“Necessity is the Mother of Invention”

“Let’s zoom meet.”

This is a second nature saying to us now.  We hear it every day, but one year ago, somebody would have thought you needed counseling if you made that comment! Necessity is the Mother of Invention. In this pandemic time teleconferencing has filled a critical need and changed the way we communicate in our businesses– perhaps permanently. 

Necessity as the Mother of Invention for boxwood

COVID-19 has required extra precaution from workers in all tasks

Decades ago, nurseries had boxwood that would survive the winter, but they were ugly! ‘Green Velvet’, arguably the most planted boxwood cultivar in the United States today, was developed by Sheridan Nurseries in Canada as an answer to the poor Winter performance and appearance of boxwood in Canada and the Midwestern United States in the 1960s.  

Sheridan Nurseries’ ‘Green Velvet’ opened doors for boxwood in colder climates

Necessity being the Mother of Invention, Sheridan crossed Buxus sinica var. ‘insularis’ with a Sempervirens cultivar.  The thought was that the ‘insularis’ would offer cold hardiness and the Semperviren cultivar would give the boxwood aesthetics.  Four hybrid offspring were chosen including ‘Green Velvet’, ‘Green Mound’, ‘Green Mountain’, and ‘Green Gem’, all of which are still in widespread production 50 years later.  These plants revolutionized the nursery industry in the colder climates of the United States and Canada.  Boxwood were suddenly a popular plant in these colder climates. 

In 2011, the first confirmed cases of Boxwood Blight were found in North Carolina and Connecticut.  Boxwood Blight devastated whole fields of plants in the humid and wet mountains of the Southeast.  Saunders Brothers, Inc. knew that their existing boxwood variety makeup would not survive the pressures of Boxwood Blight.  

NewGen Independence® raises the bar for Boxwood Blight resistance

Again, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.  Within a few years, NewGen Freedom® and NewGen Independence® were introduced as answers to the problems the growers faced. Not only has NewGen® addressed the problems with Box Blight, but also with Boxwood Leafminer, a pest that was particularly a problem with the Sheridan hybrids.

So where do we go from here?

NewGen Freedom® and NewGen Independence® only fill a small part of the artist’s boxwood palette that are needed in North America. 

We need more shapes and sizes of boxwood, but with the Box Blight resistance and Boxwood leafminer resistance.  By continuing to evaluate existing cultivars, as well as newly bred cultivars, our hopes are to have an upright plant, a variegated boxwood, and a dwarf plant soon.  And that’s just the beginning.  

Bennett Saunders of Saunders Genetics oversees trials and evaluations for promising future introductions for NewGen® Boxwood

NewGen® is also focusing on cold hardy boxwood.  The Sheridan varieties ‘Green Velvet’, ‘Green Mountain’, ‘Green Mound’, and ‘Green Gem’ have historically been the most cold-hardy plants.  Mike Yanny, a seasoned boxwood breeder in Wisconsin, agrees that ‘Green Mound’ and ‘Green Gem’ are Zone 4 plants, but ‘Green Velvet’ and ‘Green Mountain’ are not reliable Zone 4 boxwood.  In addition, all four of these cultivars show moderate susceptibility to Boxwood Blight and extreme susceptibility to Boxwood Leafminer, particularly in areas warmer than Zone 5.  We can do better. NewGen® is very focused on finding cold hardy cultivars which would thrive in Zones 4-5.

The future is ‘cold’ for NewGen® Boxwood!

Who knows what boxwood problem will come next? Another disease? Another insect? We see light at the end of the Boxwood Blight tunnel and we know not what the future holds.  But rest assured that we will attempt to tackle any boxwood challenge before us.

Happy Spring!

A Return to Sacred Ground

By: Bennett Saunders

March 27, 2020

Marshall and a native brook trout.

The nursery boxwood dig list on Friday was very lean.  Business was dead.  The Coronavirus had caused the entire country to shut down.  Everybody was staying at home.  Even church was closed.  There was nothing to do this weekend.

My 25-year-old son, Tye had asked me to go trout fishing with him.  His boss had told him to stay at home in Charlotte, North Carolina, and rather than stay alone in his apartment, he had decided to come back to Piney River, Virginia.  He had been home for 10 days working remotely with the WiFi in our home.

I hadn’t been trout fishing with him, seriously...ever.  As a young teenager, my dad had taken me fishing to this remote native trout streams as a rite of passage.  As I do the math, I absolutely cannot fathom that was 45 years ago.  I had told my sons for years we should go up there fishing.  But it was too far to walk.  It would take a WHOLE DAY.  I had other things to do.  I didn’t have the time. 

But now I did.

Bennett, Tye, and Sawyer on the hike into the remote fishing grounds.

