A HERO OF WATER GARDENING: Joseph Bory Latour Marliac, The Lily Man

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT COLOUR TO WATER LILIES AND SO ADDED THE WORD ‘GARDEN’ TO ‘WATER GARDEN’

One of the most influential people in England on Victorian gardening style and horticulture was William Robinson who, as prolific writer and founder editor of The Garden magazine, was never short a of comment, oftenNympaea xmarliacea 'Chromatella', Marliac's first colourful creation rude, in respect to the endeavours of his contemporaries. His influence still greatly affects how we garden today, especially when it comes to creating informal and ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ gardens. As to the subject of water in the garden, the topic seemed like a short fuse to fire up his irascible nature, in fact it was enough to make him most vehemently declare in 1883 in the first edition of his book “The English Flower Garden”:
“Unclean and ugly ponds deface our gardens; some have a mania for artificial water, the effect of water…… pleasing them so well that they bring it near their houses, where they cannot have any of its good effects. But have instead the filth that gathers in stagnant water, and its evil smell on many a lawn.”
I have the eighth edition of The English Flower Garden and in it we find Robinson dedicating a whole chapter to water in the garden and although he is slightly disparaging about plants that grow around the fringes and their propensity to get out of hand, he declares; “With a little thought…..there are so many charming opportunities for water garden pictures.”
There is no doubt what has caused his turn about in attitude because the cause seems constantly in the back of his mind:
“Gradually, however, the aquatics are coming to the front, and an altogether fresh impetus, as well as a great one, has resulted from the introduction of the many charming new hybrid Nymphaeas which are fast making their appearance in some of the best-known gardens.” It was new vareities of water lilies when previously there had only been a single hardy white variety that could survive in European ponds and this was more adept at making foliage than flower. This is the story of the man that created those lilies that were enough to shake the earth beneath stuffy plantsmen like Robinson and make them look long and hard at water gardens again.

Sometime in the previous seventeen years William Robinson had seen the light, and this was nothing less than horticultural fireworks; water lilies flowering for most of the summer months, right up to autumn in a kaleidoscope of colourful hybrids that could dazzle the eye. And who was the ‘pyrotechnician’ responsible? You only have to turn to read the dedication in the front of the eighth edition of The Flower Garden to find out.
“To my friend – Mons. B. Latour-Marliac – who by his patient experiments, has added the charm of varied colour to the hardy water lilies of the North, this new edition of “THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN” is dedicated.”
A book about ‘English Gardening’ dedicated to a Frenchman! This Monsieur Latour-Marliac must have been someone very special to have made such an impression on William Robinson, and not only that, but to turn his despite of water gardens into a passionate appreciation. Indeed Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac was a very remarkable man, if only for his one characteristic alone, a sheer dogged determination and a commitment to a theory that could have been a complete dead end, and indeed to a certain extent it was. For Robinson, this man deserved all the praise that could be summoned, for at long last here was someone providing interest and colour in a Godforsaken branch of horticulture. After a few sparse snippets of information including an article in The Garden itself in which Latour-Marliac described his aims and methods, William Robinson “resolved to go and see him” in what he described as “a remote part of France”, down in the region of Lot-et-Garonne, in a little village called Temple-sur-Lot. When he arrived he was amazed at what he found.
“ I found a very simple, straight sort of man….” (Others were to describe him as having a “charismatic personality”). “ You could not think of a simpler beginning: in his little garden among a few old pots and pans which people usually throw away….with such simple materials it is not easy to imagine how he succeeded”.The nursey at Temple-sur-Lot in its heyday.: The layout gives a clue experienced nurserymen as to what the 'nursery routine' must have been like.

