Brueckner Rhododendron Project

Brueckner Hybrids Catalogue

The Brueckner Hybrids Test Project was established by the Niagara Region Chapter, Rhododendron Society of Eastern Canada (RSEC). This multi-site, 5-year, cross-border project seeks to evaluate the horticultural merit of more than 100 rhododendron hybrids from the private collection developed by the late Dr. Joseph Brueckner of Mississauga, Ontario.

The purpose of the project is to measure plant performance across a range of climate and environmental conditions. Participants in the project include both institutional Partners and home gardeners. Please see below for a full description of the project.

For the convenience of participants in the project, we are introduing a catalogue of the cultivars they are evaluating, with corresponding photographs. The catalogue contains 5 columns:

• Code—The primary identifier is an ID code assigned to each cultivar, such as “VIII 24” (Roman numeral followed by Arabic numbers)
• Cross—This provides the original code used by the hybridizer to identify the grex (or cross)
• Parentage—The parentage of each cultivar, where known, is given
• Type—The type, either Lepidote (L) or Elepidote (E) and notes
• Photos—Link to one or more snapshots of the cultivar. Each photograph bears the ID code which corresponds to its equivalent in the catalogue.

Project Background

The Brueckner Test Project was developed by the Rhododendron Society of Eastern Canada, Niagara Region Chapter (NRC). This multi-site, 5 year, cross-border project seeks to evaluate the horticultural merit of 100 rhododendron hybrids from the private collection developed by the late Dr. Joseph Brueckner, in Mississauga, Ontario.

Dr. Brueckner’s prodigious hybridizing program sought to develop rhododendrons that had all the attributes of showy plants but were also cold hardy and suitable for a range of Canadian climates. Although some of Dr.Brueckner’s early introductions have been commercially available for many years (26 rhododendrons are named and registered with the RHS) few others of his thousands of crosses were known beyond the original plants often growing in only a handful of gardens. There was growing concern that these plants could be lost to the horticultural world if steps were not taken to propagate and further evaluate them while the mother plants were still available. It was agreed that a formal and structured evaluation of these plants should be undertaken to more thoroughly assess their cold hardiness and horticultural merit across a range of garden environments.

The initial launch of the Brueckner project in 2011 introduced a formal plant evaluation process which was well received by the NRC membership, demonstrating the willingness of home gardeners to seriously participate in such a project. This opened an opportunity for the NRC to offer its members the exclusive option to purchase plants and monitor their performance as part of an initial 3 year evaluation project. This embryonic stage in the project (Phase 1) helped increase membership in the Chapter and attracted new funding for the project.

Phase 2 was initiated in 2016 as a 5 year evaluation project with the added benefit of participation by six horticultural institutions: Montreal Botanical Garden, PQ; Holden Arboretum, Ohio; The Riverwood Conservancy, Mississauga, ON; Memorial University of Nfld Botanical Garden; South Coast Gardens, St. Williams, ON; Chafe Nursery and Farm, Parham, ON; Humber Arboretum, Toronto, ON. Home garden participants include members of both the Société des rhododendrons du Québec and NRC. Both institutional partners and NRC member participants had the opportunity to share early experience in the project and help with planning next steps at a Symposium held in 2017. Evaluation criteria have subsequently been refined and a process for online digital data collection and analysis is in preparation.

Test plants will be evaluated for cold-hardiness, heat tolerance, bud hardiness, growth rate, disease resistance, flowering capacity, foliage retention, and other criteria. Along with these measures of plant performance the evaluation protocol seeks to measure a range of environmental and climate variables in each test location. In addition, participants are requested to profile the planting location and soil type, record the local weather conditions, soil amendments, irrigation methods, and to note anything else of significance that they feel may have impacted their plants’ performance.

To create sufficient numbers of plants for these garden trials, cuttings were collected from the original plants bred by Dr. Brueckner (each with a unique genotype), sent to Van Veen Nursery for rooting and then returned to Canada where they were potted by volunteer NRC members, and nurtured for one year at South Coast Gardens as established viable plants for subsequent distribution. By summer 2016, there were more than 650 young plants ready for entry into these garden trials. The termination of the test period will see all individual results collated and used torate plant performance. It is our hope that the results will reveal, in addition to top performers, valuable and reliable plant descriptions and requirements for good plant performance among the entire collection of hybrids.

To our knowledge this is the first time such a multi-site testing of rhododendrons employing the combined participation of both individual gardeners and institutions has been attempted in Canada. The project has received encouraging support through a grant from the Test & Display Garden Committee of the American Rhododendron Society (ARS). It is hoped that preliminary evaluation results can be shared at the 2021 ARS International Convention to be held in Nova Scotia.