A few years ago Pairat Songpanich hybrized what is the worlds first hardy (inter-sub-genetic) waterlily with a blue (lavendar) hue. The good news was that one existed the bad, the plant has produced no natural offspring since 2007.

A few weeks ago in July hybridizer Mike Giles who has studied waterlily genetics and history for the better part of a decade produced a wonderful hardy purple….very purple. UPDATE 8-17-2010: Named “Purple Satin”

WHO IS MIKE GILES?

That was going to be a blog post of mine for a few months. My buddy Tim in Houston Texas has been sharing Mikes hardy hybrids with me for most of this year. Until the news of a successful purple I thought Mike would be going into the history books for creating some wild and fascinating waterlilies based on the pads. I saw much of Mikes new work when visiting San Angelo Texas where over a dozen new varieties are on display this year. The lilypads are beyond fancy in my opinion. The flowers are all very pretty but the pads blew me away.

As I write this tonight, if you know anything about waterlilies I am not going to be able to impress you with all my photos and videos of the pads as you want to see the worlds first hardy purple tropical. Tim Davis has waited a long Time to introduce Mike Giles to the world and Mike’s story will be well known and is fascinating as you may soon learn.

So do me a favor and  head over to my buddy Tim’s Website as he introduces you to Mike and this yet to be named purple Hardy waterlily.

Visit the InternationalWaterlilyCollection.com to view this new lily

I will have Mike’s videos and photos of the new regular hardy waterlilies on here soon and please visit his work this late summer of fall if you can at the International Waterlily Collection in San Angelo Texas.

-Zac

Nymphaea Bull’s Eye: Developed by Florida Aquatics this new waterlily is the most correct Red a tropical day bloomer has achieved until this point. Often hot pink or rosey this adult plant is Red and when very mature nearly maroon.

From Florida Aquatic: The flower color is the real eye-catcher on this lily. The red color is deeper or more of a true red than any lily on the market today. This flower will catch your eye from quite a distance away. Set on a vigorus, compact plant with solid green pads we expect this lily will be well received.
The closest comparison with N. ‘Bulls Eye’ would be N. ‘Jack Wood’ however the flower color of N. ’Bulls Eye’ is much darker than N. ‘Jack Wood’ and the flower has many more petals, up to 50 when mature.

Turn on the volume to hear Tim, the side view in the 2nd half shows realistic color of the flower.

Enjoy in High Definition and Full Screen

Bull’s Eye is currently on display in San Angelo at the International Waterlily Collection 2010.

Bulls Eye can be purchased at www.PondMegastore.com

Enjoy Foxfire in High Definition (Available in Full Screen)

They are available to purchase at www.PondMegastore.com

With the click of a mouse, I saw it was true. From this day forward, Hardy Waterlilies will NEVER again stand as a slightly less impressive plant in the shadows of amazing vibrant tropical waterlilies. “Wanvisa” has arrived! I know what you are thinking >>>insert photo here<<<<. I do want you to come back and check for more news and it will eventually show up here along with a flood of others.

On its way to the international waterlily collection in San Angelo, my buddy is currently growing the AMAZING waterlily. Developed by Mr. Nopchai Chansilpa of Thailand. The plant will be on display in San Angelo Texas from July through Lilyfest in September. Nopchai will be present at San Angelo this fall if you would like to meet him. Likely the first peak presentation will be around the July 3 / 4th time this summer.

Other inside information straight from Ken Landon himself via Tim Davis tells a story of massive planting and work underway in San Angelo. The pools are filling with more lilies each day and the young Victoria’s I believe have been added. Ken has a small staff of some great ladies helping him and has just finished working with kids volunteering before summer break. From years past the site looks something like this…

Water-Garden-Blog is staying on top of the many many announcements coming from the San Angelo IWC and will have reports coming all summer long as we anticipate the aquatic event of the Decade.

Many more hybrid waterlilies, interviews, and important topics like the White List are being worked on.

Lori Shontz
The Penn Stater magazine

— At first, all George Griffith wanted was a pond. Just a little one, somewhere in a corner of his family’s land in western Pennsylvania. 

After getting permission to dig one, he saved his money to buy a couple of goldfish to live there.

After a couple of weeks, the fish died. So Griffith – only 8 years old – began studying to find out why, and within a couple of years he was not only breeding his own goldfish, but earning money by selling them to five-and-dime stores, including the one where he had purchased his first pair.

That was only the beginning. Goldfish led to guppies. Turtles. Canaries. Myna birds. Orchids. And water lilies. Griffith paid his Penn State tuition with profits from George’s Aquatic Gardens and Pet Supplies, which made him an important guy in some corners of campus.

The Daily Collegian noted in a 1956 article that Griffith, a 1956 PSU graduate, sold “30,000 goldfish a year” and added “The collegian pastime of swallowing goldfish by fraternity pledges has also boosted his sales.”

The goldfish paid the bills, but they were never his true love and focus.

That was the pond. Griffith has spent his life expanding on that original water garden, and he now has more than 30 lily ponds on his 80-acre property, a former potato farm along a mountain road outside of Ligonier.

“There’s just something magic about a water lily,” Griffith said.

