And Now, For Something Completely Different…The Larch

Since watching the bizarre Monty Python skit, “The Larch” as part of their series, “How to Recognize Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away” was first aired in 1969, I became obsessed about growing this deciduous conifer, which is confined to the world’s cold summer regions. Since 1969, I’ve killed an array of ten larches, many occurring long before I began keeping records of my plant failures. Over the years, one lesson I’ve learned is that getting plants to adapt to new climates is often simply a numbers game. If you grow enough plants from seed, you will eventually find one that is more adapted to your particular climate. Sometimes that may happen in a single generation, and other times, it may take multiple generations and several human lifetimes.

On a 2019 trip to the US National Arboretum’s secret trial grounds, aka: Area 51, we spotted a large specimen of larch, Larix gmelinii var. olgensis, growing quite happily. With its origins in the cold Russian Far East and North Korea, this was a horticultural shocker. Perhaps, my larch longings weren’t dead after all. The Arboretum shared seed, but unfortunately, none sprouted. It took us three years to find another seed source, but when we did, we got great germination. All of the babies were potted, and grown in our research greenhouse, as we watched them die, one by one, during the heat of summer. At the end of year, we were down to three plants, and the following year, we were down to a single live specimen, which was finally large enough to be planted in the garden. The photo below is our plant that we’ve christened Larix gmelinii var. olgensis ‘Hot Stuff’, taken this week, after just over two years in the ground. As it ages we’ll experiment with propagation, so we can hopefully share this with other larch-obsessed gardeners in warm summer climates.