Tye, in turn, invited his older brother Marshall to go with us, and it became a family affair which even included our dog, Sawyer.  As we stopped to catch our breath on the rugged 2-mile hike into the remote mountain trout stream, I gave them the family history lesson. 

It is difficult to imagine, but this rugged mountain land was once farmed by my great-grandfather’s family.  There were piles of rocks and terraces everywhere, some old “fields” no larger than an average room in a house.  They raised tobacco on these terraces in the mountains. 

My great-grandfather Paulus Powell Massie, a Baptist preacher, was born and raised in these mountains.  Born in 1851, he was but 10 years old when the Civil War broke out in 1861.  His four older brothers went off to fight the Yankees.  One was laid to rest at Gettysburg as a member of 19th Virginia Infantry in Pickett’s charge on July 3, 1863.  One was wounded at the battle of Chancellorsville, recovered, but succumbed to dysentery and died in 1864.  Two brothers fought vain battles for the Southern Cause for four years and were lucky enough to walk home from Appomattox. 

Left to right: My great-grandfather, Rev. Paulus Powell Massie, his wife Emma, and Emma’s father David Staples Woodson (another Civil War Veteran) circa 1930. English boxwood in the background.

Family lore has it that my great-grandfather’s family raised huge tobacco crops in these mountains during the Civil War.  They stored tobacco under a huge rock on the side of the mountain but didn’t sell it until after the Civil War because Confederate money was worthless.  When they did sell, the brothers and their father made enough money from the crop to make a down payment on the boxwood farm that I now live on.

I thought it was tough now!  It is interesting to hear of the toils of our ancestors.  During their lifetime, they struggled with inferior farmland, a Civil War that took two brothers to their death, constant sickness with limited medical help, and then lean times during Reconstruction.  It puts the Coronavirus into perspective.  We will get through this, and we will be stronger in the end.

I have now passed this rite of passage with my sons.  The mountains were brilliant, the stream spectacular, and the fishing… do we really have to catch fish?  To leave civilization and the Coronavirus for a weekend was a breath of fresh air.  The weekend made me remember what is important in life.  It brought my family together for a memorable weekend.  I am ashamed that it took 45 years and a deadly virus for me to take my boys to this sacred ground.

Beware, fish!

The Story Continues

The Saunders Family

Growing up a Saunders predisposes you to have a certain affection towards boxwood. In our previous post we told the story of Paul Saunders and how he turned his passion for boxwood cultivation into a successful family business. Saunders Brothers Nursery began growing boxwood over 70 years ago and this was just the beginning. As the business has transitioned to a new generation of leadership, Paul’s sons, Robert, Bennett, Tom, and Jim reflect on their memories from sticking boxwood cuttings to earn an extra penny, to the discovery of Boxwood Blight in the United States and, to the creation of the NewGen™ program.

From an early age, the sons participated in every part of boxwood production around the farm. Bennett Saunders, General Manager of Saunders Genetics, remembers, “As kids, we would get paid a penny apiece for each boxwood cutting we stripped and stuck. This is how we would earn our extra spending money.” As the boys grew, they continued to play an essential part in the daily farm responsibilities. “I remember spending most weekday evenings at the nursery loading trucks with boxwood from March to May,” recalls Bennett. “At the time, boxwood were about 40% of the plants we grew.”

Boxwood Decline affecting English boxwood in a landscape

One of the first setbacks in boxwood production came about in the 1970s with the advent of Boxwood Decline. Up until this point, most of the boxwood market was made up of English boxwood (Buxus sempervirens ‘Suffruticosa’). As Boxwood Decline became more prevalent, the company began to move towards a wider selection of boxwood cultivars that were more resistant to the disease. Robert Saunders, General Manager of Saunders Brothers remembers, “In the spring of either 1981 or 1982, I was in high school and I got a note from the principal’s office saying I needed to call home. I called and my dad explained that he wanted me to come home to see an experiment he was doing. He was planting in an area just outside the yard at our house, a test garden of new varieties of boxwood. At that time, we grew only English and American boxwood, but my dad thought we should try some new ones.” Robert was dumbfounded for two reasons, “Number one, I hated plants, so I did not want to have anything to do with it. Number two, why did we need new varieties of boxwood? Little did I know I would end up working in the middle of it. From those trials, an evolution of perspective began and, we soon found Green Beauty, Green Velvet, Green Mountain and many other varieties. Most importantly it taught us about life beyond our small boxwood world.”

