Sometime in 1907, before Burbank issued his New Opuntias catalog, Welch had formed the
Thornless Cactus Farming Company in Los Angeles with several partners and paid Burbank twenty-seven thousand dollars for the right to grow and market seven varieties of his new cactus, the biggest single sale Burbank would ever make.
Recently, he received high praise from the industry for five
thornless blackberries that will soon be released.
LANDSCAPE NOTES: The True Shade is a fast-growing,
thornless Honeylocust that looks more like a "shade tree" with its broad-spreading habit.
van Tol is a superb dark-leaved, almost
thornless, cultivar with huge crops of red fruits.
Among Lewis' other recommended native rose species are the clustered wild rose, the Pacific rose, the
thornless rose and -- his personal favorite -- the prairie rose.
Grisiuk (1959) examined the inheritance of thornlessness in Gleditsia, in which the condition of the female parent (thorned or
thornless) was found to be dominant.
Here in the Sunset Test Garden, one of her steel arbors with a weather-resistant finish becomes an elegant focal point sourrounded by the cloudlike seedheads of Muhlen-bergia rigens and the vibrant fall foliage of 'Navaho'
thornless blackberry.
For
thornless types, try 'Lady Sun' and 'Lady Late.'.
The
thornless honey locust casts a delicate shade through its tropical-looking fernlike foliage and rapidly grows to its mature height of 45 feet.
The sprawling landscape included a half-acre pond stocked with fish and surrounded by willows and Louisiana irises, as well as a mature orchard filled with blueberry bushes, a dozen varieties of figs, and
thornless blackberry bushes.
The varieties include a
thornless dwarf raspberry plant called Raspberry Shortcake; a four-season compact blueberry named Peach Sorbet; and Jelly Bean, a dwarf blueberry plant.