweet-scented soft yellow, is the result of his following Mimosa's dream of getting colour into the nutallii group of rhododendrons. She hybridised a nutallii called Floral Dance, the half sister of Floral Sun.

Mark is now concentrating on another branch of the magnolia family, michelias. As yet, none have been released, but his work is incredibly significant to the gardening world, as it will introduce a whole new genus of ornamental shrub to the market.

Like Felix, he also breeds some plants for no other reason than getting more variety for his garden. In tune with his environment, he grows alpine plants alongside sub-tropicals. This unique Jury garden haven has recently been given the stamp of approval by the Royal New Zealand Horticultural Institute as a Garden of National Significance and will be included on its database promo ting New Zealand's best gardens.

Not only have the Jury Family received awards for their efforts in recognition of their significant contribution to horticulture, but gardens around the world display the true measure of their success. As New Plymouth garden expert Alan Jellyman says: “You only have to look around Taranaki gardens to see the wide range of plants bred by the Jurys.”

And as for the family passion for plants passing to the next generation, Mark quips that at the moment his only son, 15-year-old Theo, is just “ into growing his hair - as long as he can.” But two older sisters Jasmine and Camilla are certainly interested in plants and gardens. Watch this space.

ANNE STEMBRIDGE is WITT journalism student.