What's New and Exciting February 2025 — 02/20/2025

Garden Candy® ITOH Peonies — 01/22/2025

We are excited to bring Garden Candy® series of ITOH peonies to the market in cooperation with our friends and partners at Plants Nouveau. Everything about these plants will change what you know about peonies. Grown in gallons, zone 3 hardy, they will bloom everywhere from Alaska to North Carolina! They're resistant to mildew and deer don't like them but their huge blooms are loved by everyone. 

They are in hot demand. It's not too early to order them for your late summer potting and spring sales. Order them here.

Winter 24'-25' — 01/22/2025

Several months have passed since Jolly died, but my enduring memories are of almost 50 years of companionship, good fortune, and friends we shared. My soul grief is that her life was shorter than either of us had imagined it would be.

Every day and each experience as a gift. Jolly spirit still energizes me, offers me, hope, and lifts my own spirit. I find great joy and simply telling ALL my friends, “I love you.” or sometimes, “Please forgive me."

As Italia takes the reins of heritage, it connects my head and my heart to know he’ll honor Jolly‘s high expectations. We’ve invested a considerable amount of cash in recent years to upgrade many aspects of container production. Our potting line is more efficient and we’re converting larger pots to the air pruning style. We added 10 new hoops, almost an acre and a half. These investments will help you to count on even more robust liners, achieve, faster, turn times, and expect improv rooting into your own pots.

Most important, you know I have 100% confidence on Octavio to lead heritage in a fashion that honors our commitment to your success.

This may be my final catalog letter, but not my “goodbye “. I have Octavio‘s back, including my regular communications with him and verifying he doesn’t take on more than he can reasonably handle. We recently re-hired Eric Hammond, who returns with solid Heritage experience and gives Octavio major administrative and head grower assistance.

We’re here for you. Lots of changes are in the works, exciting improvements, new talent, and facilities.

We have your back, too.

Respectfully,

Mark

December 2021 List and Letter — 12/03/2021

December 2021

Dear Friends,

Uncertainty is to be the one certainty we can count on, labor & supply “chains” being jammed up. But let’s remember: we DO have considerable control over our own strategic goals and how to implement them with focused forward thinking. “Just in time inventory” has become an oxymoron. What a strange concept that now seems. We have to see quite a ways ahead, and around more corners too.

Like you, we’ve taken our own hard look at what we can grow with fewer labor options. We’ve cut marginally profitable items. Next, we’ll limit larger field-grown transplants of some primary items like field-budded maples & dogwoods to contract production only. We must reduce our dependence on field labor. If your order includes bare-root field transplants, especially in larger sizes, let’s talk. We’ll remind you, but begin to consider how/if it makes sense for you to bring in smaller liners to get them under your control, perhaps even a year earlier than you might have considered before. Help us understand your critical needs and what flexibility you may have on liner sizes.

Finally, we have temperatures now after Thanksgiving nearly in the 60’s outside today, a record for Oregon. Family in Kansas City have temps in the lower 70’s. This climate issue will continue to frustrate us all as extremes of temperature and rainfall become the norm. It is conceivable that we could be in the teens within 10 days, recalling the opposite 50-degree swing in temperature last summer when we endured 117 degrees and dying field budded maples. Whew!

So we’re protecting what we’ve grown all year long for you by harvesting field plants earlier than usual, getting them graded and cold-stored at 36°F under ZeroTol® - injected fog. Our crews are all healthy; we’re 100% vaccinated and have had not a single case of Covid originate within the nursery. We take care of each other here so we can take care of you/your orders. Count on that, and transparent communication from us at all times.

THANKS for your patience as we have taken a very careful inventory of stock late this fall in order to be able to confirm your order.

Have a Christmas and New Year holiday season filled with good rest, health, and gratifying time with family and friends. We hope to see many of you at MANTS in Baltimore.

All good wishes,

Mark, Jolly, & Staff

January 8th Focus Plants — 01/08/2021

Acer miyabei

Hardier than Acer campestre, to which it is most often compared, but of more appealing form and therefore requiring far less pruning in cultivation. Lacks the invasive character and obtrusive size of Acer platanoides. Very hard to find, it is an excellent urban tree. The best example in America (right) is at the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, a broadly upright tree at 30 ft. tall, dubbed State Street™. … a handsome plant by any measure.

Enkianthus perulatus

Rare, choice upright shrub with heather-like, pure white flowers borne in clusters in April/May. Slender branches complement small leaves, giving it a delicate texture worthy of specimen status in any garden. In the company of azaleas, Kalmia, and camellias, it prefers an acidic soil in partial shade, and puts on a show of fall color to rival any of the best.