Hi, Accidentally found an old thread (http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=32853) about this AP, and I really liked it. I inquired rarefind nursery about Acer palmatum 'Mary Catherine' and immediately got a response that they just made it available at their website. They have 8 in stock. ..Already placed an order for one... The rest is yours. Good luck!
Marchela, Thanks for the heads up. I just emailed Jay Schoss at RareFind my interest in buying 1 of his 7 remaining Mark Katherine's. I also just sent a private message to our colleague 'spookiejenkins' who started the original thread and brought MK to my attention and who I consider has first dibs on any MK ahead of me.
Marchela, thank you SO SO much for the heads up!! Katsura, you are a dear. Is there an e-mail address for Jay Schoss at RareFindNursery? I will call on Monday, but would love to slip in an e-mail too! Thanks again, y'all!!
Katie, the email for Rare Find is hank@rarefindnursery.com I am told Jay is no longer with Rare Find. The owner is named Hank. I just tried to call them without success so I left a message and asked them to call me back. If I speak with them Saturday I will explain things & ask they save you one. Best regards, Mike
Why should you call him?... Just go to the website and place an order! They activated the link yesterday after I e-mailed them. I placed my order immediately, and then started this thread.. I am sure they still have 7 left... Just place your order :) Below is a link.. http://www.rarefindnursery.com/index.cfm/action/productdetail/product_id/3812.htm Thank you for letting me know about this JM variety..
Marchela, Good idea about ordering on the web, but I see they do not ship to California, Oregon and Washing- ton so since I live in California looks like I am out of luck! Wud love to get 1 but looks like I'm out of luck. Thanks again. Mike
Maybe Diana at Topiary Gardens could get one for you and ship it. She has permits to ship to the West Coast... K4
I heard about shipping restrictions to some states including CA, but have no idea why... Depends how much do you want this tree.. Can you pick it up at the border state?.. Do they check every box shipped to CA?...If it was me I would ask someone to buy it for me and ship it..
A good forum member & friend sent me a Mary Katherine late last week. He also told me there is a feeling by some that MK and Carlis Corner are the same cultivar. I put this question to Billy Schwartz who has found & grafted many witches brooms (which he names after his family members like Shaina, Matthew, Daniel, Royale etc) and Billy is adamant that MK is a wb from a Bloodgood and CC is from an atropurpureum. It seems Carlis Corner is a misspelling of a supermarket in Deerfield NJ called Carlls (or Carll's) Corner near where the eponymous broom was found (altho I have heard a different history but let's not go there now). It is agreed by several old timers I tracked down & spoke with last week that John Bhenkie was a nurseryman who found, grafted and named Mary Katherine and Mr Bhenkie (sadly deceased) had a nursery quite near the Carll's Corner supermarket which proximity may have accounted for confusion between MK & CC. Mr Mike Novack who owned Cape Cod Bonsai (where I believe Dan Otis of this forum bought his MK 10 years or so ago) was a close friend of Mr Bhenkie and Mike told me late last week that Mr Bhenkie told him several times that he (Bhenkie) stopped at or near a traffic light 1 day & spotted a huge wb down an alley or driveway growing in the backyard of someone's home. When Mr Bhenkie asked the owner of the tree if he could have cuttings, the owner said she wanted the whole tree removed which Bhenkie agreed to do and did. Bhenkie named the cultivar grafted from that wb 'Mary Katherine' after a woman who worked for him (I assume at his nursery) who had bright red hair like the color of the wb's leaves. I wanted to share this history on this topic. This Spring will be the 1st time I will have had both CC & MK so I can directly observe them but until my friend told me early last week that some knowledgeable nurserymen consider MK & CC the same I had never heard of this and with this message would love to solicit other members' views on this matter. Thank you.
Great story Mike. I also heard that those plants are the same. I think I may have heard the very same conversation. I don't grow either cultivar so I have nothing to add but a request for someone to post some photos for comparison.
Fantastic! I am so thrilled! I, Mary Catherine (Katie), have been searching hi and low for this cultivar for more than three years now! I finally managed to get one - er, two actually (one for me and one for my grandmother - for whom I am named)! I am truly celebrating these little trees when they get here from RareFind, which is any day now. I do feel the need to apologize though - for buying two of such a hard to find cultivar - when my fellow maple friends are in need. I promise to avail my tree (and my grandmothers') to anyone that wants scion wood. And as soon as they leaf out - I'll start posting photos. Thank you again to all my fellow maple collectors who helped me track down the wiley 'Mary Catherine'. I appreciate all your help.
I was told by Rarefind that MC is a sport of Shaina.. I have Carlis Corner in my garden, and it will be interestig to compare them...
