Nursery-propogated native plants of the Eastern U.S. for home and community gardeners. We are a retail-only, mail-order nursery; no web sales. Purchases are by cash or check only; no credit cards accepted.
Summer 2010
Closed for the season.
The nursery is now closed for the Summer but will reopen for its final Fall season on September 7. The Fall catalog will be available on line and in print sometime in August. In addition to plants from the Spring catalog there will be both new introductions and back-in-stock plants listed, so please look us up then. Meanwhile, have a good gardening summer!
The Spring 2010 Catalog is still available for reference.
2010 will be the final year for Lower Marlboro Nursery. More details in the Newsletter, below.
Spring 2010 Newsletter
Dear Gardener,
I'm writing on an utterly still, snow-covered February morning. The wooded slopes and stream valley behind my house look unfamiliar, deeper, with every rise and fold smoothly blanketed in white and the normally hidden little streams glinting as they wind through the bare thickets. The only sound comes from a few birds making their first, rather tentative essays at springsong. Out front, my youngest cat, Sage, is pawing at the snow, hoping to find a green leaf at the base of a catnip plant; the older, more seasoned members of the clan are in full hibernation mode.
A winter morning at the beginning of a new decade seems apt for reflection on the changes that have taken place in the native plant field since I put out my first spring catalog in 1989. There's been a slow but steady evolution since that time, when native plants were largely unknown, ignored, and/or regarded as weeds. And nobody wanted weeds in their gardens. Gradually, however, through years of efforts by plant lovers, writers, naturalists, artists and photographers, and environmentalists of all stripes, the tide began to turn. Now I think it can finally be said that we've reached a point where appreciation of native plants in the wild and their use in cultivation is not just a “growing trend” but has become a genuine shift in attitude toward our indigenous flora. Native plants are specified now not only for mitigation projects but also for many commercial landscapes; designers regularly make them a first choice in residential designs. Big commercial growers are finally producing a number of native species in quantity. (To do them justice, introducing a new plant into commercial-scale production is a financially risky venture that takes years.) As a result, gardeners who were long frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining native plants can now generally find at least a small selection in any good nursery or garden center, and availability will doubtless increase. Odd as it many seem now, in 1989 few gardeners in our area had ever heard of plants like Purple Coneflower, Oakleaf Hydrangea, Heuchera, Virginia Sweetspire; now they're garden mainstays.
In the list of those who have promoted native plants over the years, I place myself firmly among the plant lovers. I have never really regarded myself as a business person but rather as an artisan, producing small runs of little- known and out-of-the-ordinary plants for hands-on gardeners with an active interest in our native environment. Profit has never been a prime motive—which is perhaps just as well. Instead I, and many other hobbyists and small specialty growers, pride ourselves on being plant explorers of a sort. We've gone out and looked at the plants which evolved and persist in our own regions with a new eye, seeing them not just as “wildflowers”, weed species, or the remnants of vanishing ecosystems, but as plants with important and beautiful roles to play in both the natural and cultivated landscapes of today. I'm quite proud to think that plants I raised and nurtured are (I hope!) thriving and increasing in sites all over theMid-Atlantic and Eastern U.S.
My reflective state may be brought on by the fact that 2010 will, in fact, be the last year for the nursery. Over the last 20 years many of the changes I hoped for when I started a native plant nursery have come about, even if the credit goes mostly to others, and I will be content to bow out after this fall, leaving the future of the native plant movement in stronger (not to mention younger) and more expert hands.
Nevertheless, like the birds trying out their songs and Sage hoping for her catnip fix, I'm awaiting the spring season with all the usual sense of anticipation. Please rest assured that I am not simply selling off remainders this year. My stock is always limited, but I haven't lost my passion for sowing seeds and experimenting with new plants in the least: check out the lovely Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), the lacy New York Fern (Thelypteris noveboracensis), and Turk's Cap Lily (Lilium superbum). Lots of seeds have already been sown and more will be; assuming they come up and flourish—never a given—there will be other plants added to the fall catalog.
In other words, it's business as usual. I hope this spring's list includes plants you may find intriguing, and look forward to hearing from you and greeting some of you at the nursery. As always, some plants don't make it into the catalog, so feel free to enquire about something you're seeking. I may also be adding updates to the online catalog as plants become available, so check out the website occasionally.
Just one caveat: if you see a plant you want or have been thinking of trying, buy it this year! Happy gardening!
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.