Photo Of The Week: Where do new perennials come from?

February 5, 2025
Larry Hurley
Perennial Plants
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Where do new perennials come from?

Many are grown in tissue culture by specialty growers. One that we worked with a lot when we were growing perennials at Behnke’s was Terra Nova Nurseries, in Oregon. They have an extensive breeding program for Heuchera and other perennials, but they also might put a plant into production that was found by someone outside the company. When we at Behnke’s found a mutant plant in a tray of Heuchera ‘Obsidian’ that we purchased from Terra Nova, we contacted them and eventually it was released as Heuchera ‘Midnight Rose’, which is now available worldwide.

Plant tissue culture is cloning. Except for the occasional mutation, all of the plants are identical. (Just like all ‘Red Delicious’ apples are identical, dating back to one original plant, although they are not reproduced through tissue culture but by more traditional woody plant propagation means, like grafting. You can Google that process if you are interested.) In tissue culture, (TC), a bit of the desired plant is placed in a bottle with nutrients and plant hormones, and it eventually makes a lot of tiny copies of itself. These are grown out, and eventually shipped to growers who pot them up for sale to the public.

Terra Nova has information on this process on their website.

Although they are a wholesale nursery, they have excellent descriptive and cultural information for the many cultivars they have released over the years, numbering in the hundreds. Browsing through their website is a fun way to spend a winter’s afternoon. Start here!

The photo was taken at Terra Nova, taken July, 2010, when I was there on a tour. These are Heuchera at the size ready to ship out to growers around the country, for potting up for eventual sale to gardeners.

Larry Hurley

Larry Hurley worked at Behnke Nurseries from 1984 until the business was composted in 2019, primarily with the perennial department in growing, buying and sales.

Before landing at Behnke’s, he worked as a technician in a tissue culture lab, a houseplant “expert” at a florist shop, and inventory controller at a wholesale nursery in Dallas. With this and that, ten years passed.

When his wife Carolyn accepted a position at Georgetown University, Larry was hired at Behnke’s for the perennial growing department and garden center at Behnke’s Largo location.

In 2021, Larry and Carolyn moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and further from traffic. After 37 years in a shaded yard in Maryland, he is happy to have a sunny lot where he can grow all sorts of new perennials, if only he can keep the rabbits at bay. He also enjoys cooking, traveling, and the snowblower.