Musings
Seed Story: Stanley Zubrowski
A Master Plant Breeder from Saskatchewan
Ever since I started growing tomatoes bred by Stanley Zubrowski of Prairie River, Saskatchewan, I had wanted to get in touch with him. He has created one of my favourite tomatoes, Yellow Fireworks, a beautiful, bright yellow tomato that is almost perfectly round, early and productive. A few of his other tomato masterpieces include Prairie Glow and Stan’s Best Cherry, both of which are well suited to our short growing season in Canada. I’ll add that tomatoes aren’t even his main breeding project – a lovely vining flower called clematis is – he is the originator of the stunning, double-flowered ‘Joe Zary’ clematis (more on that in a minute). In 1997, Stanley was awarded the D.R. Robinson Award from the Saskatchewan Horticultural Association for his plant breeding work, which puts him in the select company of several other important Canadian plant breeders, such as Bert Porter and Percy Wright.
In 2024 I was thrilled to find an email from Stanley in my inbox. After months of email exchanges and learning about his breeding work and his experience as a ‘horticulturist-botanist-forestry technician researcher’; I thought it would be great to share his story with other gardeners. So, I finally got up the nerve and asked Stanley if I could interview him about his work. Thankfully he said yes. What follows are the questions I asked Stanley and his answers.
Please tell me a bit about you and your story.
I was born on a rainy day, at the family farm home, on July 26th, 1945. Roads were terrible, so a trip to the nearest hospital was impossible. An older Polish neighbour, who had delivered other babies in her lifetime, acted as a midwife. Somehow, I survived! My first elementary school years, I attended a local rural school named “Muncey”, and in grade six, I transferred to a school in Prairie River, SK, where I graduated from high school in 1963. I took one year of Arts & Science at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and from there I enrolled in a horticulture technology course at Olds College, Alberta, where I graduated in 1966. In 1969, I enrolled at the University of Montana in Missoula, MT and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1972.
Let’s start with clematis. How long have you been breeding clematis?
I have been breeding clematis for at least 45 years, interrupted somewhat by my employment as a federal forestry research technician in Alberta, and later as a botanist at the Central Research Forest, near Ottawa. The Central Research Forest had a full-size greenhouse, so I made good use of this facility to grow many of my clematis seedlings. Upon returning to the family farm (in Prairie River, SK), I started trialing lots of potato cultivars and tomatoes, and immersed myself more into clematis, lily and rose breeding.
How did your breeding work with clematis start?
While enrolled at Olds College, one of the required books to read was ‘Horticultural Horizons’, a 1966 book by Frank Skinner, that describes the author’s plant breeding work at Skinner’s Nursery near Dropmore, Manitoba. Clematis was one of many plants that Frank Skinner bred and selected, such as his Clematis macropetala hybrids ‘Blue Bird’, ‘Rosy O’Grady’ and ‘White Swan’, and his very floriferous C. integrifolia hybrid ‘Blue Boy’. While working at the Kananaskis Forestry Research Centre, a distance southwest of Calgary, I first glimpsed one of Alberta’s native species, the western blue clematis (Clematis occidentalis var. grosseserrata), flowering abundantly, its wide-flaring, sky-blue flowers breathtaking in spring. My love affair with clematis started then!
What are some of the clematis varieties you have created?
My claim to fame, and by far my best origination, is ‘Joe Zary’, a double-flowered Clematis macropetala hybrid, with violet-purple blooms, formed into many narrow, spidery sepals, with the mature flowers opening up wide and nearly flat, blooming spring through summer with proper care. Another one I bred and selected, and named after Joe’s wife, ‘Monty Zary’, is a hardy clematis with C. koreana in its parentage, with charming creamy-pinkish bell-shaped blooms that flare open. I’m having it tissue-cultured at a nursery/lab in Pitt Meadows, BC. It would have been propagated sooner, but Covid-19 disrupted production for awhile. I honoured the Zary couple for their avid promotion of horticulture on the prairies.
One of my earliest Clematis macropetala selections was ‘Ballet Skirt’, grown from open-pollinated seed of Frank Skinner’s ‘Rosy O’Grady’. It has large, very double, purple-pink blooms. Named in 1981, it received an award, ‘Elitplanta’ in 1994 in Sweden. In 1988, I registered and named a Clematis macropetala hybrid, ‘Dr. F.L. Skinner’, in honour of the internationally renowned plant breeder. Three other selections are on the backburner for now: ‘John Wallace’, with large, double, dark purple-blue blooms; ‘Percy Wright’, with double, dark blue blooms and a striking white centre; and my last introduction, from many seedlings, as yet to be selected, is to honour my favour horticulture instructor, the late Buck Godwin from Olds College. This selection has to have excellent repeat bloom, for an extended period, much like my ‘Joe Zary’.
What about your rose breeding work?