The exploration into new varieties of boxwood began to shed light on another lurking boxwood pest. “There was a field planting of Buxus sempervirens ‘Elizabeth Inglis’ that had just been eaten up with Boxwood Leafminer,” Bennett remembers. “It had never been sprayed and was just covered in blistered leaves.” Deciding this might be something worth exploring, they planted some other varieties near the host plant to see if different cultivars showed any natural resistance to the pest. Early observations showed that there was some hope for these different cultivars which encouraged Saunders to pursue more formal research.

Boxwood Leafminer larvae causing the boxwood leaves to swell and blister.

Dissecting boxwood leaves to count larvae.

In the early 2000s, Boxwood Leafminer incidences started to become more prevalent, coinciding with a general desire to reduce the use of pesticides, particularly the neonicotinoids. Saunders Brothers recruited retired nematologist Bob Dunn from the University of Florida to help them set up a replicated plot to collect data. They began by planting a test block where host plants infected with Leafminer were planted alongside many different cultivars of boxwood. Since the fall of 2006, thousands of leaf samples from the test area have been collected. Each leaf was dissected, and larvae were counted. The collection of this data over a decade showed a strong variation of cultivars’ natural resistance to Leafminer. This in turn meant a reduction in the use of pesticides and an increase in the value of boxwood in today’s gardens.

Bob Dunn, retired nematologist, working on Boxwood Leafminer research.

Boxwood Blight affecting a field nursery.

Then, in the fall of 2011, Bennett recalls that, “we began to hear horror stories about a disease called Boxwood Blight which was devastating boxwood nurseries in North Carolina and Connecticut. We called a meeting the Monday after Thanksgiving to decide what to do. We decided we needed to go to Europe before the MANTS show to have more information to better answer customers’ questions. We immediately bought tickets for a team from Saunders to go to Europe the week before Christmas. My wife was not happy, but it was something we had to do.”

Researcher in Europe showing examples of Boxwood Blight.

Bennett Saunders loading a truck with sample plants for NCSU trials.

Since the disease had been prevalent in Europe since the mid-1990s, members of the Saunders team spent time in Belgium and the United Kingdom to learn tactics to combat it. European researchers mentioned that they had seen that genetic tolerance for the disease varied among boxwood species. Saunders realized that trials could be performed, similar to the Leafminer trials, to discern genetic tolerance. In 2012, Saunders Brothers teamed up with Kelly Ivors at North Carolina State University to begin trialing different boxwood species and cultivars. Thanks to years of collection, many different boxwood cultivars existed at the nursery in Virginia, so Saunders sent samples of these varieties to be part of the trials. This research proved to be so insightful that after the research was completed at NCSU in 2015, Saunders continued the trials privately. It was clear this was a challenge that could be overcome.

Kelly Ivors (middle) and team at NCSU.

NewGen Independence® in field trials.

 Since learning about the disease, enormous resources have been dedicated to learning about Boxwood Blight. Saunders Brothers has donated thousands of plants, given input into multiple research projects, and made every attempt to better educate themselves and the growing community about this disease. Teams have traveled domestically and internationally to better understand a disease that many once thought would be the end of boxwood. Working with researchers from state and federal agencies, as well as international groups, the continued message was apparent that through a greater understanding of the disease, the battle with Boxwood Blight will be won with tolerant varieties and best management practices.

NewGen Freedom® in production.

Holding on to that message of hope, and after years of trialing, certain cultivars continued to outperform many of the popular varieties on the market. Two of those cultivars were chosen because they stood out from the rest. “These plants showed up and made us smile and think ‘We’ve really got something here’ that we can share with the industry,” remembers Robert. The discovery of these beautiful plants characterized by their superior resistance to Boxwood Leafminer, high tolerance of Boxwood Blight, and WOW factor in the landscape led to the creation of the NewGen™ brand. You can read more about that story here.

From one 13-year-old boy’s love of a charming little evergreen grew a family business dedicated to innovation and looking for solutions. Saunders Genetics, LLC was created to become a resource for all boxwood enthusiasts for generations to come. With over 70 years’ of experience and a passion for boxwood, they are excited to introduce a new generation of boxwood to the industry.

Paul Saunders and his wife, Tatum, at their home.

Where the Story Begins

Young Paul with his mother Mildred Saunders.

Paul and Mildred looking at some Boxwood in the garden.

On a bright April day in 1947, 13-year-old Paul Saunders joined his mother Mildred as she pruned the English boxwood hedges around the front porch of their home.  Even though baseball was Paul’s favorite pastime, he turned down a game with his friends playing in a nearby cow pasture to shadow his mother, an enthusiastic gardener and passionate member of the Nelson County Garden Club.  Paul had learned how to propagate shrubs from his science teacher and local nurseryman, Mr. Atto.  Paul gathered 77 cuttings as his mother snipped, and planted them in a nearby patch on the northern side of an eroded hill, a perfect spot with a thicket of pines overhead for shade, and a spring close by for water.

