A dozen years or more ago, the gardener who had long been in charge of the Ellerton James Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, retired. It had been an active life for Louis Vasseur since taking over and restoring a run down place for his employer more than 30 years before.
Retirement was the idea but, as every horticulturist knows, professional gardeners do not retire. What they usually do is to stop handling plants belonging to others and start caring for some of their own, attending to their landscape lighting, manicured lawn and flower beds. Louis Vasseur was no exception. In fact, he had made provision for a horticultural business of his own with stocks of superior gladiolus, dahlias and other similar plants all in hand to start operations. Land was available, as was the necessary financing to start what might well have turned out to be one of the country's outstanding specialty nurseries.
Unfortunately the plan was never to be carried out. A warehouse fire destroyed the foundation merchandise, resulting not alone in a monetary setback but in the loss of varieties patiently selected and increased over the years. Then, the local zoning ordinance was interpreted to preclude the development of a commercial enterprise on the property. The outcome was no nursery for Mr. Vasseur.
It is the kind of experience which is bitter to undergo but one which, in Mr. Vasseur's case, is working out to the benefit of gardeners everywhere. It may eventuate, as well, in perpetuating his name in American horticultural annals, even though the financial reward during his own lifetime has been impaired.
Louis Vasseur knew about the financial part of it when he turned to plant breeding after his business hopes had perished.
He recalled that the florist Chantin, for whom he had worked as a young man, had pointed out that even when the originator of a new variety does profit from it, the money usually gets plowed back into developing some other novelty, or in trying to improve upon what has already been accomplished.
Knowing all this but driven on by a keen interest in bettering garden plants which was aroused way back in his student days at Versailles, Mr. Vasseur has spent most of his time since retirement in breeding work with plants which had long intrigued him. His is one of those gardens where even the most expert horticulturist has to read the labels or inquire to know just what he is looking at.
Soon after Mr. Vasseur came to the United States in 1908, he was challenged by the commonly held conclusion that the large flowered clematises were not plants for northeastern American gardens. He tried their culture for himself and found no particular difficulty provided the growth requirements were met. His now well established practice is to provide good drainage and to shun the use of fresh manure or partially rotted compost near the plants, and to stake the plants to prevent stem brown age at ground level. A satisfactory mixture for clematis, he says, is two parts good garden loam, one part leafmold and one part sand, with a dash of bonemeal and one of limestone. In his own garden, Mr. Vasseur solves the drainage problem by the liberal digging-in of coarse coal ashes. That this technique is a real contribution to garden practice is attested to by the presence in the Vasseur plantings of some of the finest clematis specimens to be seen anywhere, in an area where most plantings come to naught for want of understanding culture.
On the plant breeding end of clematis culture there have been significant new Vasseur varieties which have made their appearance over the past 20 years. Gardeners will do well to test the following: Bertha Harris, a lavender-flowered variety with the largest flowers, patens type; Helen Gamier, large, single. pure white blooms with yellow stamens, lanuginosa type; Madeline Henderson, large, double, pale lavender flowers, florida type; Morning Star, the largest single white-flowered variety 1134" across, lanuginosa type; Mrs. Blanche Vasseur, double white blooms with yellow stamens, fragrant, florida type, and best described as a very large-flowered Duchess of Edinburgh; Mrs. Ellerton James, single, sky-blue, lanuginosa type.
Also under trial are seedlings of crosses combining Clematis jackmani, William Kennett and C. viticella. One seedling of this group is to be called Eleanor Stalker. It is a rank-growing plant with 4-inch, narrow-petalled flow ers which appear to be dark purple in sunlight but blue when shaded.
Mr. Vasseur has, over the years, interested himself in lily breeding, crossing among such species as Lilium davidi, L. hansoni and willmottiae. In the course of this work he has discovered the old belief that high noon is the time to do the pollinating doesn't work out so well with lilies as do mid-morning and late afternoon. Out of this patient effort have come a number of named varieties which have won acclaim at Boston lily shows. They are Moonlight, a late-flowering variety of the umbellatum type which bears 3 1/2" yellow flowers with salmon-red petal tips, seven or eight to a stem; Violet Niles Walker, an early flowering umbellatumn type with brilliant persimmon-orange coloring; William Craig, an early flowering umbellatum with starlike, orange-colored flowers.
