We have been fans of John Gallant, owner of Katsura Gardens, for many years. We usually do one or two Katsura buying trips a year, and this year,today was the day.

WELL, I'm here to tell you that John really has developed his place into, easily, the best retail and wholesale conifers nursery in new england. My heavens, what an operation. He toured us all through the property, and through many of his new planting blocks. The varieties and size options he has are astounding. His relationship with the great growers in the PNW- has become stronger and stronger; he handpicks his plants through buying trips out there, and he is always interested in cutting edge material.

All this and he is a VERY knowledgable but accessible plantsman.And such an easygoing nice person. He has always had a very large representation of Japnese maples, and many of the more unusual (as well as the very popular)trees and shrubs. He has begun doing a lot more garden design/installations so now he has alot of good perennial selections.

We are very big into conifers at the Cotton-Arbo retum, so we got a number of handsome specimens of chamaecyparis.

We also got our second Acer Negundo Winter Lightning. This is a very hard to find maple with fantastic yellow foliage and neon yellow branches in winter.We also got some harder-to-find rhodies.There is so much to see at Katsura; we spent 3 hours perusing the fields and greenhouses!!

Now, all these years that we have been going there, we have never once explored Plymouth itself. We have always driven the hour from Winchester to plymouth, done the hard core looking and buying, and driven home, tired.But this time,

because Rt.3 traffic is so horrendous in the late afternoon, we went into the center of Plymouth and explored this beautiful town. I had not been in Plymouth center in over 30 years and I was so delighted to see how beautifully it is maintained, with many handsome well preserved 18th and 19th c. houses and buildings,lovely harbor views and oceanside parks.While a major tourist trown, there's not a bit of ticky tacky.

John had recommended the restaurant Sabor and we had a delicious mediterranean influenced dinner there.

So, all this to tell you that Katsura Gardens and Plymouth make a really beautiful, fun (and exciting of course!!)day trip. I know you'll have a rewarding time if you go.

If you were coming from further away , and you wanted to do an overnight,adding Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth Ma. would make for a real best-of-the-best nursery trip!

best,

Mindy

Here is a link that might be useful: katsura gardens