It’s 45 minutes from Baltimore, but Susanna farms nursery is great. I don’t know for certain, but they might sell iseli exclusively. Everything seemed to have an iseli tag . In my humble opinion it’s totally worth the 45 minute drive. They give a discount (10% off I think) to ACS members.

Susanna Farms for sure on conifers and ginkgo.

Agree with above...

Sven, this may help you also if your considering going. This is from the ACS quarterly magazine.

Hey everyone, thank you for the suggestion...I will definitely make it a point to make it by there. It sounds like a pretty awesome place.

Nice choices!

let us know if you get them thru customs ...

Don't understand ken's comment? Is Sven taking the plants outside the US?

Agree generally with the recommendation, it's a nice nursery...but someone has to be the bad guy to point out that the nurseries in the suburbs along the northeast corridor - DC to Boston - are expensive. If I had to stock a garden with rarities in the DC area using non-mail order plants, my first instinct would be to drive somewhere like Colesville Nursery in Ashland. There also still have to be some destination nurseries in places like western or central PA, Shenandoah Valley etc. This isn't meant to be mean spirited and put them out of business - there will always be plenty of people in the DC area with more money than G-d to support them. It's just a tip for the rest of us. That being said the closest couple of similar nurseries, one of the being John Shelley's outside York and another one just over the MD line, have gone out of business. As did the wonderful nursery in Carlisle, PA, whose name also escapes me at the moment. But they had stuff similar to Susanna for 30-60% of the price.

Sometimes a price you see leaves a lasting impression in your mind. I remember seeing a little 1 gallon Trochodendron aralioides, 18" high maybe, for $100.

Hey Sara, thanks! I actually went to pond and garden in your neck of the woods last year due to your recommendation. I picked up several really cool things there too. Really great nursery. I like to stop by a good nursery at the different places i travel to as they are all so different and unique.

ken, just travel in the US, so no customs. I did get them thru security just fine if that is what you were asking. I do sometimes get some strange looks going thru security though...they usually do a double take as they see that the bag is full of trees! Haha!

David, no offense taken. There certainly were some plants on the high side. However, there were some rare things listed well below online prices too. So, depending on what you were looking for, you could overpay. A couple of the plants I picked up were probably a little on the expensive side, but some were less...and I didn’t have to pay any shipping and got to choose them myself. The other part of the nursery that I really liked was the garden setting...very beautiful. I loved the monumentale sugar maples, mature skylands, metasequoia, etc. just a really neat experience. Overall, I would say it was a great nursery for conifers, maples, ginkgos, etc. In this day when it seems like the only nurseries you can get rare stuff from are online, I like to support local nurseries...otherwise, pretty soon the only place to get this kind of tree from will be online. Again, not disagreeing with you or saying you are wrong at all, just clarifying my opinion.

I would be interesting in checking out other nurseries too next time I am out there.

Oh, and forgot to mention 1 other tree I got there...Pinus densiflora ‘Edsal Wood’.

Pond and Garden just got in a big shipment from Iseli and I went a little nuts! Got a Pherosphaera/Microstrobos fitzgeraldii and a Diselma archeri 'Read Dwarf', among other things. They may be tricky for me given their native habitats but I coudn't resist.

I don't mind paying up if I am supporting a specialty nursery that regularly seeks out and offers unusual, high quality plants, especially when the owners and staff are knowledgeable and fun to buy from!

And I regularly travel with bags of little trees from ACS auctions. Given that people try to take peacocks and squirrels on planes, trees are relatively trouble-free!

Haha peacocks and squirrel! That is a funny mental image...a suitcase full of squirrels and peacocks. I guess as long as you dont open it by mistake on the plane!!

Last time I was at pond and garden, he had just gotten a bunch of bucholz stuff (small square pots), and I picked up a few. I think I probably spent about 2 hours talking with the owner trading stories and info...he was extremely nice! I picked up a 1 G cedrus atlantica ‘blue wave’ that he brought in for you, but I think he said you decided to pass.