“They’re the diamonds of the water.”

And he doesn’t have just any old water lilies; he develops his own. 

Griffith has hybridized hundreds of them over the years and the dozen or so he has deemed worthy to propagate are part of his water garden. He also has a lotus that’s a direct descendent of a plant more than 2,000 years old.

No, Griffith never does anything halfway. “I love too many things,” he said. “I get too excited.”

Plenty of people are slowing down at his age, 77. But Griffith is still running The Flower Barn, the business in Westmont he owns with his partner, Thomas O’Brien.

That’s an uphill battle sometimes, he said, because of the increasingly popular phrase in death notices, “in lieu of flowers.”

That cuts into profits, but Griffith thinks there’s a bigger cost to society as a whole. 

He explained, “Flowers forever have been an expression of all those things we cannot express as we would like to.”

Griffith has been expressing himself with flowers since he cornered the market on black orchids (which are white orchids dyed) when they were popular in the 1950s. He then moved on to designing flower arrangements for gala events all over western Pennsylvania and beyond

– even at the White House and about

17 states.

“He’s very precise – a perfectionist,” said Donald Miller, a former art and architecture critic for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. 

He has attended dozens of galas marked by Griffith’s distinctive style. “And frankly, that’s what they best do: Make every effort to do it right.”

O’Brien put it this way: “You cannot pull anything over his eyes. From the bookkeeper on down, he is one step ahead of everyone.”

Griffith was only a junior in college when he made his first botanical splash. When word came that President Dwight D. Eisenhower would give the Penn State commencement speech in 1955, Griffith was asked to put together a floral display.

He went big, floating 2,000 water lilies on the pond in front of the president’s home (now part of the Hintz Family Alumni Center). And because the blue and purple tropical water lilies he wanted didn’t bloom so early in Pennsylvania, he had them shipped from Florida.

Life magazine published a photo of Eisenhower and his brother, Penn State President Milton Eisenhower, posing by the flowers.

That’s how Griffith came to have a lotus plant with an ancient legacy. It came from a seed found at the bottom of a Manchurian lake; initial carbon dating showed it to be at least 2,000 years old, and he said it is among the oldest seeds to ever be germinated.

The lotus was growing in Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens in a rough neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and Griffith learned that children were vandalizing the garden. So he asked Milton Eisenhower for help, and Eisenhower enabled him to get a “division” of the rare lotus, which he is still growing.

Griffith’s connection in D.C. grew. In 1981, he and O’Brien decorated the White House for a state dinner honoring the prime minister of Japan. Nancy Reagan, who was famous for requesting specific flowers, regardless of whether they were in season, wanted water lilies. 

Those flowers were blooming, but there was still a problem – they bloom only during the day, and the dinner was at night.

Griffith solved the problem by injecting the floral equivalent of muscle relaxants into the stomata, or base, of the cut water lilies. (He still laughs at the fact that he was “drugging” the flowers as the White House mounted its “War on Drugs.”) But the flowers stayed open, the first lady was pleased, and Griffith and O’Brien have continued to do occasional displays for the White House ever since.

Closer to home, Griffith has specialized in creating spectacular spaces for parties and museums, including for the openings of Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall and the Hunt Botanical Library at Carnegie Mellon.

Miller particularily remembers a gala at the Carnegie Museum of Art for an exhibit of French decorative panels the museum obtained from the ocean liner Normandie. 

The tables were adorned with cornstalks sprayed with gilt paint to resemble huge candelabras, and the unadorned walls were bathed in a bright, Carribbean blue. “Man, was that spectacular,” Miller said. “It was out of this world.”

But Griffith’s finest work might be a private one – his roughly 30 lily ponds. He and O’Brien have built the ponds themselves during the past 25 years and many of the colorful lilies are Griffith’s own. There are hardy lilies (which overwinter in the ponds) such as “Lemon Chiffon,” which is light yellow, and “Rachel Hunt,” which is very large and white. The tropical lilies, which must spend the winter in greenhouses, include the blue-purple ones he has named “Blue Skys” and “Elsie” (as in his friend Elsie Hillman, the Pittsburgh philanthropist). Griffith’s peach-colored lily, created about a decade ago, is named “Tom O’Brien.”

Some of those same flowers will be blooming at his alma mater. He has donated about 100 of his plants to The Arboretum at Penn State, which has a 30-foot lotus pond in the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. Among those are water lilies that he has developed (they are unnamed for now) and another division of the rare lotus from Manchuria.

Those are varieties that have taken decades to hybridize, but Griffith thinks in terms not of time, but of beauty. “It’s joyful and it’s a love,” he said. “You just hope for the excitement of crossing two plants to come up with a wonderment.”

On the good news front I want to extend a special congratulations to Warner Obando and his future wife on their engagement. If you are unaware of Warner he will be one of the leading news stories on numerous Lotus projects for years to come. His work can be read in journals, the Auburn University Lotus Project website, International Waterlily and Water Garden Society, and Water Gardner’s International Journals.  