Needless to say, the two men must have hit it off straight away: Soon, Robinson was advocating the glory of these new hybrids as though they were his own creations and Marliac, in mutual appreciation, had named one of his new hybrids after Robinson (Nymphaea ‘Robinsoniana’). It was the almost complete disregard the French had for this dogged pioneer in their midst that was something Robinson felt determined to redress.
In an article in The Garden in 1894 Robinson described the nursery in more detail. It was on his father’s estate of roughly 65 acres of which he had been in charge of for some time. The main propagating section was about 2.5 acres or 1 ha with a stream and extremely rich in spring water that came out of the ground consistently warm (50°F or 10°C) throughout the year. Three of the main springs supplied 25,000 gallons of water a day to 40 ponds that were sub-divided into a total of 600 compartments. Around the edge of these were lines of containers or half-barrels.

PLANT BREEDING IN THE BLOOD

Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac had been born in 1830 into a family of keen amateur naturalists and botanists. As a young man he was originally intending to study Law in Paris but after the 1848 revolution he returned home to help his aging father. The family had plum orchards and grew a variety of trees, eucalyptus, Japanese lacquer tree, Japanese persimmons and Marliac himself initially developed a passion for bamboos, introducing many new varieties to France from China.
His story in relation to water lilies really starts in 1854 when, according to Vivian Russell in her excellent book Monet’s Water Lilies, Marliac was inspired by an article in a Belgian magazine Le Jardin Fleuriste by Charles Lemaire. In the article Lemaire was declaring a passion for the display of tropical lilies he had recently seen at the Jardins des Plantes in Paris and bemoaned the fact that it was impossible to grow lilies of such colour outside in the northern European climate. Europeans of course were limited to the white of the vigorous Nymphaea alba and the yellow blobs of the even more rampant Nuphar lutea for their deep water plants. He wondered, as did Marliac, if it would be possible to marry the robust hardiness and the long flowering period of our native Nymphaea alba with these colourful exotics. Since water plants were Marliac’s favourite area of horticulture and since he had done so well in hybridising other plants, he naturally felt that it was an ambition he was destined to realise.

Many of his experiments were doomed to failure because there was no possibility on a genetic level of there being any union between any of the hardy lilies and the tropicals. If he ever realised this, he never let on, but it did mean that his very ultimate ambition, the production of a hardy blue lily, would be forever unachievable, since the blue producing genes lie only with the tropicals of the Apocarpiae Group like the Egyptian Nymphaea caerulea.

He was however collecting lilies from all over the world and it is likely that his first successes came with a cross with a hardy white lily that was a ‘sport’ with a pinkish tinge from a Swedish lake later labelled Nymphaea alba var. rubra and a yellow species from the more temperate climate of Mexico, N. flava (now known as N. mexicana). This crossing produced the magnificent primrose-yellow Nymphaea x marliacea ‘Chromatella’, with flowers10-12.5 cms across constantly from June to September in any depth of water up to 1.8 metres and in any climate. It was an immediate success and on being awarded an RHS Award of Merit in 1877 it spurred him on to produce more and more hybrids from crosses within his collection.

In 1879 there was N. x marliacea ‘Rosea’ and in 1879 the ever popular N. x marliacea ‘Carnea’ in 1887. Other introductions included the odorata series that had the parentage of N. pygmaea from Asia and the North American N. odorata alba or the famous Cape Cod Water Lily, N. odorata var. rosea mixed with something only slightly more exotic. What exactly, he was never totally clear about, and how, he certainly was not going to divulge. In the book Water Gardening, Perry D. Slocum and Peter Robinson tell us that one visitor from America, Amos Perry, who had been attempting unsuccessfully to produce hybrids for years, was desperate to learn his secrets. Marliac told him that he would reveal the secret for £1000 or it would take him 40 years to find it out for himself. Amos needless to say never took him up on the offer and eventually gave up hybridising over 40years later with very little success bitterly describing the hybridising of water lilies as “generally so much fruitless labour” having made only 3 genuinely original introductions.

