Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, before plant breeding was the domain of huge conglomerates, the breeding and nursery business often ran in families. The Lemoine family of Nancy, France was one of those multi-generational concerns, breeding and selling plants from 1849 through 1960. Victor Lemoine, his wife, Marie Louise, their son, Emile, and grandson, Henri, gave the world a host of extremely fragrant lilacs that are still among the most popular. They also made breeding advances in portulacas, potentillas, tuberous begonias, deutzia, fuchsia, weigela, mock orange, gladiolas, peonies and geraniums, producing beautiful varieties with unusual and colorful flower forms. The name “Lemoine” may not ring a bell with gardeners today, but many of us still grow their plants.
From the earliest years of the Lemoine dynasty, family members had a fondness for lush, double flowers. Victor’s first plant introduction was a double-flowered Portulaca grandiflora. He went on to work with potentillas, shrubby rose relatives, and produced many double varieties, including ‘Louis van Houtte’, a cultivar with deep red petals that Victor Lemoine named after one of his first horticultural mentors. The double-flowered fuchsia ‘Solferino’, with red and purple petals, was a breakthrough in the mid-nineteenth century.
Victor Lemoine also took a fancy to geraniums, producing the first-ever double flowered variety, a big, bold, red-flowered plant christened ‘Gloire de Nancy’. He went on to create the pink double, ‘Madame Lemoine’ as well. Both varieties were introduced in 1871.
These days, the Lemoines are best remembered for lilacs and the three generations were responsible for introducing over 200 cultivars, most of which are still obtainable. Victor Lemoine also gave the world the first double-flowered lilac and his oeuvre includes gorgeous, voluptuous doubles, like the purple ‘Alphonse Lavallée, introduced in 1885 and awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit (AGM) in 1893; the pinkish purple ‘Claude Bernard’, introduced in 1915; and ‘Miss Ellen Willmott, a double white variety, named for the great English gardener, introduced in 1903. The Lemoines brought out many fine single varieties as well. Even now, lilacs from the Lemoine era in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are known as “French lilacs,” because of the family’s preeminent place in the lilac breeding world.
Father John Fiala, an American clergyman, lilac breeder and author of one of the definitive books on lilacs, noted that while some Lemoine varieties have been superseded by better versions, a collection of the French-bred beauties would still be an outstanding array. As in all things horticultural, the Lemoine lilacs, with their many virtues, have also been used in breeding some of those successor varieties.
When I first read about the Lemoines, I was especially struck by the fact that Marie Louise helped both her husband and son with their hybridizing pursuits, including undertaking the tedious job of hand transferring pollen between the tiny individual lilac flowers. It seems fitting that Father Fiala characterized the lilac named after her, the white-flowered double, ‘Madame Lemoine’, as one of the family’s best.
The Lemoines also gave the world enough sumptuous white flowers to adorn an army of brides. Victor Lemoine created a new deutzia hybrid, Deutzia x lemoini, which features large corymbs or flowerheads of small, bell-shaped white blooms. One of his herbaceous peonies, ‘Mont Blanc’, features big, fluffy white flowers on tall stems. His mock oranges –Philadelphus hybrids—also have pure white, fragrant flowers with a scent reminiscent of orange blossoms.
I have never seen any, but apparently Victor Lemoine also crossed Philadelphus purpureomaculatus with his white-flowered Philadelphus hybrids and created mock orange hybrids that had touches of purple or rosy pink, especially in the centers of the flowers.
So why should contemporary gardeners, now so often and so frantically concerned with growing the best varieties of heirloom tomatoes, care about a French family that closed the doors of its nursery over fifty years ago? Because the Lemoines live on in our gardens, courtesy of the genetic heritage of so many cultivars And any of us who love soft, fragrant, sumptuous flowers can respond to the romantic guiding light that Victor Lemoine followed in selecting his most promising plants. For those of us who can walk thoughtfully through our beds and borders and hear the whispers of those who came before us, the voices of Victor, Marie Louise, Emile and Henri Lemoine speak just a little louder than some of the others.