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Wednesday, 24 May 2017
Any garden center or nursery, it never fails, has something of interest for me. A plant, a combination of plants, flower pots, fertilizers, something. The difference between them is that garden centers buy in and sell out, while nurseries - at a minimum - grow on. The best also propagate. The big box stores, even supermarkets at this time of year, are selling much of a muchness: the "usual suspects" range of annuals, familiar perennials, some shrubs. Be catious about "familiar," as annuals and tender perennials for summer gardens have a way of falling out of favor. Abutilon disappeared a few years ago. This year it seems to be torenia that have vanished. Ah well. The thing to do is visit any and every nursery that I pass by because I never know what they might have to catch my attention.
Country Garden Shed Nursery has a sign out on Rte 12 and today
is the day I turned onto Rte 579, drovew for 3.5 miles and arrived
at their neat and tidy, very colorful garden center.
A huge glasshouse, with a rainbow of glazed pots
in a range of sizes, complete with matching birdbaths.
Inside were benches filled with annuals, hanging baskets, and
pre-planted pots with country-casual tuteurs of birch branches.
I admired their potting area. Every gardener could use one.
A fabulous display of pink and purple petunias. Of course this is
the moment of perfection, to be lost as the plants grow and tangle.
But no one would scoop them all up and plant just as we see it now.
Outdoors in the sales and display area are
huge, lushly planted urns with the requisite
abundance of thriller / filler / spiller plants.
Lacking the necessary forklift to budge it
my attention turned to this caged echevaria.
As well as pots there is a lineup of similarly
colorful chairs. This one, near the glasshouse,
supports two baskets of vivid calibrachoa.
A bench of lupins in hues from yellow to peachy orange and red.
Some stunning peonies offered for sale.
A prior customer must clearly agree.
Unobtrusively, staff is busy grooming the plants
and keeping the benches replenished. Well done.
There are some shrubs - I especially noticed mop head hydrangeas in billows of blue flowers. Perennials have a focus on what's in bloom now, such as the peonies, a good slection of heuchera with colorful foliage, ditto for hostas. I did not see any ferns, or abutilons, or torenia. But I did go home with a good sized Cordyline 'Red Star', a gray-purple sprawling sedum, Ajuga 'Chocolate Scallop', and three dwarf blue-leaved hosta. As I said, there's always something.
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