S02:E11
Dave Creech says SFA Gardens spent 30 or 40 years waiting for minus four degrees. When the 2021 freeze finally brought it, only two of the garden’s 31 gardenias really survived. The champion was Whispering Pines, a big double that Jim Berry had offered Dave because it didn’t fit his nursery’s product mix. In Part 2 of Ping’s conversation with Dave, the long wait pays off in plant picks: Japanese maples that came through unaffected, two camellia species that were in bloom when the cold hit, and Parrotia subaequalis, a Chinese ironwood that turns fire engine red in an East Texas fall.
Then the talk turns to the people who grow plants. Dave names labor as the industry’s biggest challenge and runs the numbers: a kiwi costs eight cents a pound to pick, while a hand-picked blueberry runs 40, 50, 60 cents. He makes his case for golden kiwi in East Texas, a crop he admits he is stubborn about, and Ping reports that her three-year-old son asks for one every week at Costco. Dave also has a number for young professors: horticulture enrollment peaked in 1977, with 650 students at Texas A&M.
The second half travels. Near Kunming, in Yunnan, Dave went to see the Camellia of 10,000 Flowers, two varieties grafted and woven together in a monastery plaza, with a monk whose job every day was to sit by the tree and protect it. He remembers refugee camps in Pakistan going from tents to mud houses to houses with roofs, a PhD advisor who told him seven students before him had failed, and the former student who walked up at TNLA and said, “You’re still alive.” Part 2 ends at SFA Gardens today, with a lecture series every second Thursday and an environmental education program for kids that is coming back.
Listen Time: 54:23 Follow Along with the Transcript
Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University. He has lived in Nacogdoches for 47 years and works half time; in his words, he is not retired. He studied under Hollis Bowen and J.B. Storey at Texas A&M and did a master’s in potato tuber physiology at Colorado State University under Milt Workman, arriving the year Old Main burned. Raised in Asia, he has been going to China for more than 30 years and worked in Pakistan’s orchards in the 1980s. He once ran a peach business, and his current projects include golden kiwi and feijoas.
Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture
“So we spent 30, 40 years waiting for minus four degrees. This is a torture test.” Dr. Dave Creech, on long-term evaluation at SFA Gardens (7:20)
“Do you want a fire engine red foliaged Parrotia ironwood?” Dr. Dave Creech, on Parrotia subaequalis (10:26)
“I never worked a day in my life.” Dr. Dave Creech, on being half time and not retired (28:42)
“I really think the people or the culture that you see with the plant really played a big role in changing your view of the whole world.” Dr. Ping Yu, on what travel for plants gives a horticulturist (39:25)
“If you love what you do, you’re, you’ll be fine.” Dr. Dave Creech, his advice to young people interested in horticulture (45:28)
Drainage first for Japanese maples. SFA never plants a Japanese maple in its bottomland gardens. The tree goes on top of the ground with a berm built up around it, so it sits on a knoll. Poor drainage kills Japanese maples, but once established they are very drought resistant in East Texas. In containers they like a variable schedule: consistent daily watering in a shade house has hurt maples at SFA’s nursery.
Chilling or day length? Japanese maples grow in Houston, given drainage, and in Minnesota, and they don’t seem to have a chilling requirement. Dave’s view is that they respond more to photoperiod than to hours under 45 degrees.
Why a big maple costs so much. A Japanese maple over two inches is worth $400 or $500 wholesale. Few Texas growers produce them, so they come in on tractor trailers from Northwest nurseries, and they can’t be cinched. Cinching means netting a tree tight into a pole so trees stack like poles. Japanese maples are brittle and break, so each one has to be fitted on the truck.
What long-term evaluation catches. Of 31 gardenias at SFA, two really survived minus four; one sold as Arctic Frost “went to the ground and below.” Indian hawthorn, Rhaphiolepis indica, has died for Dave in ’83, ’89, and 2021, yet huge beds of it keep coming back into the trade a year or two after each freeze. His conclusion: native trees are mostly fine, and the shrub world needs the attention.
Parrotia subaequalis. This Chinese ironwood was discovered in Zhejiang Province and, Dave says, wasn’t really described until the 1990s. It is directly related to Parrotia persica, Persian witch hazel, grows faster, roots more easily, is drought resistant, and turns fire engine red in fall. It came through minus four without trouble. It has no real common name, and “Chinese ironwood” doesn’t sound very appealing to Dave.
Simpson’s stopper, Myrcianthes fragrans. A sand dune tree to about 12 feet, popular on the western side of Florida, and very salt tolerant. At SFA it handled the lower teens and high single digits with no problem; minus four took it to the ground, and it grew back vigorously. AgriStarts is now starting a variety called Geode. Clones are available now, including a variegated form and a Mexican form, and Dave has plants from Cuba.
The cost of picking. One person can pick 500 to 1,000 pounds of kiwis an hour, at about eight cents a pound. Blueberries run about 150 pounds a day by hand, 40 to 60 cents a pound, which is why larger blueberry plantings of 50 to 100 acres go to machine harvest, which can pick for a dime.
Where golden kiwi grows. Golden kiwi has been tried in California, where growers own the domestic market for green kiwi, but Northern California is too dry and the fruit shrivels. Its home region in China, around Changsha, has a hot, humid climate like Nacogdoches. Golden kiwis store for four months, and New Zealand packs a million trays a week, which makes golden kiwi a worldwide continuous supply.
New pests in East Texas. Dave lists brown marmorated stink bug, spotted wing drosophila, and ambrosia beetle as pests he had never seen before. Crape myrtle bark scale, the pest Dr. Mengmeng Gu made a career out of, is now turning up on callicarpa, a native plant; Ping saw it on the host range trial on callicarpa.
A camellia carrying two varieties. The Camellia of 10,000 Flowers is grafted, with two varieties growing on one tree, woven together. Dave says the tree goes back to the 1400s.
Guanxi. Dave describes guanxi as “the art of relationships, time, trust, friendship, experience.” Ping says it translates to relationship. She adds that in Eastern Asia the older you get, the higher you stand on the social ladder, at least within the family.
Blooms and Beyond explores plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. Whether you’re a commercial grower seeking practical solutions, a student exploring careers in horticulture, or simply someone who loves plants and their stories, there’s something here for you. Hosted by Dr. Ping Yu of the University of Georgia, each episode features interviews with experts who share enchanting stories, cutting-edge research, and practical wisdom from the world of horticulture.
Your benefit: After each episode, commercial growers will have at least one useful tip for their operation, and plant enthusiasts will have an interesting fact to share. That’s how we spread plant power to more people and make our environment a little better.
Host: Dr. Ping Yu Producer: Rich Braman Guest: Dr. Dave Creech, Professor Emeritus and Director, SFA Gardens, Stephen F. Austin State University
Episode Release Date: October 4, 2026 Episode Length: 54:23
“Till next time, stay healthy and go plants!” 🌱