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Contents |
PDN Newsletter Archives 2003January 2003January is off to a roaring start in many ways as orders begin rolling in. So far, we aren't sold out of any catalog items, but unexpected strong demand on a few items will soon result in some sold out postings. Remember that when you pay for your plants, they are reserved for you until you want them shipped (or your climate allows). The only exception would occur if the plants that we have set aside for you fail to survive until this time (which rarely occurs). Weatherwise, it's been a hard winter, but good from a perspective of being consistently cold. We have had lows of only 10 degrees F, but we've seen damage on plants that have been unaffected by lower temperatures in previous years. Surprisingly, plants that we expected to see damaged have so far been unaffected. January was a busy travel month with trips ranging from Hawaii to Maine. Having the good fortune to meet a Colocasia breeder in Hawaii, we have signed an agreement to trial many of his new cultivars here on the NC mainland. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to work towards introducing some fantastic new cultivars for the ornamental world. (See our Plant Exploration Log section for a detailed summary of the Hawaii trip.) As a climatic contrast from Hawaii, Maine was cold! This is the first time that I've seen ice sculptures used as yard ornaments instead of as hotel salad bar decorations. The nice folks in Maine presented me with a copy of the famous McLaughlin Garden Nude Calendar. Even Ms. November and Mr. February were kind enough to autograph their respective months. From Maine to Florida in the same week was another vivid contrast in climates, although Tallahassee hit a decade breaking low of 14 degrees F while I was there. Many parts of Florida have been experiencing a bad case of zone creep as evidenced by the large, but very dead Livistona palms planted around town. One of the many highlights of the trip was a chance to spend two days in the wild studying trilliums and other wildflowers with botanists Melanie Darst and Angus Gholson. I'd like to also express our condolences for two recent disasters that affected the horticultural community. First the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia over Texas inpacted our friends in the plant world. Not only are our wishes with the families of the crew, but also with Dr. Dave Creech, Director of the SFASU Mast Arboretum in Nacogdoches, Texas. According to Dr. Creech, the garden is strewn with hundreds of pieces of shuttle debris including some that are quite unimaginable. I imagine that working at the Arboretum will never be the same. http://www.sfasu.edu/ag/arboretum/ Our thoughts also go out to our friends Barry Yinger and Andy Wong of Asiatica in Pennsylvania. Barry has long been a great source of new Asian plant introductions as well as a great source of information. While Barry was traveling in the far reaches of the world, his home and office exploded in a devastating fire that destroyed everything except for a distant greenhouse. Fortunately no one was injured, but the task of rebuilding his home along with his massive horticultural library, slide collection, and other personal effects must indeed be daunting. So, did you make a top 25 prediction list like we suggested? Remember that next year, we will hold an official contest, so practice this year. As of the end of January, the top 20 list looked like this:
February 2003Spring is finally on the horizon as we turn the page on February. If you are like us, the warm weather of spring cannot arrive soon enough. Between the uncertainties of war and the uncertainties of the weather, we need some resolution...to something. The rising fuel prices of the last few months are poised to re-create the disaster that the nursery industry saw in the year 2000. It wouldn't be so bad if we could get a few sunny days, but the gloominess of February made us think we were living in Seattle. Despite the sad state of worldly affairs, more and more folks are staying at home and gardening. Our shipping season started in mid-February and plants are flying out the door. Actually flying is probably not the best word, but marching at a steady pace certainly fits. If you haven't placed your spring order yet, do so soon as some of the more popular items are already becoming in short supply. We are already working on the fall catalog and getting far too excited over the many new items that we already have in production for future sales. Speaking of writing, Tony's book, "So, You Want to Start a Nursery," is in the galley proof stage at Timber Press. All is still on "go" for an early fall release. In conjunction with the book release, StartaNursery.com will also be launched. Our hope is for this website to be a complete information and nursery resource center. Keep watching the website for a series of exciting improvements that will include an automated update notification opt-in list. Several new must-have books, all written by our customers, are available now from Timber Press (http://www.timberpress.com). They include:
March 2003Spring is here! After a wet and cold winter, spring has finally arrived at Plant Delights. Because of the prolonged cold period, we seem to have escaped those nasty late spring frosts that often plague us. Our typical last frost date is April 10, but it looks like we are not going to freeze after March 15 this year. We have had the best magnolia flowering in memory, and have not had to spend time covering tender perennials that emerged too early. Spring is truly the savior for those of us that are severely afflicted with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and boy did we need it this year. So far, we are still able to keep up with spring orders and get them out the door promptly. We are, however approaching the April bottleneck, where everyone wants to order and plant in the same week. Please be patient during that period, as we will process your order as quickly as possible. It's been great to meet many of you as I traveled around the country this spring. Our February trillium expedition to Louisiana was fabulous, although it was tough to watch hundreds of thousands of Trillium being bulldozed for road widening projects. We did manage to find four species, T. cuneatum, T. foetidissimum, T. ludovicianum, and T. gracile. In between the constant flooding, we did get to visit some great gardeners including the amazing octagarian nurserywoman Margie Jenkins of Amite, Mississippi and two fabulous native plant lovers Jack and Ella Price of Blanchard Louisiana. On my second North Florida trip of the spring, I was fortunate to spend time with palm guru, Dr. Kyle Brown. Not only was Dr. Brown's garden a truly amazing place to study an incredible array of hardy palms, but we spent one day in the field studying the palms of the region....again working around some very serious flooding. The trip to Denver a week later was the first trip in many months that I didn't see flooding...at least not from rain. I arrived the first day that the Denver airport was re-opened after their 90-year record 36" snowfall. You could almost watch the rivers rise as we enjoyed three days in the 60's. Denver had been under a severe drought with only 7 inches of rain during all of 2002. Fortunately, after participating in a lively panel discussion on invasive plants, I was able to fly out just before the next 12" snowfall began. It's always great to spend time with great plants people like Panayoti and Gwen Kelaidis. They even introduced me to a great new pastime...watching gardens thaw. If you haven't been to the Denver Botanical Garden in a while, this is a must. I'll admit it didn't look its best under 3' of snow, but this is one fine public garden. There are some exciting happenings on our website http://www.plantdelights.com. We now have an opt-in mailing list that is used to notify you when something new has been added to the site. If you are interested, click this section on our homepage and find out more. We have also updated our nursery division section to show you photos of our growing operation. Enjoy! April 2003As Tax month comes to a close, orders have been picking up steadily as the weather improves. The last few weeks of April and first couple of week in May are our busiest months of the year. Please be patient, as it may take us a couple of weeks to process and ship orders that are recieved this time of year. We are readying the nursery for our annual spring open house that starts on May 2. The week prior to open house is quite busy as we block off all plants that were ordered early in the year by those of you in the arctic zones and scheduled for a ship date after May 2. Remember that when you purchase a plant early in the year, that plant is reserved for you. Only in the event of a crop failure will you not receive a plant that you had ordered early in the year. While crop failures are not as common as they once were, please remember that we are dealing with living plants and occasionally...you know what, happens. We now have an opt-in mailing list (available at http://www.plantdelights.com/mailinglist.html) that is used to notify you when something new has been added to the site. If you are interested, click this section on our homepage and find out more. We have also updated our nursery division section to show you photos of our growing operation. Enjoy! May 2003Well, what a month! After a steady early spring of orders, May seemed like an avalanche. Perhaps it was the warm weather or soaking rains or maybe even the end of the Iraqi conflict, but everyone got busy gardening all at once. Open house was huge this year when some good publicity, especially an unusually large newspaper profile bringing new visitors out in droves. We are just now getting caught up from the "spring rush". As of now, we should be able to ship orders as they are received...weather permitting. Speaking of shipping, we would like to welcome the newest member of our management team, Waverly Hawthorne. Waverly joined us as a shipper this spring and has now been promoted to the position of shipping and receiving supervisor. Waverly is now in charge of making sure your order is pulled correctly, packed gently, and sent at the proper