My very first rose hybrid that I created was when I crossed the Redleaf Rose, Rosa rubrifolia, with the hardy, thorny, single white Burnet rose, Rosa spinosissima var. ‘Altaica’ (the Altai rose, named for the region it comes from). From a row of seed I sowed straight in the garden, several seedlings emerged, and I selected one that appealed to my eye. Lucky for me, it did sucker a bit, and I sent a potted plant to Roger Vick, curator of the University of Alberta Devonian Botanic Gardens. I lost my original plant selection, but fortunately Roger contacted me a couple years later, suggesting I name and register my rose, considering its hardiness, disease resistance, attractive flowers and foliage, especially in autumn. I named and registered my rose as ‘Louis Riel’, to honour Canada’s Metis leader and hero, who was later convicted and hung for treason, in Regina, SK. As a side note, my rose is propagated and sold by a nursery in Japan! They considerate it a valuable addition to the roses they offer for landscape purposes.
You mentioned you also worked with lilies. Did you breed any lily cultivars?
For many years, I acquired many hardy Asiatic lilies – upfacing, downfacing, and outfacing. I made numerous crosses, grew at lot of seedlings, but never selected or named any worthwhile seedlings. My favourites were upfacing and outfacing ‘brushmarks’. Constant difficulties battling damage to bulbs by voles, especially during winters when the snow fell and stayed, but the ground hadn’t frozen hard. Soft ground was like having an open restaurant to hungry voles! Eventually, I quit growing lilies. If I had space, with no voles present, I might start growing them again. Growing lilies in pots is not the solution, as I found out very quickly. Buried pots were hit by voles as well!
What are some of the tomato cultivars you have created?
My goal in breeding tomatoes at first focused on developing early maturing tomatoes with good taste and flavour. In the early 1990s I crossed a number of early maturing potato leaf cultivars, like ‘Stupice’, and others, with the heirloom ‘Brandywine’, and the reverse cross. Other crosses involved regular leaf early maturing bush tomatoes, and several cherry crosses. I collected seed, but didn’t grow all of them out any further. From the few I did grow, I shared seeds with my friend Allan Daku in Kennedy, SK. He sent seed of some he grew to Revival Seeds in Nova Scotia. After trialling these for several years, they released 3 cultivars in their catalogue: ‘Stan’s Best Cherry’, one that I named (and originally released in the 1990s through my mail order seed business ‘Saskaberia Seeds’), and two others that they named: ‘Prairie Glow’ and ‘Stanley Zubrowski’. Another tomato, that I selected years ago from Tim Peters’ red-fruited ‘Fireworks’ tomato (and named ‘Yellow Fireworks’) was brought to my attention by you (Tania). That selection totally slipped my memory bank!
What breeding projects are you working on now – both clematis and tomatoes?
Clematis: My primary goal is to breed clematis hardy to survive in Zone 2 of my colder region of Saskatchewan. With this goal in mind, and my initial reading of the clematis varieties that the late Frank Skinner originated, I decided to use the following clematis groups, species, and hybrids/cultivars of the Atragene group – including Clematis alpina (Alpine clematis), C. chiisanesis (species from South Korea), C. koreana (Korean clematis) and C. macropetala (big-petaled clematis). All are winter hardy, spring bloomers and climbers, with flowering on previous year’s growth; C. macropetala has double-flowered coloured blooms, and the other 3 species have single, bell-shaped, coloured blooms.
Tomatoes: I had hoped to do some breeding using a Russian tomato named ‘Silvery Fir Tree’ (I prefer calling it ‘Carrot Top’) and a cross with ‘Golden Glow’, listed years ago in Gleckler’s catalogue — to obtain an ornamental foliage tomato with carrot-top (e.g. dissected) leaves and golden colour. However, I have had no luck acquiring any golden-leaf seedlings of “Golden Grow” (the seedlings I have all turned out to have green leaves) and this breeding project is a work in progress.
When you aren’t breeding plants, what are some of your hobbies?
One of my hobbies is corresponding with and exchanging seeds and plants, with plant people worldwide! My interest as a ‘horticulturist-botanist-forestry technician researcher’, is very diverse and I have trialed as many plants as I could afford to buy or obtain by exchanging plants with other gardeners.
Also, every year for a good many decades now, another hobby for me is judging horticulture shows. As a certified horticulture judge, I’ve judged flowers, fruits and vegetables, even children’s entries dealing with Items from Nature, pressed wildflowers and weeds, etc. I usually do two events in August, one at the Shand Fair, north-east of where I live, and another, the Golburn Fair, south and east of Tisdale, SK. I’m quite capable of judging at the provincial horticulture show, but so far haven’t been asked.
I am also a member (or past member) of several national and international horticulture groups: International Clematis Society; British Clematis Society; North American Rock Garden Society; North American Peony Society; North American Lily Society, and the Ontario Rock Garden Society.
