I love to take plant buying road trips and probably know most of the specialty nurseries in New England. Right now I am making up a list of plants that I want and matching them with planned trips to Western Mass. and Broken Arrow in Conn. However, when you get into specific unusual plants, your luck is likely to be much better ordering online despite the costs. For instance, I don't think that in all my travels, I have seen white corydalis being sold. I had to order it online and it didn't take in my yard. Most of the specialty nurseries in New England help sustain themselves by selling online. If you sell unusual plants that only a certain number of people are interested in, you have to try to draw from a large geographic base. So that is where places like Digging Dog come into the picture. No matter how many plant buying trips I take, I always end up ordering on line. This year from Plant Delights, Secret Garden Growers and Avant Gardens.

P. S. If you shop at Lake Street you may want to travel on to Mason, NH and visit Mason Hollow Nursery (see website since their hours are more limited). They are a great specialty nursery to visit.

What a great post, Asarum, thank you very much! You answered what I was asking and then some. [g]. I would not have come to that conclusion, since I have not had the opportunity to travel around to a lot of New England nurseries, but what you said makes sense. And you just gave me four more places to try. lol

I just went to Russell's and NEWFS this morning and it was just too early. I needed supplies that I had to go for anyway, but, they don't have their full inventory out yet.

So, what are your favorite nurseries to visit? Have you been to Nasami, the Western Mass version of the NEWFS? I keep wanting to go, but, the 3 hr drive, has kept me from going yet. I did make it to Broken Arrow once, and they had a lot of different plant material there.

I have two suggestions: 1 is Tower Hill Botanical Gardens spring plant sale. I haven't been but they supposedly have varieties of things you can't get elsewhere. Also, Mass Hort. has a spring plant sale, I think.

Another option: Make the drive to White Flower Farm in CT. I haven't been, and it's expensive, but my brother claims it is huge with a vast inventory.

I will second the suggestion of Mason Hollow (as well as checking the hours first.) They have a number of unusual shade plants as well as some less than common woody plants. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit there last spring.

I went to MassHort's spring plant sale more than 20 years ago and came home with a few lovely plants, but I am not sure that it is the same now. It might be worth checking out, however, especially if it isn't a long trip for you.

If you are looking for Epimediums (and a few other plants), Garden Vision Epimediums in Phillipston, MA is a small backyard nursery with small plants, but I was delighted with everything I bought there two years ago. Karen Perkins is only open a few spring weekends each year, starting with next Friday and Sunday (4/27 & 4/29) but says that many things in her demo garden may not be doing much yet due to the cold spring. She gives her open dates on the website, but the days can be erratic since she also goes to a variety of specialty plant sales.

Great suggestions. I'd forgotten about both those sales. I've been to the Tower Hill sale and once to the Mass Hort sale too. I'll have to keep that in mind, I'd forgotten about them. I have a pretty good collection of Epimediums but I usually buy a couple of new ones each year. I'm looking for some that are more runners than clumps this time around. I only have a couple of those. And I want to divide and replant those I have this year. The majority of epimediums I bought were from Garden Vision. I bought quite a few when Karen's husband was running the business. I keep wanting to get out there to see her place, but I always end up ordering by mail. I did buy some from her at the Tower Hill sale the year we went. They've all done well for me. Thanks!

Prairiemoon, you have inspired me to put up several posts over the next few days because I love this topic. My time at this moment is limited because halfway decent weather is connecting me to all the yard work I have neglected. Let me cover several points here. Some years ago there was a magazine, People, Place and Plants that wrote only about New England. It was a fantastic resource for learning about interesting plantspeople, great nurseries in all the states, and great plants for the region, etc. Sadly it was not ultimately economically viable even though people donated money to try to keep it afloat. I used their annual listing of nurseries as a guide for roadtrips. We also used to have a list compiled on this forum of favorite New England nurseries. I used to use it as well. Then Ruah Donnelly wrote a book about New England specialty nurseries which I also combed through. About half of these places are now gone. They were founded by one or two people with a passion and as they grow older these places are disappearing. There are not nearly as many young people entering with new places as there are old operations disappearing. I still sometimes uses these sources, but go online to verify continued operation.