time. On most days, this is the most thankless of jobs, so if your order arrives in great shape, be sure and say thanks to Waverly. The gardens here at Juniper Level look fabulous this spring and growth has indeed been phenomenal. Adrienne and the rest of our garden staff have not only been able to maintain the existing plantings, but have also added several hundred new plants to the gardens. I do hope you can all make it out to the summer open house for what we have dubbed our summer "Shock and Awe" festival. We'll even keep the gardens and nursery open until 8pm on the two Saturdays of the summer open house (July 11-13 and 18-20). May also gave us the opportunity to take another road trip. This week long journey was to Texas to both do some botanizing and visit with some of the top Crinum breeders in the world. Carl Schoenfeld of Yucca Do, Brent Heath of Brent and Becky's Bulbs, and bulb guru Dr. Thad Howard joined us for the journey. What we saw was a truly amazing diversity of plants including some jaw-dropping crinums. We have our fingers crossed that we will all be able to work together to get some of these plants mass-produced and available to gardeners around the world. If you haven't been to Yucca Do in several years, you are in for a real treat. Carl and Wade have done an amazing job in transforming the nursery and surrounding gardens into a truly amazing destination. While you are there, try and set up a visit to the adjacent Peckerwood Gardens of John Fairey. This magnificent garden has matured wonderfully since I last visited and is truly a magical experience. If you find yourself near Houston, the nursery and gardens are only an hour from the airport. June 2003June is always a tough month in the nursery business as much more money flows out than in. At least with our summer rains, this June was not a disaster like last year. Normally, by June 1, we can ship orders as they arrive, but this year is the exception. As June drew to a close, we were still had a one-week turnaround to get your order out the door. While we are always working to speed up our order processing turn-around time, let us stress again that we truly value you as a customer. To that end, we have made a change in our customer service and shipping department. We have hired Bob Gram as our new Director of Customer Service and Shipping. Bob comes to PDN from IBM (love those initials), where he spent 30 years. We are confident that you will see our shipping and customer service continue to improve under Bob's leadership. Please join us in welcoming Bob to the PDN team. June started out with a speaking engagement at The Richmond Hill Inn in Asheville, NC. It's always great to be on the same program as my friend and West Coast counterpart Dan Hinkley. Also on the program was Hunter Stubbs, a former employee of PDN and now the horticulturist for Richmond Hill. Rounding out the program was Brian Upchurch, an amazing wholesale nurseryman near Asheville who specializes in rare and unusual woodies. You can find his retail website at http://www.pendulousplants.com. Even if you aren't interested in attending one of their superb symposiums, you will want to make Richmond Hill your place for a romantic getaway in the NC mountains. Check them out at http://www.richmondhillinn.com. Adding to this great weekend was a chance to do some botanizing in the Asheville area with former PDN staffer Richard Olsen, who is now working on his PhD. with NCSU plant breeder extraordinaire Dr. Tom Ranney of NCSU's Fletcher station. Tom's work is some of the most exciting woody plant breeding in the world today. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer until the first of his releases are available. The gardens here at Juniper Level look fabulous this spring and growth has indeed been phenomenal. Adrienne and the rest of our garden staff have not only been able to maintain the existing plantings but have also added several hundred new plants to the gardens. I do hope you can all make it out to the summer open house for what we have dubbed our summer "Shock and Awe" festival. We even keep the gardens and nursery open until 8pm on the two Saturdays of the summer open house (July 11-13 and 18-20). July 2003July is gone, but the summer rains are still around. We've still got new springs popping up everywhere around the nursery...usually in places where they aren't welcomed. With all the rain, growth of plants (and weeds) has been exceptional this season and we hope that has been the same for most of you...minus the weeds.The fall 2003 catalog is being printed now and will be mailed around August 12. If you don't get yours in the mail, let us know. Remember that if you go more than two years without a purchase, our computer will unmercifully boot you from the mailing list. The only ways to stay on the list are to purchase plants or let us know that you are a gardening guru who spreads the word about cool new plants and needs to remain on the list despite not purchasing. The website should also be updated around the same time as the catalog mailing. Speaking of purchasing, my new book, So You Want to Start a Nursery, is now available, if starting a