In your plant shopping of the recent past, have you bought a perennial labeled Jeeper Creepers, Happily Ever Appster daylilies, or Trophytaker daylilies? Then you’ve bought a plant that originally came from Heritage Perennials. So what? you say. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but there are very few plant wholesalers that have such a full-featured website for the general public. I first decided to check them out because of a comment here posted by Sandy. It took me a while to realize they don’t sell to the general public, because they provide a list of gardening blogs, a newsletter, a searchable perennial encyclopedia, a question-and-answer column, and a links-and-resources section that brought a new cold-climate site to my attention. (How did Northern Garden stay out of my radar all this time?) There’s more, too, but it’s easier for you to just go see for yourself, and remember–they sell to the middleman, not to you. That’s quite a service to the gardening community considering it will only benefit them indirectly, when you buy their plants from a nursery. Especially at this time of year when our garden plants are still dormant and the weather keeps us indoors, Heritage Perennials and Northern Garden both deserve a closer look.
Heritage Perennials–A Fun Place to Visit
January 19, 2006 – Posted in: Recommended LinksAbout the Author
In the end, this may be the most important thing about frost: Frost slows us down. In spring, it tempers our eagerness. In fall, it brings closure and rest. In our gotta-go world–where every nanosecond seems to count–slowness can be a great gift. So rather than see Jack Frost as an adversary, you could choose to greet him as a friend.
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Here is the URL I couldn’t find when I posted my original comment.
Specialty Growers
Small, but cozy. And good people.
Specialty Growers might even carry some of the plants that Heritage Perennials developed and markets. I buy a lot of plants mail order mostly because I find it hard to get out of the house and spend the time roaming from one nursery to another. But I agree: finding a local, knowledgable source for almost anything is better than going further afield, and especially so with plants, where an understanding of local conditions is vital to success.
And I would recommend that folks find a small home ground nursery/ retailer to call their home base…
Mine is Specialty Growers, right around the corner from me. The owner, Karen Bovio, is open to suggestions for new plants to carry, and will warn me away from plants that might not be hardy for our particular area.
Very valuable. And they’ll appreciate your business in a way that the larger retailers can’t.
Thanks, Kathy. I have bookmarked both for later reading. Looks like a lot of good articles on N. Garden.