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The Nursery LedgerA guide to specialty plant nurseries and mail order growing

Parterre 05 · Nursery Visits

Visiting a specialty nursery in person

When to go, what to look at behind the sales benches, and the questions that get a real answer from the person who actually grows the plants.

Visitors walking between polytunnel benches of young plants at an open nursery day with trays of labeled seedlings in the foreground

A specialty nursery seen from the road is a shop; seen from the propagating bench it is a workshop. Many of the best growers open their benches only a few weekends a year, and those visits reward preparation: knowing when the stock is potted and settled, what a healthy liner looks like, and which questions reach the person who actually sowed the seed.

The two guides here cover the practical craft of the visit: choosing a date in the nursery year, reading the growing areas as well as the sales area, and asking questions that get more than a sales answer. Come home with plants and with knowledge; the knowledge is the part that lasts.

In this parterre

  1. Nursery worker potting young perennials into quart containers on a potting bench inside a bright polytunnel during an open day

    Visiting a specialty nursery at pot season

    A specialty nursery is a workshop that happens to sell at the door. Visit in the right weeks of its year and you see the plants where they are raised, not where they wait.

  2. Gardener talking with a nursery grower between benches of plants, holding a pot while the grower points toward the propagating house

    Questions to ask a nursery grower

    At a specialty nursery the person at the till often grew the plant. Ask questions worth their knowledge, and the answers will sort the bench into what belongs in your garden and what does not.

Every guide in this parterre reads against the planting calendar by USDA zone, and two neighbouring parterres extend it: Find a Nursery and Plant Specialties.