Fall 2009

The Fall 2009 Catalog is now available.

Fall 2009 Open House

Saturday, September 19 - 10 am to 5 pm

Sunday, September 20 - 11 am to 4 pm

No appointments necessary

Fall is a great time to plant! Take advantage of cooler weather to visit the nursery and pick up plants, ideas, and tips for a satisfying, sustainable landscape.

The Nursery is located at 7011 South Flint Hill Road in Owings, MD. For driving directions and further information, please contact us.

Please note that all sales are by cash or check only; no credit cards accepted.

Fall 2009 Newsletter

Dear Gardener,

Epimedium x rubrum

Barranwort

I am typing with the noise of shovels, wheelbarrows, and rototillers coming through the screendoor on a steamy August morning. A modest but long-contemplated landscaping project is finally coming to fruition in my frontyard, with the help of a landscape architect whose skills produced a proper design out of my rather inchoate vision, and a professional landscape crew that works with impressive speed and competence. Wish I could keep them around permanently.

It's a multipurpose project, with both esthetic and practical goals. Esthetically, I hope to improve the looks of the very ratty area in the center of the driveway circle, making it more prominent and getting rid of shabby grass that I don't want anyway. On the practical side, I'm seeking to replace a rotting wooden bulkhead, improve water runoff management, and prevent careless vehicles from going through the circle instead of around it. The job involves some earth-moving and the placing of rocks, big rocks—or at least the biggest I can afford.

This new vision is only the latest in a number of changes that have taken place over the years I have lived here. Gardens and landscapes don't stay frozen in time. In 1975 we built this house in a woodland already entering its mature phase, with 50' to 75' trees. Thirty-four years later the trees are even taller, their shading canopies wider, their roots farther spreading and more massive. Although some have died or fallen in storms, many saplings have sprung up. My own plantings have been reworked a number of times, reflecting natural changes and my own priorities. When the house and foundation plantings were new and stood out more in their surroundings the driveway area was semi-formal, with pie-shaped parterres edged in brick and planted with different annuals or biennials every year. Then four dwarf Alberta spruces dominated it for awhile, and were later replaced by decorative pots whose contents changed with the seasons. A bulkhead of landscape timbers was installed to hold the bank on the far side in place. And so on. Old snapshots show that at times—only at times!—it looked pretty decent.

At some point the reluctant decision was made to asphalt part of the original dirt and crushed rock driveway due to utility and maintenance considerations. Quite some years later and even more reluctantly the asphalted area was expanded, in the kind of trade-off made by every homeowner of advancing age who hopes to stay in a house awhile longer. The change necessitated reducing the center of the driveway circle, and less soil and more impervious surface, sadly, means more runoff from storms. Both the runoff issue and the decaying bulkhead needed to be dealt with. The foundation plantings, meanwhile, have matured and become much more varied, lusher—and I think much more interesting—but not at all formal. So here I am listening to the crew working away at this latest vision that I hope will match my current ideas on design and also help protect the land I'm responsible for.

Lest I'm starting to sound too elegaic here, let me say that if it weren't so hot I'd be jumping up and down with excitement.

Every change in a garden offers new opportunities, and what gardener doesn't live for them? Room to try new plants! New little niches among the rocks for things I've never grown! Plants that I've sort of subconsciously collected over the past several years can now come out of their pots to try living inground.

It will take time, of course, and some plants will die, or the correction of one problem will lead unexpectedly to another, and in any event the reality will never match the vision. Who cares? The vision is there in my head, and meanwhile there's plenty of fun to be had with the reality. It's a wonderful thing that gardens are always changing.

Speaking of which, it may be time for some changes or additions to your own garden. I'm pleased to be offering a variety of new and back-in-stock plants—some back after a lengthy absence. At the same time, sufficient (if maddeningly uneven) rain and a relatively cool summer locally mean that the plants still available from the spring catalog are in fine shape and eager to go in the ground. I'm looking forward to showing off the Foamflowers (Tiarella spp.), Small's Beardtongue (Penstemon smallii), Blue Wood Aster (Aster c. 'Avondale'), and 'Sinonome' Toad Lily (Tricyrtis h. 'Sinonome') to name just a few. I hope you'll take a few minutes to peruse the lists below, and perhaps find something that will help you achieve your own garden vision. If you want rocks, though, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Have a good gardening Fall.

Mary-Stuart Sierra

Note: unlike the paper catalog, trees and shrubs are not listed separately on-line. All plants are arranged alphabetically by scientific name.