THE BIG TIME

Not so for Marliac, unbeknown to him he was going to hit the ‘big time’ as he gingerly prepared his small collection of new hybrids for the 1889 the Universal Exhibition in Paris. Hoping a few keen amateurs might take somePart of a later rendition of the Giverny lilies that Monet so loved interest, his precious creations won a first prize. But even more importantly, an advocate spotted them that would make his lilies more famous than any reams and reams of journalist copy; they stunned and amazed non other than Claude Monet, the French impressionist, who saw them as the perfect addition to a small lake in his garden at Giverny. He would make them his favourite subject for the rest of his life. Whether he had already planned the lake or whether the lilies inspired the idea is unclear, but this was going to be a home for Marliac’s new and any subsequent creations as he assiduously followed the news of any new hybrids in the Revue Horticole. By 1895 Monet had created his lake and was in the early stages of its development at which time there were over 15 varieties to choose from. The garden would become one of the most favourite and admired in the world advertised by Monet’s fabulous and hoarding size paintings of the water and the plants, and it may never have been so without the finishing touch of the lilies.

By the time Marliac died in 1911 or 1912, he had left a legacy of around 70 hybrids of many different hues. Some of them of types that change their colour as the flowers emerge on consecutive days, often called ‘sunset’ or ‘changeable’ Nymphaea, described by Barbara Davies in The Water Garden Journal (the magazine produced by the International Water Lily Society) in 1996, as exhibiting “…in the flowers of a single plant, a rainbow of warm tones.” Although the nursery carried on after his death, ably run by his son-in-law Laydecker, there were relatively few new discoveries. Marliac took his secrets to his grave and it would over 70 years before anyone could claim to have the same success. But what makes Marliac’s hybrids so special and a part of living history is that the man was never happy with a new hybrid unless it was sterile. In this way the colours of his creation could not be watered down by cross breeding, accidental or otherwise, in the wide-open libertine world of the water garden. The only way to propagate the same lily is by taking offshoots or dividing the original rhizome. So think of this when you pick up the rhizome of say Nymphaea x marliacia ‘Chromatella’, you have in your hands part of the original (and in this case first) hybrid plant that Marliac bred in France over 115 years ago.

Some of the hybrids Marliac introduced:

Nymphaea x marliacea “Chromatella” – yellow, 1877
N. x marliacea “Rosea” – Light pink, 1879
N. “Helvola”- Very small yellow, 1879
N. “Sulphurea” – yellow, 1879
N. x marliacea “Albida” – White, 1880
N. x marliacea “Carnea” – Light pink, 1887
N. odorata “Sulphurea Grandiflora” – Large yellow, 1888 (formerly “Sunrise”)
N. x marliacea “Rubra Punctata” – Deep purple red, 1889
N. x laydeckeri “Rosea” – Pink, 1893
N. “Caroliniana Nivea” – Ivory white, 1893
N. “Caroliniana Perfecta” – Salmon Pink, 1893
N. “Seignouret” - 1893
N. “Lucida”- Inner red, outer pink, 1894
N. “Fulva” – orange turning to red by the third day, 1894
N. x laydeckeri “Fulgens” – Vivid burgundy red, 1895
N. x laydeckeri “Lilacea” – Lilac pink, 1895
N. x laydeckeri “Purpurata” – white tips with inner pinkish red, 1895
N. “Aurora” – yellow apricot, 1895
N. “Andreana” – reddish orange, 1895
N. “ Robinsoniana” – orange red with lighter tips, 1895
N. “Gloriosa” – bright red, 1896
N. “Ellisiana” – Brilliant red, 1896Nymphaea Ellisiana 1896
N. “Arc-en-Ciel” – Shell pink turning to white by the third day, 1901
N. “Colossea” - Light pink, paling, 1901
N. “Chrysanthe” – Cream yellow with a green patch on the outside, 1905
N. “Paul Hariot” – Inner petals orange; by third day deep pinkish orange, 1905
N. “Solfatare” – Yellowish apricot inside, creamy peach outside, 1906
N. “Vesuve” – Deepening glowing red, 1906
N. “Comanche” – yellow apricot turning to deep orange, 1908Nymphaea 'Attraction', 1910
N. “Odalisque” – Red, 1908
N. “Sioux” – Yellowish apricot deepening to orange red by the third day, 1908
N. “Darwin” (formerly “Hollandia”) – Light pink turning deeper, 1909Nymphaea Hollandia 1909, now called Darwin
N. “Formosa” – Deepening flecked pink, 1909
N. “Meteor” – red inner, outer pink, 1909
N. “Splendida” – reddish pink, deepening, 1909
N. “Escarboucle” - Very bright vermilion red, 1909Nymphaea Escarboucle 1909
N. “Attraction” – Inner deep red, outer lighter, 1910
N. “Albatross” – White, 1910Nymphaea 'Gonnere' produced by the nursery at Temple-sur-Lot in 1914
N. “Conqueror” – inner deepening red, outer white turning pink, 1910
N. “Hermine” - White, 1910
N. “Newton” - Red, 1910

