{"id":279,"date":"2011-11-14T05:43:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T13:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=279"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"the-copeland-clan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/the-copeland-clan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Copeland Clan"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE COPELAND CLAN
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>I love garden catalogs, which is a good thing because I get scores of them every year.\u00a0 Some of the most interesting are specialty catalogs dedicated to a single genus like tomatoes or roses or African violets.\u00a0 It amazes me to think that I could plant my entire garden–or at least the sunny parts–in different varieties of tomatoes and still grow only a fraction of those offered by the tomato specialists.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I also have a definite weakness for catalogs that specialize in heirloom plants.\u00a0 A few years ago, that weakness led me to buy two daffodil varieties–‘Irene Copeland’ and ‘Mary Copeland’–from one of my favorite vendors, Old House Gardens, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.\u00a0 The Copelands are beautiful and hardy and can hold their fluffy heads up in the company of the best old and new varieties.\u00a0 However, I especially love them because of their story, which a daughter of the real Irene Copeland related to Scott Kunst, proprietor of Old House Gardens.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 William F.M. Copeland, who was born in 1872 and spent most of his life in the port city of Southampton, was one of a number of celebrated English, Irish and Scottish daffodil breeders.\u00a0 He began his work at the end of the nineteenth century, eventually showing his daffodils at annual Royal Horticultural Society daffodil shows.\u00a0 Pictures from the nineteen twenties show Copeland’s pretty daughters, Mary and Irene, posed next to bounteous displays of daffodils, all at the peak of bloom.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ornamental plant breeders have long named favorite cultivars after wives and daughters, and William Copeland was no exception.\u00a0 ‘Mrs. William Copeland’ was named after his wife, and his daughters were immortalized in ‘Irene Copeland’ and ‘Mary Copeland.’\u00a0 Copeland even expanded on the family naming tradition, giving his son a namesake daffodil–‘John Evelyn.’\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Copeland’s claim to horticultural fame was his double-flowered varieties.\u00a0 Double daffodils, while still recognizable as members of the narcissus family, sometimes look more like small roses or peonies because of the greatly increased number of petals.\u00a0 This is the case with ‘Mary Copeland,’ named after the older daughter.\u00a0 The sixteen to twenty inch tall plants feature clouds of softly rounded white petals surrounding smaller golden orange center petals.\u00a0 ‘Irene’ looks almost like a small cactus-type dahlia, with an abundance of tousled white and pale yellow petals. ‘Mrs. William Copeland’ is more like ‘Irene’ than ‘Mary,’ sporting pointed, pale yellow and white petals that are just as lovely, but somewhat fewer in number.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Both ‘Irene’ and ‘Mary’ have done exceptionally well in my garden, returning reliably for the past several years and gradually beginning to increase.\u00a0 They also make lovely cut flowers.\u00a0 At a time when there are many double daffodil varieties–some virtually indistinguishable from each other–the Copelands stand out.\u00a0 This fall, ‘Mrs. William Copeland’ was available for the first time and I snapped up a few bulbs.\u00a0 Next spring, if all goes well, she will appear somewhere near her daughters in my front garden.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 William Copeland died in the nineteen fifties.\u00a0 His daughters, Irene and Mary, died in 1996 and 2003 respectively.\u00a0 In 2004, Irene’s daughter, Margaret, wrote to Scott Kunst at Old House Gardens in search of some ‘Irene’ and ‘Mary’ bulbs to plant on the graves of the real Copeland sisters.\u00a0 Scott sent them the bulbs, which bloomed in England the following year.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the Copeland story does not stop there.\u00a0 William Copeland was a pioneer in the double daffodil field and his varieties have been used in the breeding of many modern, double-flowered cultivars.\u00a0 In April 2005, the Royal Horticultural Society mounted an exhibit of Copeland daffodils and their double daffodil descendants at the annual Daffodil Show.\u00a0 It’s gratifying to know that a century after he first began attending daffodil shows and more than fifty years after his death, William Copeland–and his family–still have a large presence in the daffodil world.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is too late to order the Copeland daffodils for planting this fall, but in a few weeks you will be able to reserve them in advance for next fall.\u00a0 You can also make a note to yourself and order them in the spring.\u00a0 To pursue either option, contact Old House Gardens, 536 Third Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48103; (734) 995-1486; <\/font><\/font>www.oldhousegardens.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Print catalog–$2.00.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE COPELAND CLAN \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I love garden catalogs, which is a good thing because I get scores of them every year.\u00a0 Some of the most interesting are specialty catalogs dedicated to a single genus like tomatoes or roses or African violets.\u00a0 It amazes me to think that I could plant my entire garden–or at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-spring","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}