nursery has ever crossed your mind. You can find out more about the book on our website www.plantdelights.com/New/book.html, or our new informational website for nursery owners and workers, www.startanursery.com. July ended with the annual meeting of the Perennial Plant Association, held this year in Sacramento and San Francisco. The gardens there are wonderful and are full of amazing plants. For me, it was a chance to visit three places that had been on my list for ages, The Ruth Bancroft Garden, the Harland Hand Garden, and Western Hills Nursery. It's hard for gardens to measure up after years of hype, but there was no disappointment at these three. The Bancroft garden is truly an amazing garden with a collection of agaves that rivals anything I've ever seen. The garden of the late Harland Hand has been maintained in immaculate shape is most certainly one of the best designed plant gardens that I've ever seen. If you have the opportunity to visit either of these, gardens, take it. On my last day in the bay area, it was finally time to visit Western Hills. This combination rare plant nursery and display garden is maintained beautifully by owner Maggie Wych. This is another must visit garden if you are in the Sonoma wine region near Occidental, CA. August 2003August seems like it just started but indeed it's already ended. The highlight of the month was an amazing trip to the UK to collect plants and visit plant friends. I was finally able to visit several places on my "must visit" list including Crug Farms, Ashwood Nursery, Cotswold Flower Gardens and Hillier Arboretum. The visit to each was superb and I am already trying to figure out a time to return. I was able to bring back loads of very cool new plants (16 hours of washing before inspections). The in-transit wait is always nerve-wracking, but thank goodness the plants arrived safely back at the nursery after several days in the mail. Back at the nursery, attention has been focused on keeping plants from rotting in their containers, which is always one of the most difficult chores during rainy years. While losses have been greater than we would have liked, we are still far short of the potential disaster from such a rainy year. We do appreciate your understanding when a plant is out of stock despite our best efforts. We hope you are enjoying your fall catalog supplement by now. We also hope you see some special plants that you just can't live without...especially the long awaited release of our dwarf yellow Echinacea 'Paranoia'. Remember that our final open house for the year is coming up soon...September 12-14 and 19-21. The gardens look great and we hope you can find the time for a visit. See you soon. September 2003September was quite a month as Hurricane Isabel arrived without an appointment the day prior to our final open weekend for the season. While we only got 1.5" of rain and 60 mph winds, the storm kept many of our regular customers from attending. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in Eastern NC and up the coast into Virginia and Maryland who were hit far worse that those of us more inland. This has been one of the best falls in recent memory for gardening. The moderate temperature and ample rainfall have been perfect for planting, weeding, and a number of other garden chores. If you haven't ordered from the fall catalog yet, we still have good stock on most plants and will continue shipping through November. October 2003As shipping for the year winds down, work on the 2004 spring catalog winds up. For nearly a month, we have been locked in our offices to focus on putting together the new catalog. I am getting a bit tired of pizza slices slid under the door, but we have found that such confinement increases the creative process. Finally after dozens of edits, the main text is ready including over 110 new plants. Unlike many nurseries who put the catalog together and then order the plants, we grow most of our own plants and try to have them at a saleable size before they go in the catalog. This allows us to fulfill a higher percentage of orders and be sure that we have the correctly named plant. We're just finishing the photo selection process and have pictures of all but three plants...so close, but yet so far. Another part of the fall catalog process is to re-examine costs and pricing. The last 2-3 years have been really tough on nurseries; mail order, wholesale, and retail. We continue to lose nurseries at an alarming pace because of the difficulty in remaining profitable after the nursery passes the "don't need to make money, mom and pop stage." If you've always been curious about the variability of nursery pricing, be sure to read the excerpt from "So You Want to Start a Nursery" on this website. An opportunity of a lifetime presented itself, when in October, I was invited to address the 600th anniversary meeting of the Hortus Club of New York. What a wonderful honor to be able to share this special occasion with a group composed of a who's who of horticulture in the New York region. It was great to have the chance to speak in the hallowed halls of Wave Hill to many old friends while meeting many others who I only knew