It’s the time of year, we all hopefully stop and take time to thank those who are so important in our lives. I (Tony) am incredibly blessed to be embarking on our 40th year in business in 2026. No sane person thought our model of building a private, ex-situ conservation botanical garden, and mail order
I was shocked and saddened to learn of the recent passing of my college classmate, Kim Hawks, 72. Kim and I shared a lot in common, starting with attending the same high school, horticulture classmates at NC State, both of us would start mail order nurseries, travel together in China for a month, and both
We’ve long admired the weeping elm at the JC Raulston Arboretum, and the specimen at JLBG (below) was rooted as a cutting in 2018 from their plant, which has long been labeled Ulmus minor var. minor ‘Pendula’. When we starting digging deeper on its background, we became even more confused. First, the plant is not
Crying over Weeping Elms Read More »
For those of us in the mail order nursery, the closure of any of our compatriots seems like a death in the family. As I’ve mentioned earlier this year, the decline in retail sales across many sectors has devastated the mail order garden industry. So many of the nurseries we value so highly are those
While Tropical Storm Debby was soaking JLBG with 4.3″ of rain, I was off to Connecticut and Rhode Island for a presentation and some nursery/garden visits. It didn’t look like I was going to make it, after one flight cancellation and four rebookings, but thanks to several unexpected moments of good luck, our plane touched
After 46 years in the mail order business, we sadly say goodbye to Glasshouse Works of Stewart, Ohio. The remaining founder, Ken Frieling (left), passed away on May 3, at the age of 79. Ken was preceded in death by his partner, Tom Winn (right) in 2013. Tom and Ken were both former teachers, but
The Glasshouse has Closed Read More »
We just discovered that one of our good plant friends, plantsman and former mail order nurseryman, Dick Weaver, 77, passed away early in the days of the pandemic in June 2020. Dick and I had been corresponding regularly, but in a final note in late 2019, he indicated that Parkinson’s had now made it difficult
Another Plantsman Bites the Dust Read More »
We hope everyone has had a chance to check out the new 2023 Plant Delights catalog, now online. Our greenhouse are fully stocked with plants we hope will appeal to the gardeners in our audience….see photos below taken this week. Our market has always been a bit different that other mainstream mail order nurseries, first
Last weekend, we were thrilled to host a bus tour from the International Maple Society, that was meeting in North Carolina. As you can imagine, it was fascinating to walk the gardens with such an amazing and diverse group from around the world. Here are a few of our visitors: Tim (l) and Matt (r)
Tree-ted to the Maple Clan Read More »