On to Nymphaea Infinite Love,

        My friend Cynthia Wong-Bayhi and her husband Darren are friends of hybridizer and waterlily extraordinaire Ken Landon. Cynthia is a wonderful little ray of sunshine that resides in Texas who is also a fellow Christian. Cynthia requested a white lily hybridized by Ken Landon. She contacted Carl White, the San Angelo Parks Director to make that request.The lily was to  honor of Our Lord. upon talking with Ken Landon who has developed numerous varieties over the decades they came to an agreement to name one, specifically a pure white and dedicate to Christ. Though other names and other plants were discussed Ken chose a beautiful white lily yet unregistered though called “White Daisy” for the shape and color of the petals. Ken gave the lily to Cynthia earlier this year.

internationalwaterlilycollection.com

         Cynthia is hopeful that the lily will be installed at her Church,  Promiseland West. The lily will be  dedicate during Lilyfest 2010.  Named “Infinite Love” for Christ’s passion for each person in the world.  She hopes the lily will be a ministry tool to heal the  hurting. A special sight for those who lost loves ones, those coming to Christ, and a conversation piece for those who would like to explain Christs infinite love for the people of the world. Christmas week is probably a great time to begin discussing Infinite Love. Right now only Cynthia has the water lily along with a couple more specimens with Ken Landon at the International Waterlily Collection and the International Preservation Repository in San Angelo, Texas.. In 2010 There will be a dedication ceremony for ”Infinite Love”. The plant is not commercially available anywhere. We will be writing about this lily again as there will be more news in the coming months.

         There are a collection of great reads on Ken Landon’s superhero history available, I can at this time only repeat some of the vast number of articles collected from Water Gardeners International, Darren Bayhi’s info on the Austin Pond Society, and a collection of posts including the International Waterlily and Water Garden Society.

         Ken’s international waterlily collection in San Angelo has provided Egypt with seeds to repopulate the Nile River with  the thought to be extinct, Sacred Lotus of the Nile. Mexico thought the Star of Mexico had become extinct in the 1070s, Ken traveled to an uncharted area and found the plant and saved it from extinction. In Madagascar Ken discovered a tropical dwarf lily, Nymphaea minuta,which does surprisingly well in shade. Ken’s collection includes what possibly  the last, or one of the last Zanzibar’s, now extinct in the wild. This is just a touch of what Ken has done and if you would like to know more please search for him on the detailed history in the online sites I mentioned. Next year Ken and hopefully a large collection of the worlds aquatic hero’s will gather for the most extensive celebration ever of the waterlily. Just this Week Ken received news of a unanimous city council approval for a 10 year extended contract on maintaining and improving the park. LilyFest, or LandonFest as you could call it will be celebrated in conjunction with the IWGS symposium in Sept 2010. Visit the IWGS.org site for updates and details. At lily fest you will be able to meet Ken Landon in person as well as the staff and volunteers that help maintain the pools. Ken has quite a worldwide following and one of the best reputations as an international plant ambassador.

From Florida Aquatics: Nymphaea ‘Tanzanite’ is an exciting new tropical waterlily. The flower is the deepest violet purple of all the current tropical waterlilies, even more so than last year’s winner, Nymphaea ‘Ultra Violet’. It has a bright gold center and 50 petals which add to the attraction. Not only is the flower excellent, but the pads of this waterlily are beautifully mottled with bright green and purple stripes. Tanzanite is a very vigorous waterlily and a prolific bloomer.  It typically has more than one flower open each day. The compact growth habit helps to keep this plant medium sized and is ideal for any pond or water garden including containers. Nymphaea ‘Tanzanite’ is truly an eye catching tropical waterlily.

Awards: Best New Waterlily 2009, Best Tropical Waterlily 2009, Peoples Choice Award 2009

More information on the hybrid will probably be available closer to its market release from Florida Aquatic Nurseries onto the market perhaps in the spring of 2011 or 2012.

(From IWGS Journal) Stone Mountain, GA. USA  NAPP / IWGS Even: Water Feature Conference & Expo February 28 – March 2, 2010 This is a chance for those in the pond business to meet with other pond professionals to learn about the future of technology and how it will aid your business and your customers’ ponds. 

(From IWGS Journal, I already have reservations…) 2010  San Angelo, TX. USA: Waterlily Festival  September 17 – 19, 2010 This will be the waterlily event of the century. Over 200 varieties of waterlily plants on display. Speakers to be announced later. Everyone who is anyone in the waterlily community will want to be there. Make plans to join us at The International Waterlily Collection for Lily Fest and the IWGS Waterlily Festival.

—Visit www.iwgs.org For more information as it becomes available about these great opportunities or to become a member.

Just a few articles include:

Hardy Waterlily (Nymphaea sp.) Hybridization by Pairat Songpanich

Pairat Songpanich Hybrid Creation Computer Presentation by Tim Davis

Nymphaea Purchase Opportunity ‘Ultra Violet’ by Tim Davis

The World’s First Hybrid Between Day Bloomer and Night Bloomer by Carlos Magdalena of RBG Kew

Recap of the IWGS Symposium by Darren & Cynthia Bayhi

More articles by Jim Purcell, Jennifer Zuri, Steve Stroupe, Harry Hutchings, Larry Nau, and more by Tim Davis.