There are so many great online specialty nurseries. I have been led to them by doing searches for specific plants. For instance Fine Gardening will do an article on corydalis which will cover unusual types. I go online to find nurseries that have the unusual type, but then I learn about some other plant I also want to order and try to find one source for both. This leads me to search out many sources. I do check them on Garden Watchdog. One of the things I have to watch out for online is monitoring and double checking zones. Plant Delights is full of fascinating plants that aren't hardy here. If I don't have experience with a plant, it is good to check to see what several different sources say about zone hardiness. Sometimes sellers seem overly optimistic.

Avant Gardens is in Dartmouth, MA and is open on specific dates, but it does have a large mail order business.

I also like Avant Gardens and have bought several times from them mail order. Perhaps some day I will visit during one of their open days, but I have been quite happy with their mail order plants.

I went to White Flower Farm as part of a longer trip and was totally disappointed. I had been given a gift certificate and thought that they might have items not available in the catalog. Very wrong! There is a retail area and parking lot at the front of property and a pretty small area with plants for sale. There were no signs pointing to more plants for sale in another area or to display gardens, which I have since learned are great. So I didn't explore further since it didn't look too promising and I was getting very hungry. So I would say go to see the gardens, but don't go to collect unusual plants. I used my gift certicate through mail order.

I'm enjoying all your posts on your nursery adventures Asarum. I love this topic too, probably because I don't get to go to more nurseries. [g]

I caught that publication, People Places and Plants, probably during their last year of publication. It's too bad they couldn't continue it. Did they offer a subscription to it? It's a shame so many nurseries are gone, but I always think that it must be difficult to make a living doing it, so I'm not surprised. As for younger people getting involved in nurseries, it seems to me, there are fewer young people interested in gardening.

You're right, if you see a plant in a magazine, there usually are sources offered for it which is a great way of tracking down specialty nurseries.. And I also use Garden Watchdog too.

Yes, the unusual plants often are from a warmer zone. Some websites are great with the filters, to allow you to set it to the zone you need. It seems to me a lot of people buy some of these unusual plants for their pots and overwinter them in the house. I visited the AvantGardens website yesterday and they have a fascinating section on plants for pots.

White Flower Farm really knows marketing. [g].

I imagine you have quite a collection of plants, Asarum, yes?

Thanks for the thumbs up on Avant Gardens Barb, I am thinking about making a mail order from them.

Garden in the Woods in Natick has a wide selection of Native plants. I've never been, but when I look for hard to find trees, Sylvan Nurseries in Westport keeps coming up as one of the few places to have a variety of obscure trees I'm looking for.

For others who might not be familiar with it, the New England Wildflower Society (NEWFS) runs the Garden in the Woods and Nasami Farm.

I drove over 3 hrs to White Flower Farms to check out their annual plant sale. I bought one monkshood and a sore back from all of the driving. Total letdown.

Asarum - I sympathize. My property has one 50 year old Silver Maple less than 10ft away from my lot line in the SW corner. Another on the West about 5ft away from my lot line. My own Maple in the NW corner and 4 more Silver Maples to the West in another yard. On the North side of my lot, the neighbor has 8 Spruce trees lined up, not 5 ft from the lot line along with a White Pine and a Sycamore tree. And that’s not counting two more Maples along the N and S lot lines in the front. :-) So I have a LOT of dry shade. It really is a huge challenge to try to get anything to grow and keep growing in some parts of the yard. I’ve experimented a lot and planted and pulled out a lot of those experiments.

Thankfully, I do not have deer. I can’t imagine that! And turkeys too? I’ve been lucky and only had a Ground Hog 3 seasons out of the last 15. And we rarely see a rabbit. I had two chipmunks in the yard one season and they were gone the next. Maybe because I stopped feeding the birds. [g] And now that I just had to say that, I suppose this year, I’ll get all three. LoL.

Wish I had some suggestions for you, but about all I’ve had to battle have been the squirrels.

I also have a small sunny bed in the front of my house and a few other areas that grow part shade plants. Plus a raised vegetable garden that should get more sun than it does.

