Development Center’s goal is to develop hardy, attractive plants

By Bev Johnson | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, October 8, 2007

Northern gardeners have help in their gardens that they have never heard of before. Harold Pettett, of Mound, is executive director of the Landscape Development Center, a national nonprofit research institute.

Mr. Pettett's goal in life is to develop plants that are able to live in poor soil, air pollution, salty soil and cold.

They must also be pretty, petite, (for our smaller gardens) and sterile. That is a lot to expect from a plant.

He recently established a 6.75 acre test garden in Lake Elmo. This has produced three plants: Center Star Clematis, Center Glow ninebark, and Silver Ball, an ornamental pear.

The center is affiliated with 80 other research scientists working at universities, arboreta, and plant companies from Oregon to New York. It is a one of a kind network for developing woody plants for urban landscapes.

The center was founded in 1990, with funding from the Washington, D.C.-based Horticulture Research Institute, the Robert Engstom Cos, Bailey Nurseries and Landscape Association, other nursery companies and individual gardeners and associations.

A trip through Harold's test gardens show some plants thriving and others obviously not long for this world. Most new cultivars start out in Oregon's relatively, for us anyway, balmy climate, then get the job of not only surviving but flourishing here.

Survivors are crossed and recrossed, tested and retested until they achieve the qualities the center's scientists want.

One of the center's main goals is to create plants that are not fussy. They must tolerate environmental and biological stresses, require little maintenance, fewer chemicals and still grow well in a wide range of climates.

They are trying for plants that are compact, sterile or highly infertile to reduce the threats we now often face from invasive ornamentals.

A current project is to develop a small maple as ornamental as the Japanese maples but hardy. They have already crossed a Chinese maple with a Japanese maple and the second-generation seedlings are growing in Minnesota. Given their origins, will they have yellow leaves? We will know in about five years.

The center has also crossed a bush honeysuckle with a related shrub, the Weigela, in hopes of maintaining the form of the honeysuckle, attractive variegated leaves and pink flowers.

Harold spent 36 years as a research scientist for the University of Minnesota, then started the Center after he retired. He’s a great guy working for Minnesota gardeners.

Bev Johnson is a master gardener for West Otter Tail County.

From an article by Mary Lahr Schier, editor of the magazine, “Northern Gardener.”