June 2022
The last of my Open Nursery Days were a great success this year with a steady stream of customers for the entire 19 day stretch. I met people who traveled from both near and far– from St. Louis, MD, Pittsburgh, northern VA, NJ, ME and Canada, to people from just down the road. A few customers returned multiple times. I was touched at how many people expressed their gratitude to me for introducing them to epimediums. I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel– to know that I have made a difference as I head on off into retirement from retail sales at the end of this year.
Even more incredibly, we had a visit from a moose who ambled up the road beside the nursery one Saturday morning. I just happened to notice him/her as I was putting cold frame supplies away in-between customers. I was lucky to get a few photos before an oncoming car frightened him/her into the woods.
As I write this in mid-June the last few epimediums blossoms are still hanging on. My colorful, sunny, open nursery has transformed into a cool, green shady grotto with the plants putting their energies into producing seed and a second growth flush.
During a long cool spring, we can get up to six weeks of colorful epimedium flowers and new spring growth in the garden before the plants green up for the summer. Each year the intensity of foliage color differs, depending on the weather. Cooler temperatures encourage robust, deeper colors in both the initial flush of spring foliage color and the second growth flush. This year the spring colors are fair to middlin’, as my dad would say, because of recent bouts of temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s.
I recently returned from the North American Rock Garden Society‘s Annual Meeting in Ithaca, NY where I sold plants, met old friends/customers and made new ones. At that meeting, Darrell Probst, who originally started Garden Vision Epimediums, was honored with the Marcel Le Piniec Award which “is given to a nursery person, propagator, hybridizer or plant explorer who is currently actively engaged in extending and enriching the plant material available to rock gardeners.” He is one of the few people who truly ticks all of those boxes.
I welcome the newly arrived shade as I prepare for an upcoming plant sale next weekend. On Sat. & Sun., June 25-26; 10am-5pm I will be selling epimediums at O’Brien Nursery, in Granby, CT while the hostas are still at their peak. John O’Brien also offers a wide selection of woody plants and herbaceous perennials, for both shade and sun, in a beautiful woodland setting. HIS selection of epimediums is not too shabby either.
On Sat. Sept. 10, I will participate as a plant vendor as part of the Massachusetts Master Gardener Fall Symposium, at Bentley College in Waltham, MA. I will be both speaking at, and bringing a selection of epimediums for sale to the NARGS Great Lakes Chapter meeting at the Matthaei Nichols Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor, MI, on Sun. Oct. 2.
If you are attending any of these events and are interested in specific varieties of epimediums, send me an email ahead of time with your plant request.
Once again I am offering a quick pick-up option throughout the entire month of September for anyone who wants to place an order and pick up their plants at the nursery in Phillipston, MA. Directions/details will be sent upon receipt of your paid order.
If you can’t make it to any of these plant sale events, I have compiled a list of other Mail Order Nurseries that offer a good selection of epimediums. If you know of any other nurseries that have an interesting assortment of epimediums for sale, please let me know and I can add them to the list. Happy growing!
Karen Perkins
Garden Vision Epimediums