What gets you to a certain nursery?
Diane Whitehead (Thu, 22 May 2003 10:16:39 PDT)

I like to shop
where plants are propagated
where there is a display garden
where staff is knowledgeable

I usually go to specialty growers, but I'll buy anywhere. Often
amateur gardeners will sell their surplus at the nearest garden shop.
I have bought superb plants that won cups at plant shows - one
gold-laced primula was from a garden shop in the parkade of the local
Hudson's Bay department store.

Free Spirit Nursery near Vancouver BC is a new nursery that is very
organized. There are numbered timber-edged beds. Every other bed is
planted as a display border. The intervening beds have the potted
sale plants. You see a plant you like, make a half turn, and pick up
the pot. They propagate all their own plants. They have photograph
albums with pictures of everything they grow, as a lot of their
plants are ones that flower late.

There used to be a bulb garden in Victoria that was very popular.
The garden was beautiful - trees, beautiful shrubs, and bulbs planted
in large groups - like maybe two or three dozen. (imagine that many
Fritillaria imperialis). All the gardeners in Victoria would go
several times throughout the season and fill out orders. The bulbs
would then be ordered from Holland and arrive in the fall.

There are several U.S. garden centres that I like because they have
an excellent selection and display gardens, owners available for
queries, staff who know what they are selling, a library room where
you can sit down to consult garden books (not that I ever have the
time for that, but I'm sure local people would).

One has chocolate chip cookies in the barn and drinks (hot in winter,
lemonade in summer). They also put on workshops on weekends.

If you can't have enough staff, then informative signs by the plants
will do. Specific information, not something generic taken from a
plant encyclopaedia.

Diane Whitehead Victoria BC Canada