by name and reputation. The trip was complete with a visit to the nearby New York Botanic Gardens. Dr. Kim Tripp, formerly of the JC Raulston Arboretum, has done an amazing job as Vice President for Horticulture in overseeing the transformation of the gardens. The work of Kim and her staff is nothing short of mind-boggling. October took Michelle and I on a trip out to Portland, Oregon to speak for the Western Region of the International Plant Propagators Association . If you haven't been to Portland, this is truly a mecca for plant nerds. I was fortunate to spend a day at one of my favorite nurseries for unusual plants, Cistus Nursery. The nursery has been completely expanded since my last visit and is a must visit if you are in the Portland area. Cistus is owned by Sean Hogan and Parker Sanderson, two of the top plants-people in the country today. I was also able to visit Rare Plant Research and visit plantsman Burl Mostul who has introduced a number of plants into US commerce. Burl's website http://retail.rareplantresearch.com/home.php specializes in caudiciforms of which he has an amazing collection. A final day of touring took me back to Terra Nova Nurseries to look at the latest from their breeding programs. This is always a visit that never ceases to amaze. If your gardens are full, buy new property now...you will need it. October was an important month for our PDN extended family as Garden Curator Adrienne Zazzara tied the knot with Jon Roethling of the JC Raulston Arboretum. We'd like to wish both the best of luck in their new life together. December 2003It's in the mail. No, not the check, but the 2004 Plant Delights Nursery catalog. Some folks have already received their copy and you should have yours soon...at least if you have ordered in the last two years...and your post office delivery person isn't a gardener. Until your paper copy arrives, you can enjoy the web version. Be sure to check out our Top 25 contest and test your skills at selecting plants for a nursery catalog. 2003 ended with a flurry of travel including an invitation from Martha Stewart Living Television to visit their Norwalk, CT studios to film some plant segments. Yes, you remember correctly that we did a catalog cover satire of Martha's troubles in fall 2002. Martha was absolutely delightful to work with and perhaps we can persuade her to visit PDN in the future. In case you are interested in seeing the interviews, the first is scheduled to air on February 23, 2004. You can check the television listing on Martha's website http://www.marthastewart.com and click on tv/radio. Another great trip as the year came to an end was the opportunity to botanize and visit gardens and nurseries in the Phoenix/Tucson area in Arizona. I was able to return home with several new desert ferns for trial and many amazing agaves from the nurseries and collectors in the region. It was great to have Mary and Gary Irish (authors of Agaves, Yuccas, and Related Plants) to show me around not only through their wonderful home garden, but also the public gardens of Boyce Thompson and Desert Botanical Garden. It's hard to say that one part of the trip was a highlight, but the opportunity to spend the day at Mountain States Wholesale Nursery was truly incredible. Imagine being a collector of agaves and being able to closely examine hundreds of thousands of plants studying the variation within each species. George Hull, the Director of Product Development at Mountain States was more than gracious after a day of being followed by a drooling agave-phile. One day of the trip was spent in Tucson visiting Plants for the Southwest Nursery of Gene Joseph and his wife Jane. I could have easily spent all day at this amazing nursery, but had to settle for less time in order to visit Greg Starr's agave nursery. Greg is renown as one of the top agave experts in the country and the chance to finally meet in person and wander through his agave collection was superb! I was only able to spend one day in the wild and that included nearly being stranded at 6,000' elevation in the Tonto National Forest as the dirt road that traversed the peaks become so icy that is was impassable. Actually a pickup coming up from the east had slid off the mountain while I was heading west. By the time I arrived, the occupants were safely standing by the wrecker, which was preventing my descent past the worst of the icy patches. Oh well, nothing like backing up a one-lane road on an icy mountain. In other exciting end-of-the-year news, we would like to congratulate Dr. Todd Lasseigne (yes, that's with a PHD) who completed his degree work at NCSU. Todd rented a room here at the nursery for several years and is now employed as the Assistant Director of the JC Raulston Arboretum. Also congratulations to another former PDN employee, Jon Roethling, who has been promoted to the permanent position of Horticultural Assistant at the JC Raulston Arboretum. We hope you enjoy the 2004 catalog and find lots of cool plants that you can't live without. Here's hoping for a great gardening year and we look forward to seeing you at Plant Delights. --tony
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