My back border that faces East is closest to all the Maples on my West border, but it gets some morning sun which helps. I have pulled out a lot of shrubs. Right now, what is happiest in the dry shade, for shrubs are Gray Dogwood, that suckers a lot. Clethra, which grows under the drip line of the Maples. I have two, ‘Hummingbird’ and ‘Sherry Sue’ which is a taller variety. Oakleaf Hydrangea and Viburnum ‘Wentworth’. That’s not in full shade. I tried growing a lot of Hydrangeas but most seasons, I barely get bloom. I have one Western Arborvitae that seems to be holding it’s own and in the shadiest corner, I have Taxus with Blue Hollies. The Taxus does fine. Takes a little while to get established, but it’s a great screen now and trouble free. The Hollies do contribute to the screen, and they berry, but I get a lot of elongated branches on the bottom, probably from not enough light. I just had them pruned and I’m hoping we’ve let light into the middle and they might bush out more. Blueberries where I have part sun.

For some reason, I haven’t had as much luck with Rhododendrons. I would have thought this would be a great idea, but what I’ve tried has not liked it here. I don’t think I am acid enough for them.

Epimediums and Ferns, especially Japanese Painted Ferns and ‘Ghost’ grow very well. Snowdrops in the spring. Bleeding heart. Some native spring plants - Virginia Bluebells. I see some Bloodroot here and there. That mini Solomon’s Seal keeps coming back every season. I added some Hellebores where there are some pockets of sun, that do fairly well, but don’t really bloom early. Asarum does well. Alchemilla. Veronica ‘Georgia Blue’ on the sunny edge. Digitalis in a part shade area.

Aquilegia where I have part sun and that reseeds well. Lunaria reseeds very well, but I have it growing close to the lot line in the dry soil but it does get some sun there. Bearberry is a native - Arctostaphylos uva-ursi - it has done very well where I have about 3hrs of sun in dry soil. Cranesbill do well in my part sun. And I believe deer don’t like them. Heucheras sometimes do okay, but I’ve tried a lot and haven’t found the perfect place where they thrive. Lamium does okay in some areas. Viola ‘Queen Charlotte’ which is purple and fragrant. Virginia Creeper, loves my yard and pops up everywhere. I let it grow on the fence in some spots and pull some out every year.

Just a few of the things I’ve tried that didn’t work out…. Astilbe, Lobelia, Aconitum, Camellia, Campanula, Cornus “Ivory Halo”, Kerria japonica, Pieris, Tiarella, and I’m sure many more.

Volunteering at the Trustees, sounds like a great idea, and another way that you can garden without all the obstacles you have in your own garden. You seem to have made the best of the situation. Glad it is working out. Thanks.

I'm having trouble thinking of a place in MA where the soil isn't acidic enough for anything...

Asarum, I also have several Norway Maples on my property. I have a border garden that spans under 1 of them in the middle but the sides are still in partial/full sun. I do water it in the summer but it never occurred to me that a Maple Tree might be drinking all the water and that's why it gets so dry. Wouldn't the water be hitting the plants first since they are shallower? The soil in the bed is reasonable but getting a bit clayey. How much do you have to water to compensate for that? There are Norway Maples all over the place here, and right now I have 8 million Maple seedlings growing in all my gardens that need to get plucked. Also, what Master Gardner course did you take?

I just got an email about the Mass Hort gardeners Fair. It's on May 12th at Elm Bank.

Tower Hill is June 2nd.

I had to laugh, I have another 8 million Maple seedlings at my house too. [g]

Years ago when i first started trying to figure out dry shade, I went to Carlisle, Ma to Leo Blanchette's Nursery (now gone). He was a real plantsman and had wonderful and unusual plants. He had taken a variety of plants from nursery stock and planted under a maple to see what would survive. He kindly showed me what was there and some of what was there replicates things you have mentioned, but there were also maidenhair ferns. You will never find a plant label for maidenhair fern that doesn't say that it likes a moist soil. I never would have dared put any in my original dry shade mini-garden if not for that visit. In recent times, I have saved a lists of dry shade plants from various sources, if even one source lists it, I am inclined to consider it. I have never seen maidenhair fern on any list, but plants have maintained themselves in that spot for years.