N. 'Gonnere' was produced by the nursery in 1914 after Marliac's death in 1912

 From Research by Kit Knotts of the online US publication and water gardeners' information resource Water Gardeners International

The Techniques of Marliac the lily breeder, in his own words:

THE GARDEN.
March 18, 1899

HARDY HYBRID WATER LILIES.*

Extract from a paper read by M. Latour-Marliac before the Royal Horticultural Society, August 9, 1898.Another view of the nursery at Temple-sur-Lot that featured with the Marliac paper

Most of the Nymphaeas called "outdoor," although nearly all equally hardy, frequently differ among themselves in their early or late blooming, in their standing up above the water or floating on it, in their flowers being many or few, or in their general structure and growth being compact or wide-spreading. Some of them form strong clumps which constantly increase in strength, but do not spread about, whilst others are of a roaming nature, their stolons and interlacing rhizomes wandering over a large space, and quickly spreading across the roots of other varieties. In natural lakes and ponds it is impossible to prevent this confusion; but this irregular growth should not be permitted in artificial basins and aquaria, where each plant in the collection should remain distinct and thrive independently; besides, it would not only produce inextricable confusion amongst the plants, but the weaker ones would be smothered by the stronger. In order to obviate this difficulty, it is indispensable that the Water Lilies should be planted separately and at proper distances, or else in pots or in stonework basins, of which the sides and bottom have been carefully cemented. It is very important that the basins should be divided into several compartments by partitions, which should not be higher than three-fourths of the depth of the water, in such a way that they only prevent the roots and rhizomes from meeting, without preventing the leaves from intermingling on the surface. A depth of 2 feet is enough for the tanks. A bed of earth 6 inches deep on the bottom of lie basins will be sufficient for the culture of Water Lilies. It ought to be as free as possible from gravel and stones. The best kind of earth is heavyish loam from the garden or meadow, but earth composed of leaf-mould and alluvial soil is also very suitable. One can also make a mixture of them, but it is better not to put with them any fresh manure which is still undergoing fermentation. As regards the choice of water, that which comes from a stream or river is to be preferred, though that from wells will do. When the water is taken from running springs it ought in summer to be turned off, so as to keep the temperature of the water the same as that of the air, for it is essential to remember that Nymphaeas thrive best in stagnant water, or at least in a very gentle current.

In stocking a tank with Water Lilies the object should be to obtain by a harmonious combination and sequence of shades and colours a generally good effect, and for that purpose plants with high stalks should be avoided, as that would destroy the general view. It is necessary also to suppress confervae and certain under-water plants which are clogging, and clinging, such as Chara, Vallisneria, Elodea, and Potamogeton, which live at the expense of the Water Lilies without adding anything to the picture.