In the course of propagation for distribution are two other new Vasseur lily varieties. Dr. Clark is an umbellatum type with purple-dotted yellow flowers. Dr. Henry Nehrling bears yellow-throated red-tipped, umbellatum-like blooms.
The early war years witnessed the culmination of a long program of raising seedlings of orchid cactus or hybrid epiphyllum. The timing of the introduction of some of them is reflected in their names. Bataan has large cherry-red blooms washed with purple coloring; Corregidor has petals of strawberry-orange, the 6-inch flowers darker tipped and purple at the base; Charles Vasseur has petals of its giant 11-inch flowers tipped with lavender, golden green at the base; General Jonathan Wainwright has 8-inch blooms in copper-salmon over-washed with lavender purple.
Other varieties of orchid cactus still under trial include Miss Bella Rand, which bears white-throated pink blooms, and the white-throated pure rose Rosina Thorndike.
Roses, too, have caught Mr. Vasseur's interest with breeding effort directed towards crossing Rosa hugonis with other species. One such cross named Hugalba bears hugonis-like blooms which measure more than three inches across and are pure white to cream in color. These flowers appear freely at about the end of the hugonis blooming season on thorny plants which seem able to attain a height of about eight feet. The fruits drop in summer without maturing viable seeds. Here is something of top quality for informal hedge-making, especially for hedges of the effective barrier type now being recommended by soil conservationists.
Rosa hugonis crossed with R. spinossima has produced a number of promissing, strong-growing seedlings resembling the latter in aspect and with white, pink and yellow blooms. The reciprocal cross between the same two parental species has netted Mr. Vasseur a hybrid which resembles R. hugonis but is smaller in both size of plant and flower.
Although he is not yet ready to say much about it, Mr. Vasseur is well along with tree-peony breeding, using his own foundation stock raised from seeds imported direct from the Orient. That he knows how to culture the tree peony is demonstrated by one specimen which, while but four feet in height, has a circumference of 25 feet. Herbaceous peony breeding is also in progress in Mr. Vasseur's garden as is azalea breeding with Kurumes, Mollis varieties, R. mucronulatum, R. mucronatum and others involved. Some 30 selections have been made and are undergoing trial.
The temperament essential to a plant breeder is augmented in Louis Vasseur by a lifetime of experience in plant handling, leading to reliable judgment as well as know-how. He was born in Paris in 1884 and first. studied gardening at the preparatory school of Igny near that city. After that came three years and a diploma from the National School of Horticulture at Versailles. Then came more training in Germany at Niedersedlitz near Dresden on the estate of Louis of Saxony. The training there was two-way in that, while Mr. Vasseur was acquainting himself with such matters as the German system of rose, azalea and camellia culture, he was, in turn, training fruit trees and showing the methods he had learned at home to the others.
This fruit training knowledge was to stand him in good stead later on after he took charge of the James Estate. After reaching that position, he imported trained fruit trees from France and trained others on the spot. He developed a fruit garden of more than a 100 varieties of tree fruits, including figs and, notably, 28 varieties of pears.
It was during the period in Germany that Mr. Vasseur met the late Hugo de Wildt of American nursery fame, and at whose urging he was later to come to the United States. Before that, a season of training was spent under Senai at Frankfort* on the Main, a very large forcer of lilacs and bulbs. From Frankfort, Mr. Vasseur went to the estate of Baron Alphonse Rothschild at FerriereEn-Brie to take charge of lilac forcing, and azalea and camellia growing.
After a two-year stint in the army, came a position in the greenhouse on Flower Walk at Marchais for the Prince of Monaco. As his last position before leaving France, Mr. Vasseur worked as a decorator in Paris for Chantin, setting up displays in large stores and notable homes, such as the residence of the president of France. By this time, Mr. de Wildt had prevailed on the young man to emigrate. After nursery and landscape experience in North Carolina and in New England, where he helped establish the famous garden of Mrs. Homer Gage at Worcester, Mass., Mr. Vasseur settled on the James Estate in Milton, where he still is, his present home having been part of that property.
