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Arbor Day

Happy Belated Arbor Day! Really, who says you can’t celebrate all weekend long? We hope you’re getting up to some serious tree planting and gardening this weekend, with some time set aside to admire your local sun-dappled canopies that are coming alive with greenery. Arbor Day is celebrated across multiple continents after being conceived in the 1870’s by a hopeful journalist named Julius Sterling Morton, who managed to successfully inspire the citizens of Nebraska City enough that they planted approximately one million trees around the city. It wasn’t until nearly 100 years later that President Nixon would proclaim Arbor Day a National Holiday, after which it would claim its place on the calendar, falling on the last Friday of April. In honor of the traditions and legacy of Arbor Day, we’re highlighting some of our favorite tree selections that we have breaking dormancy around the nursery.

By Kate Irvine Read More

All Roads Lead to Rhododendron

We’ve made it to azalea season! With spring fully underway, the nursery is bustling with pops of color appearing everywhere from the canopies to the understories, killdeer frantically attempting to make gravel nests along the edges of the newly plastic-less production houses, and the fluctuating warm and cold weather that seems to be keeping us on our toes constantly. As deciduous trees and shrubs unfurl leaf buds and evergreen plants start to push new growth, amongst them are some of the most notorious and recognizable species to even the greenest of plant novices. The Rhododendron genus is comprised of true rhododendrons, or “rhodies” as we’ll affectionately call them going forward, as well as the azalea group which share a genera name and some physiological attributes with true rhodies but for all intents and purposes are completely different plants. In fact, deciduous azaleas are actually a subgenus of rhododendron, which means that all azaleas are rhododendrons, but all rhododendrons are not azaleas – kind of like how a square is a type of rectangle, but rectangles are not considered squares. You get it.

By Kate Irvine Read More

All-American Asimina triloba

We’re giddy with excitement about our containerized pawpaw patch that’s full of mature, fruit-bearing-aged trees looking for their forever homes. These mature specimens are loaded with the odd-looking bronze-purple flowers that are, apparently, being actively pollinated when our backs are turned. Night-pollinating beetles and daytime flies, most likely, are the culprit for the tandem emergence of the tiny, fingerlike baby fruits that likely give this native tree several of its other common names: dog banana, Indian banana, and false-banana, to name a few. The immature fruits do, in fact, resemble tiny bananas, while the mature fruits have a texturally similar pulp that could be likened to the soft innards of an overly ripened banana. Exotic looking, large, edible fruits grow in clusters of 4-5, and are an important nutrient-and-fat-dense food source for various mammals such as squirrels, black bears, raccoons, and opossums. Or, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to harvest some of the fruits for yourself to enjoy in baked goods, ice cream, and even summery mixed cocktails.

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April Brilliance

To celebrate the arrival of April, we’re taking a deep dive into a spring-blooming favorite, Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Autumn Brilliance’ – but don’t let the name fool you. This versatile multi-stemmed shrub (or tree form, if you so desire) is so much more than just a flowering, fruiting, bird-beloved ornamental specimen. As the offspring resulting from the cross of its North American native parents, Amelanchier laevis and A. arborea, ‘Autumn Brilliance’ apple serviceberry seems to inherit the best of both worlds.

By Kate Irvine Read More