I did have a Maidenhair Fern along the side of the garage that was in deep shade under the drip line of my front Maple. I'm not sure it's still coming back, but I have a few other places I should try it. It's a pretty plant.

Here is my favorite road trip for plant buying: semi- Western Mass. In the 70s I was a student at U
Mass Amherst, and a number of fellow students expressed a desire to remain in
the 5-college area after graduation because they could live in the country but
still have access to the cultural atmosphere and job opportunities associated
with the clustering of so many academic institutions in a small area. In this area there is clearly a demand for
non- run of the mill plants. So very
soon I will take a trip out.

Andrews Greenhouse,
Amherst . Known for their very substantial
offering of annuals, both expensive specialty annuals to rival Russell’s, but
also a selection of far from run of the mill 4-packs and 6 packs of annuals. They cater to knowledgeable perennial growers
as well.. A great place!

I set my GPS for
Whately , knowing that it will take me by a small farmstand type place in
Sunderland called Laurenitis Farm. I
find off-beat 4 packs of annuals and a small area with 4 packs of
perennials. Last year I bought a 4-pack
of small starter size Pow Wow Echinacea for $4.
In addition they sell a lot of heirloom
veggies and off-beat food plants

Baystate Perennials Whately (This area is also sometimes
referred to as S. Deerfield). Small
place that sells unusual trees, shrubs and perennials, a destination nursery in
my view. They once asked me if I was a
professor because they were offering a discount to professors.

Five minutes down the road is Nasami Farm. As I drive there, I pass Nourse Farm which is
a respected source for fruit plants and shrubs.
I don’t stop there because I am not in the market. For me Nasami Farm is not a destination nursery
because Garden in the Woods is much closer.
I recently learned that there is also a big native plant sale in Waltham. So there are good choices for those of us in
the Boston area for native plants. However, since my
annual trip to this area takes me right down the road, ironically I may wind up at Nasami more often than at the Garden in the Woods. I can’t say if Nasami Farm has a bigger
variety of native plants than Garden in the Woods. They may have more stock of a particular plant. I don’t
think visitors do anything at Nasami beyond buying plants. Obviously, Garden in the the Woods has the
wonderful garden.

I sometimes stop by the botanical garden and greenhouse at Smith College before coming home.

A couple more things to mention on this subject. If you are ever up in the Acadia National Park area of Maine, I highly recommend Hidden Gardens in Searsport. On my way home in Sept. I went by there for the first time. They had so many unusual cultivars. In retrospect, I am a bit baffled. These plants were in quite small containers, but didn't look like they had been sitting there all summer because the plants I brought home were in fine shape, not pot bound. At the time I had assumed that these were the remnants of a much bigger set of plants that were offered at the beginning of the season. Anyway, I highly recommend this nursery.

Also I have thought of several more New England nurseries that are usually mail order only but are worth checking out for their plants. Hillside Nursery has quite choice woodland perennials (although not inexpensive). Quacking Grass Nursery offers unusual plants. Their plants would be shipped from a shorter distance, so that is a good point for considering them.

I forgot to answer the Master Gardener question. I took the course at Elm Bank in Wellesley. It is time commitment, so I waited until I retired. The same course is now also offered at Tower Hill.

DRY SHADE!!! It's the worst! I came here 5 years ago begging for help for our home which we had just bought. It had a huge, long bed of dust and a couple sad plants. Norway maples and hickory trees everywhere which shade the beds all summer. Dry as a bone less than 24 hours after inches of soaking rain :( Every year I am still planting and hoping I find something that works.

I have yet to visit Garden in the Woods, but have heard fabulous things. I need to get there soon! I do intend to go to the Grow Native Plant Sale on 5/19 in Waltham. I'm hoping to get some things like Witch hazel or Goldenrod or Virginia Bluebells.

Has anyone tried to grow Borage in dry part-shade? My hive would love it but I'm not sure how it would do long-term.

Thanks, Asarum. I would love to do the Master Gardner course someday.

