All plants men dream of discovering a new plant. Peter Catt of Liss Forest Nurseries based in Greatham Hampshire did just that.
"Choisya ternata Sundance is a favourite because it has been such a popular plant. In 1978 I found a very small leaf with a white edge which I felt could have been variegation.Having rooted the cutting, I removed the dominant side shoots so forcing a shoot from the axil of the small leaf and out came a golden shoot. Having propagated a few plants by cuttings I then used micropropagation to increase the numbers and we introduced it at Chelsea in 1986.
Its popularity has placed it in the top ten shrubs virtually ever since."
Keep looking, that plant that might make your fortune needs to be discovered. It certainly made Peter Catt his fortune and put him on the map in the plant breeding world. It made Tony Salter of Baldwin's nursery in Rake a few bob too. Tony and Peter were close friends and Tony grew hundreds of thousands of Sundance under license for Liss Forest.
The garden centres could not get enough of them and production was very high.
I do remember a period when the Ditch produced (illegally) a Sundance under the name of Moondance (from memory) - edit, after doing a search I found the other Choisya called 'Moonshine' and for some reason, although the Sundance was licensed to Peter Catt, this was allowed.
Checking up again I noticed a picture of Moonshine on this site and it is clearly nothing like Sundance. If anyone has a recollection of the Dutch copying of the Sundance back in about 1985 then I would dearly love to hear from you.
It is amazing how plants get a round the world (legally and illegally) and whilst searching for Sundance information I found this little excerpt titled - NEW PLANTS RECEIVED BY THE NCSU Arboretum (now the JC Raulston Arboretum) - JANUARY-JUNE 1989 and on the list is Choisya ternata 'Sundance'.
I wonder if Graham Rice of Transatlantic Plantsman will be as lucky with the variegation on the Alchemilla mollis he found whilst perusing a superstore on the United States?
Moonshine is totally different - a tetraploid C.ternata developed by respected plantsman David Tristram. It has green leaves and is lovely.
The Dutch and others still grow Sundance under other names. Of course, the Plant Variety Rights only apply in the UK for Sundance, so there is little Peter can do to stop them, so long as they are not exporting to the UK.
Posted by: Graham Spencer | Jun 28, 2012 at 07:54 PM