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Remembering Hilary:
The search for a lost Aquidneck Island Plant
Although I’m a little hesitant to admit it, I often find myself lost in Micheal Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, as the endless information on trees and shrubs within the thousand-some-odd pages can be addicting to consume. Junipers have become a recent obsession, as they are a wildly useful and underappreciated group of beautiful evergreens. The juniper cultivars listed in the Manual, of which there are many, blend together in a tan haze. Stumbling across a familiar name in the descriptions snapped me back to reality. Van Hof. As a horticulturist working in Newport, reading that name brought up thoughts of the historic Van Hof Nursery and Island Garden Center, local mainstays operated by the Van Hof family. The name of the plant was not familiar however, and it would lead me on an important horticultural journey I won’t soon forget.
The name of the plant was ‘Hilary’, and immediate internet searches provided zero information. It quickly set in that searching for the Hilary juniper was going to be like searching for a ghost. It is completely absent from recent nursery listings and catalogs. In fact, the only mention of the plant I could find anywhere was that cultivar description in Dirr I happened upon. Dirr briefly explains that cuttings were taken from an existing plant on the campus of the Portsmouth Abbey School, by Robert Van Hof of Van Hof Nursery, and named in honor of Father Hilary Martin, a longtime teacher and mentor at the Abbey. There is plenty of available information on the life of Martin, thanks to a fantastic article written by Dr. Blake Billings, a current teacher at the Abbey.
Father Hilary was an instrumental and inspiring figure within the rich history of Portsmouth Abbey. He was responsible for the acquisition and stewardship of adjacent acreage, fundraising and designing of campus buildings, and the installation of a Zen Garden, which he himself designed. For those interested, I would suggest reading Dr. Billings article, which can be found on the Portsmouth Abbey’s website. As for the plant however, no additional clues could be found with googling, so a more direct approach had to be
taken.
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