Festival Burgundy™ cordyline spurs copycats, but no equals

Today's guest blog is from Abbie Jury, a New Zealand garden writer whose husband, Mark Jury and father-in-law, Felix Jury, created Festival Burgundy cordyline, available in most Lowe's or Home Depot stores and at most of the larger independent garden centers. Abbie's column regularly appears on her and Mark's blog, Tikorangi: The Jury Garden.

Abbie Jury

Festival Burgundy (called Red Fountain by Abbie, because that's its name in Australia and New Zealand) features a fountain of burgundy-red, glossy, strappy leaves that look great planted in masses in the landscape especially with white or bright-green plants. Festival Burgundy has become widely popular as a low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, versatile plant that grows well in sun or shade. But it also looks as good as it works, offering a colorful, vertical, architectural element and a small footprint great for tight spaces: 

On a personal note, I love to use Festival Burgundy as a sophisticated, contemporary element for needed height in containers, and this year have had fun mixing it with sempervivum, lime ipomoea (sweet potato vine), purple ornamental kale and coleus in lime, white and burgundy:

The History of Festival Burgundy

By Abbie Jury

More than 30 years ago, Felix and Mark were both fascinated by the habit and appearance of our native Astelia chathamica (often sold under a cultivar name of Silver Spear). There was little that needed improving in the pointed, silver leaves of this clump-forming plant, but both father and son saw the potential in trying to develop a new colorway with red foliage. So began a 20-year effort before Mark pulled the plug, deciding that his red astelias were just too difficult and too unreliable to market widely. We still have them in cultivation in the garden here and a few of the selected clone were released by us onto the market. Other seedlings found their way onto the market by devious means on the part of a third party (that is a story best kept in-house). But clearly, others found the plant just as difficult to build up – and indeed to keep alive at all – because it has never been a huge commercial hit, despite the demand. Sometimes breeding directions are more blind alley than interesting path and Mark reluctantly abandoned the red astelia.

Undeterred, Felix looked to the cordyline genus, where he crossed two lesser-known New Zealand forms – banskii and pumilio. In this country, where Cordyline australis is far and away the most common form around (called cabbage trees and an icon of our country), cordylines are expected to have trunks and grow several meters tall (1 meter equals about 3.28 feet). When Mark raised the seed from this cross, there was the lucky break that came to be known as Red Fountain in the first instance (but also marketed in the US as Festival Burgundy).

Festival Burgundy is clumping, rarely putting up a trunk much above 10 cm (about 4 inches), with exceptionally good coloring in shiny burgundy red, which lasts year round. The narrow, strappy leaves are relatively soft and fountain out from the base. The tall, arching flowers are pale lilac and highly fragrant.

We have been delighted by the success of this cultivar on the international market, thanks to the efforts of Anthony Tesselaar International acting as our agent. Less delighted, one might say, with the efforts of competitors to come in behind it with ring-ins and substitutes, some even raised from Red Fountain (how we wish they would show some originality and come up with their own ideas) but we are confident that nothing yet has appeared that is the equal of Red Fountain.

Mark has continued with the cordyline breeding, but with the market being flooded with different cordylines from other sources, many proving difficult and unreliable, he as yet has put any further releases on hold.

Thanks for contributing, Abbie!

How 'bout you? Have you ever grown Festival Burgundy (or Red Fountain, as it's called in some parts of the world)? If so, what was your experience with it? Any design tips or pics? By all means, send them in!