For the off beaten path Nurseries, if you are on the Cape, I find Bayberry Gardens in Truro has a great selection. They often have things I want to stuff in the car and drive home. :)

I frequent 'Gardener's Dream' in Enfield, CT. They Always have what I'm looking for...11 greenhouses & at least 4-5 acres outside stock..

So, I'm in Maine and my garden has a ton of dry shade. The bones are about 100 years old, with a huge copper beech in the middle of my not-very-large backyard and a huge walnut at the edge. I also have a black locust and a row of what I think are hemlocks. All huge.

But, I used to garden in Surrey, England. The Brits moaned if they were a bit north of London about how few plants they could grow, which was significantly more than one can grow in Massachusetts, the first place I gardened. . It was hard not to roll my eyes. I them moved to Moscow. In Russia, there are 3 zones and Moscow is in the middle. The Northerners were in places like Murmansk, with only a month or two of reliably frost-free weather.

The trick is to figure out what grows in your conditions and to embrace it, not to look at lovely gardens from somewhere else and bemoan the fact you can't grow what they grow. If we had damp shade instead of dry shade, we'd have mosquito farms. If we wanted sun, not shade, we could cut down our magnificent mature trees.

So, yeah, I haven't figured it out yet. I just discovered that a significant portion of my gardening knowledge applied more to damp clay than to dry, sandy soil. But I'm really excited to explore the new options available to me, rather than grump because my go-tos don't work in my new garden, when my old garden was sunny, damp, clay in Europe, not dry, North American sandy shade.

So true Sigrid...Every time my Mr. puts a shovel in the ground he hits roots, clay & water. So we have amended, amended & then some.

Ruth commented "Wouldn't the water be hitting the plants first since they are shallower?" (vs. the maple tree)

IME maple tree roots will grow right to the surface, so the perennials don't have an advantage since the maple is so aggressive. I've told this story before, but I have a half whisky barrel out by my mail box. There are red maples lining the road, and one year I realized that the maple had sent roots up through the drain holes in the bottom of the whiskey barrel and entirely filled the barrel with roots. So when I had to replace the whiskey barrel, I made sure that a saucer went under it just to keep the maple roots out.

The classic plant for dry shade is Epimedium, which I found a wonderful variety of at Garden Vision Epimediums in Phillipston, MA, mentioned in my first post in this thread.

Epimediums are great plants for adding some variety to the limited choices available in dry shade, but one warning. I once killed one that was planted too close to a Norway maple. After that I researched which epimediums are most drought tolerant. I think I probably talked to Karen of Garden Vision and I notice today that they have a list of the ones that are particularly drought tolerant on the website. I probably bought my epimedium versicolor Sulphureum from her. I have this planted about 8 to 10 feet out from the maple. It survives, but I am not sure it thrives. The previous owner planted 3 Christmas fern in a row next to the Norway maple, perhaps as a test. They survive to this day, but look like young plants that haven't yet matured and become fuller. Wood aster which grows like a weed in my yard has established a colony of plants fairly near the maple, but once again, no amount of self-seeding will turn this into a lush planting. Despite its its voracious moisture sucking ability, we still have to spread a mulch around a wide stretch of the Norway Maple to prevent a spare selection of weeds from making the area look untidy.

Further down the yard in a more normal type of dry shade, I have a variety of epimediums. So that is why I want to do my testing and figure out where I should just spread mulch, where I should try to put the most drought tolerant plants and where I have some additional choices.

I also thought that the maple roots were fine, so it's not just big honkin' roots at the surface, but a fine web of roots that covers everything and sucks the water. Is that right, NHBabs?

Yup, it's the fine roots on all trees that actually interact with the soil, and red maple has a whole lot of them right near the surface as well as below the surface, so maples are difficult for other plants to share space with.

Asarum, I once lost track of an Epimedium division after separating a bunch and left it for a couple of weeks, unspotted. When I found it again it looked dead, so I tossed it on a compost pile. It landed upside down so the roots were exposed. The next spring it was growing, so I rescued it and planted it and on it went. [g]. That's when I started collecting them, since they were so bullet proof.

The Farmer's Daughter in S. Knkgstown, RI. Worth the ride. They have nice displays, all things for the garden, a nice variety of plants and some unusual items, and they have a butterfly garden/cage.