Ok, deep breath, It is not a broom from 'Shaina', I tolded Jay several times they got the description wrong and he agreed. Its only a broom from Acer palmatum var. atropurpurea. Benkie and Sons didn't even own a 'Shaina'. John Benkie and Sons Nursery actually only had a small variety of Acers (Everred, Bloodgood, Seiryu, Toyama Nishiki, a couple others, and Mary Katherine). They were quality growers, but they were not growers of a huge variety of grafted material. Mary Katherine, or Mary K as Chris calls it (John Benkie's Son who now works for another large nursery in the area) was a broom, "likely the one from Carll's Corner", but he wasn't sure). Their nursery was about 5 minutes away from Carll's Corner. Two other nurseries within 5 minutes of the Carll's Corner broom also have cultivars that look exactly like 'Mary Katherine', one is called simply Acer palmatum 'Witches Broom' and another called 'Carll's Corner'. All three nurseries have trees that look exactly alike and are 3' or so in diameter, suggesting they've had them and propagated them for some time. None of the nurseries were "maple collector" nurseries, but they were propagators within minutes of the broom I have another 10 stories to tell about this broom. I have never named a broom, nor have I taken cuttings from the original Carll's Corner broom, which died about 2 years ago (I have photo and will try to post). I know of a story in the mid/late 80s when a now deceased nurseryman showed another one from NJ the broom, the other nurseryman jumped out with lappers and cut the broom in half without permission and left....likely to have thrown a name on it but who knows what).. A good friend sent scions out to Oregon years ago labelled 'Carll's Corner', the nurseryman grafted them and eventually listed them in his catalog under the same name. A year later some new comer nurseryman from NJ approached the Oregon nurseryman in Oregon and asked where an how he got the broom, saying HE named it after his daughter or something and that someone stole it and sent it to Oregon (this was late 90s/early 2000s, maybe another name). I spoke to someone who approached the owners of the house, who cared nothing about maples, and they said "Oh, its just another person wanting to cut the maple tree.... go ahead". This story goes on and on. I know another nursery person that has HUNDREDS of cultivars, she clumps 90% of atropurpurea brooms into the same group/plant "the red broom". SHe feels that the MAJORITY of red brooms on the market resemble this one. In my opinion, all brooms should be named by location, in which case 'Carll's Corner' is an appropriate name. I cannot say for certain if 'Mary Katherine' and CCB are the same, but I suspect that most brooms are renames. I visit many nurseries and arboretums every year and I collect japanese maple cultivars and seeds from hundereds of old trees, I've seen only a couple Acer palmatum brooms, both of which already have name(s). I would never assume that any broom is new or unique.... hence my plea to name all brooms based on location. Brian
all that being said your experiment is a good one Mike. Who really knows, it could have been a unique broom?? I tell you what, we should take it a step further and eliminate potential differences in understock influence and graft both cultivars onto the same understock and evaluate them together. I will try and graft a combo 'Mary Katherine' and 'Carll's Corner' this winter and send you one. I owe you one anyway Mike. Kindest regards, Brian
Brian, You are the best! Thank you for giving us all your information. What a great idea if you can grave an MK & CC on the same rootstock. I would love (&be honored) to get one of those combos. The only thing you owe me is your continued friendship. I just spoke with Mike Novik again - I misspelled his surname "Novack" who like Chris Bhenk(i)e and all of us do not know whether MK & CC are the same and Mr Novik corrected a few details of my recap of his&my conversation. Mr Novik told me he did not know if Mr Bhenkie DID actually cut down the whole maple tree as he told Mike the woman owner demaned or if Mr B just cut out the wb. I asked Mike this because since you said the Carlls Corner wb/tree died only 2 or so years ago, Brian, if Mr B DID cut down that tree on the woman's private residence as the woman wanted then those 2 trees had to be different trees and different witches brooms which wud make MK & CC different. Another way we may find an answer just from the history is to ask if the Carll's Corner broom that died 2 years ago was on a private residence separate from the Carlls Corner supermarket. Your photos cud help enormously, Brian. A forum member asked me if we know if it is Katherine with a 'K' or a 'C' and we know now it is a "K" because Chris Bhenkie and Mike Novik both refer to it as Mary K. I asked Mike if Mr B had a daughter named Mary Katherine as 1 poster said the cultivar was named for Mr B's daughter. Mike said Mr B had a daughter he believed but Mike did not believe her name was/is Mary Katherine (Chris B cud definitely put this question to rest about his sister's name) and Mike confirmed again today that MK was named for an employee per the stories he heard from Mr B. As it is said, a library dies with each of our's passing and piecing together by hearsay such exactly detailed information years after Mr B's death is always perilous at best so this history is at best indicative not conclusive but it is fun and, Brian, your pictures of the exact location of that Carlls Corner tree/wb will be highly instructive. Thank you. Mike aka 'katsura'
Photo isn't so great, but here it is. The mass that looks like a big tree in the background is actually the broom. The dead broom is still in the tree last I saw. The tree is still 1/2 alive, but only on the non-broom side.
opps, when I said the tree in the background, I meant the rounded mass, not the pointed one at the top which is an evergreen in the background
Wanna see it on Google Earth? Ok you can't see it, but you get an idea where it is in NJ. Enter the following into your Google Earth search: 76 Highway 611, Upper Deerfield, NJ Brian