Paul enlisted the help of his friend “Boochie” White to become his partner in the venture.  Boochie was responsible for most of the watering because he lived close to the plants.  Of those 77 cuttings, 25 rooted and became the genesis of the Saunders family’s commercially-grown boxwood nursery.

The boxwood patch next to the hen house.

The following July Paul bought out Boochie’s interest for $1.00 and moved the fledgling nursery to a new location that offered richer soil and a water spigot.  Buoyed with the success of the first planting, he then planted 1,000 cuttings of both English and American boxwood.  “I could water them daily with a water hose from the spigot at the hen house,” Paul reflected.  “My little boxwood nursery became part of my 4-H Home Grounds Beautification project.  I stuck more cuttings in rooting beds near an old woodpile.  John Whitehead, our County Farm Agent, encouraged me as the nursery grew.”  Paul remembers many people asking him, “What are you going to do with all those boxwood?”  “I don’t know,” he replied, and went on planting.

A young Robert, John, and Bennett Saunders checking the boxwood cuttings.

A young Tatum working in the nursery.

Year after year, Paul continued to plant more boxwood and as the nursery grew, so did the family.  Paul met his wife Tatum in 1955 in Franklin County at a 4-H party.  He recalls that on one of their early dates, she helped him strip boxwood cuttings to prepare for planting.  They married and eventually welcomed seven sons to their family.  The boys (four of whom run the Saunders Brothers nursery today) all have stories of what it was like to grow up on the farm.  “If you ate at the dinner table at night, you were expected to be at work the next day at 8 A.M., all days except Sunday,” reflects Bennett Saunders.  “No exceptions, even for friends of the family.”

Paul with sons Massie and Tom.

John and Sam Saunders walking through the nursery in the snow.

Plants were first marketed locally, but as the nursery grew, boxwood began to be shipped all over Virginia.  One day in 1962, Paul received a phone call from the National Park Service, asking to buy 1,500 boxwood.  Paul asked where the plants were going, but he was told their destination was confidential.  Eventually the word got out that the boxwood were headed to the White House.  President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline had recently returned from an international trip where they were inspired by the formal European gardens, and wanted to renovate the White House Rose Garden.  The 1,500 boxwood used in the renovation can still be seen from the windows of the Oval Office today.

Boxwood being loaded to go to The White House

Saunders Boxwood being planted in the Rose Garden

The nursery continued to expand to the farm’s fertile river bottoms and hillsides.  All was well and sights were set on a bright future until a warm August night in 1969 when Mother Nature threw a monkey wrench in the plan.  In less than five hours, through the middle of the night, Hurricane Camille dumped over 20 inches of rain on the mountains of Nelson County, Virginia.  The devastation and loss of life in the county were horrendous (1% of the population perished).  Mudslides, flooding, and avalanches of debris covered the area.  The raging Tye River destroyed nearly 10 acres of Saunders plants and land.  Although the damage was devastating, a few boxwood that were planted on higher ground, survived.  This nucleus gave birth to a container nursery at Tye Brook Farm.

Paul walking through a crop of boxwood.

In the late 60s and 70s boxwood were moved down to the packing shed in peach bins, where they were then loaded on to trucks.

Although boxwood had been used as a common landscape plant for many years, only two varieties, English and American, were commonly used in landscapes.  That changed in the 1970s as boxwood came to face more and more disease problems.  As a result, Paul proceeded to look at different varieties for a solution.  “We began to see these problems and started searching for other strains that we could substitute.  I talked to people all over the boxwood-growing areas, asking their advice as to their choices of the best varieties,” recalled Paul.  “There was no real consensus; what was doing well in one area was not necessarily doing well in another area.  In order to find out which variety was best suited in a particular area, we established evaluation sites from Connecticut to Chicago, south to Alabama and Georgia, and many areas in between, donating thousands of boxwood to the sites to get the project started.” Working with many public and private gardens, universities, and researchers, the National Boxwood Trials were born.  Over 60 participants reported their observations of a variety of cultivars in two basic categories, plant attractiveness and grower friendliness.  The results were published annually, with the final report being published in 2011. Paul describes the Boxwood Trials as one of his proudest accomplishments. 

Three generations in the field learning about boxwood. Paul and his grandsons, Tye and Marshall, are joined by their father Bennett, his wife Lynn and Paul’s wife Tatum.

From one 13 year-old boy’s love of a charming little evergreen, grew a family business dedicated to innovation. The Saunders family continues to do research through Saunders Genetics, LLC. to find the best boxwood to flourish in each of a wide diversity of micro-environments.

Paul with one of his favorite boxwood cultivars.