The PROPAGATION of hybrid Water Lilies is effected in the case of the greater number of varieties by the pulling to pieces of their creeping stems and by the detachment of their tubers. Some individual plants, such as N. Laydekeri rosea, do not give offshoots, but this is a rare exception. Others bear seed, but the resulting plants have always a tendency to degenerate The planting can be carried on all through the spring and summer, and presents no difficulty, as it only consists in fixing them in the earth in April or May. If you wish to obtain new varieties you must have recourse to seed and to hybridisation. The method of sowing is quite simple. It is only necessary to place the seeds in shallow vessels in the spring and carefully keep them full of water. The work of hybridisation is more complicated, as it is necessary to entirely cut away, at the very first moment of expansion, all the stamens of those flowers which you wish to artificially fertilise, and on the second day to dust their stigmas with a brush covered with pollen from those kinds chosen for the crossing of them. It is worthy of remark that success in hybridisation depends principally on the care of the operator in only employing subjects of a vigorous growth, well chosen, and fitted to produce types that will be very free flowering……….

..........Water Lilies are blessed with a surprising vitality, which allows them to live for quite a long time out of the water, and, in consequence, to survive very long voyages without being any the worse. For example, in 1889 1 sent to the Universal Exhibition at Paris a collection of my hybrids in a case, which was lost on the railway, and which could not be found for over a month. I was then obliged to replace this first instalment. Some time afterwards I received a memorandum informing me that the package had been found, and asking me what should be done with it. Feeling certain that the plants would be dead, I ordered them to be sent back by slow train, but on their arrival I was astonished to see them in good order, pushing shoots and very little the worse for being so long boxed up. I have thrown waste plants on to the earth surrounding the ponds, and have found their roots still quite sound after having laid six months on the open ground.

PESTS
I have only had to complain seriously of the ravages committed by two kinds of larvae, the one black and the other white, produced by certain small yellowish white butterflies which deposit their eggs on the floating leaves. These larvae, at first almost invisible, grow to about the thickness of a wheat straw, and devour the leaves of the Lilies during the night. They are very clever in hiding themselves during the day, laying fragments of the leaves on their bodies and covering themselves up with pieces of Lemna or Azolla. Their devastation would be serious if it could not be easily stopped by pouring on the surface of the water some drops of a mixture of three-quarters colza oil to one quarter of paraffin, a sufficient dose to poison and destroy them without hurting the plants.

I should not bring this dissertation on Water Lilies to an end without bestowing a few words on the splendid section of the Cyanea, or blue Water Lilies. It is greatly to be regretted that hitherto all attempts to cross them with their hardy congeners of the northern hemisphere have so far failed. It would be a great triumph to add to the already sumptuous collection some hardy hybrids of a sky-blue colour with a delightful perfume. They are very variable, as from the seed of N. zanzibarensis one can obtain the most beautiful colourings of deep blue, tender blue, intense violet, clear violet, violet-red, pink, etc., that it is possible to imagine.

But alas! These charming varieties, which have also the advantage of being day-flowering, will only thrive with a considerable amount of heat. At Temple-sur-Lot, which has a great number of running springs, Water Lilies are grown all the year round in the open air thus: From the end of October to April 15 I pass through their basins a constant current of water from the running springs to preserve them from the cold, and as soon as warmth comes I turn off the springs, so that the temperature of the water in the basins becomes the same as that of the air. By these simple means it is possible to enjoy for five months the flowering of these grand plants.

The number of hybrid Water Lilies which I have raised at Temple-sur-Lot amounts to thirty-four quite distinct varieties. The following are the names of those which are already in commerce; they are twenty-six in number. The seven others are still unnamed and have not yet been sent out, but before long they also will put in an appearance.

NYMPHAEA ANDREANA. Flowers brick-red, shaded with yellow ochre; cup shaped on a straight stem, rising 5 inches to 6 inches from the water; stamens rich orange; leaves spotted with chestnut colour on the stalk and streaked with red-brown on the back.

N. AURORA. Groundwork of clear yellow, shaded with faint red the first day of flowering, with orange-red the second, and with intense red the third; stamens orange-red; leaves dark olive, streaked with red-brown on the back.

N. CAROLINIANA NIVEA. Flowers pure white, symmetrical, very large and double, with an exquisite scent; stamens rich yellow.

N. C. PERFECTA. Flowers salmon-red, very double; petals obtuse and perfectly regular; stamens rich yellow.

N. ELLISIANA. Flowers bright currant-red. The fiery orange colour of the stamens has a very fine effect.

N. FULVA. Flowers a clear yellow shaded with red, which becomes brighter every day; petals incurved; stamens orange-red.

N. GLORIOSA. A floating scented flower 7in in diameter, very double, and of perfect form; currant-red, washed with rose-white at the tips of the lower petals; stamens rich red. This is the only Water Lily which has regularly five sepals.

N. LAYDEKERI FULGENS. Flowers rich amaranth; stamens fire-red.

N. L. LILACEA. Medium-sized, rising 4 inches to 5 inches from the water; lilac, tipped with carmine; stamens orange-red.

N. L. PURPURATA. Flowers carmine pink, crimson towards the centre; stamens orange-red.

N. L. ROSEA. Flowers medium-sized, passing successively from a tender pink colour to carmine-pink, and then to rich carmine; stamens orange-red.

N. LUCIDA. Flowers very large, opening star-shaped, brilliant vermilion-pink, darker in the centre; petals Pink-white at the tips; stamens orange; leaves large, with large deep chestnut-coloured marblings on the upper surface, and streaked with red-brown on the back.

N. MARLIACEA ALBIDA. Very vigorous; flowers enormous, 8 inches in diameter, milk-white, the outside petals flaked with pink at the base; stamens sulphur-yellow.

N. M. CARNEA. Flowers of great size; colour flesh-pink, fragrant; stamens sulphur-yellow.

N. M. CHROMATELLA. Flowers canary-yellow, large; stamens sulphur-yellow; leaves marbled with brown on the top and streaked with rich brown underneath.

N. M. FLAMMEA. Large wine-red flowers shaded and flaked with white at the tips of the petals; stamens rich red; leaves marbled with chestnut-brown on the surface, as in Chromatella.

N. M. IGNEA. Flowers large, of a fine uniform carmine-red colour; stamens fiery orange.

N. M. ROSEA. Very like M.carnea in appearance and size, but of a brighter pink. The inside surface of the sepals is tinted with pink stamens sulphur-yellow, fragrant.

N. M. RUBRA PUNCTATA. Flowers magenta tipped with carmine; stamens orange red.

N. ODORATA EXQUISITA. Medium sized standing 4 inches to 5 inches out of the water with deep pink and sweetly scented; stamens rich yellow; upper surface of the leaves dull green under surface red.

N. O. ROSACEA. Flowers of a soft pink with sweet perfume; stamens golden yellow.

N. O. SULPHUREA. Flowers sulphur-yellow radiating from a stiff stalk raised 3 to 6 inches above the water; stamens golden yellow leaves spotted with chestnut on the upper surfaces and streaked with rich brown underneath.

N. PYGMEA HELVOLA. Flowers very bright canary-yellow of small size; stamens golden yellow; leaves spotted with brown on the surface and speckled with chestnut colour underneath.

N. ROBINSONI. Flowers finely coloured deep red-vermilion, shaded with ochre towards the centre; stamens rich orange; leaves green with chestnut-brown, and streaked deep red on the back.

N. SANGUINEA. Bearing sometimes carmine-amaranth flowers, and at other times carmine; stamens orange-red.

N. SEIGNOURETI. Flowers Medium sized from 5 inches to 6 inches from the water surface with pink and carmine on a ground of pale yellow; leaves marbled with brown on the surface and streaked with red-brown underneath.