People who love flowers and plants seem to be some of the nicest people on this planet. They love what they are doing and are generous with their knowledge. A lot of them have a great sense of humor. TheGardenLady hopes to introduce her readers to a few of the plant people she knows about.
The first plantsman TheGardenLady wants to draw attention to is Barry
Glick who owns and operates Sunshine Farm and Gardens. Â This is a great nursery to buy Hellebores and other interesting plants. And the website is loaded with plant information. Also, Barry, who says he is the only one who mans the computer at his nursery, is available to answer questions about his
plants as well as take orders. He seems to give out plant knowledge seasoned with a great sense of humor. In fact when the Sunday Gazette-Mail wrote an article about Barry, he was compared to George Carlin in Jerry Garcia tie-dyed clothes who happens to be a prominent plant expert who ” breeds, hybridizes, patents, writes, lectures about and, of course, sells plants. Lots of them, all over the world.”
Now Barry’s specialty is the Hellebore. If you don’t know about this wonderful earliest of flowering plants, check out Barry’s website because Barry calls himself the King of Helleborus. But Sunshine Farms grows and sells thousands of plants besides the hellebores. His “plant collection now numbers more than 10,000 taxa, many unknown to cultivation. Several of these plants have been introduced to gardening in recent years. Barry exchanges seeds and plants with people at Botanic Gardens, nurseries and private gardens in virtually every country in the world.”
Sunshine Farm and Gardens is 60 acres of plantings located off a dirt road on what sounds like a cliff in West Virginia. In these 60 acres, besides the plants that Barry collects, (for example, he collects Jack-in-the-pulpits from all over the world) grows (including native plants) and sells. Sunshine Farms has an extraordinary sounding show garden. Barry calls himself a Flower Dreamer. And what a dream his nursery and gardens must be.
But let me tell you more about Barry from his own resume:
“In 1993, Barry and several other gardeners, lecturers, authors and horticulturists joined forces to form the North American Plant Preservation Council. The NAPPC is modeled after England’s National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. The council lists important collections of particular genera of plants at private and public gardens in North America. Barry is an active member of about 75 horticultural societies. He lectures extensively both in the US and abroad on the subject of North American Native Plants.
In 1995 he developed a hands on propagation workshop called “The Joy of Propagation” or “Everything That You Wanted To Know About Propagation, But Were Afraid To Ask”. The 4-hour workshop was first presented at the 5th annual Millersville Native Plant Symposium at Millersville University, Millersville PA. Barry has been invited back to give the workshop again at the 1996, 1997 and 1998 Symposiums. The popularity of the workshop has lead to its presentation at several other venues. At this time a two-hour commercial video based on the workshop is in the planning stages.
Barry is the editor of the Internet’s on-line magazine for serious gardeners, the Cyber-Plantsman. He also maintains several other World Wide Web sites for Sunshine Farm and Gardens, The NAPPC and his breeding work in the genus Helleborus.
Several articles have been authored and have appeared in the Garden Design, Brooklyn Botanical Garden Journal, Castanea, the Journal of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society, many North American Rock Garden Society Chapter Newsletters, New, Rare, and Elusive Plants Journal in the UK, The Viola Society Newsletter and many more. A six-page article covering Native Terrestrial Orchids was published in Nov-Dec 1998 issue of Fine Gardening.
With a state of the art tissue culture laboratory, Sunshine Farm & Gardens is involved in experimental genetics on plant material, the goal of which is to develop new and better plants for landscape and the garden. The commercial arm of the operation provides high quality, unusual plants at reasonable prices to Garden Centers, Nurseries, Landscape Professionals and Home Gardeners Worldwide.
The display gardens at Sunshine Farm & Gardens were completely redesigned by Mr. Matthew Bishop of Devon England in 1993 and several
thousand new plants were planted in the existing 24 year old garden.
Visitors are welcome with advance notice.
The main focus of plant breeding at Sunshine Farm & Gardens is within
the genus Helleborus. Barry has spent the last decade combing the
Earth for new germplasm to enhance the bloodlines of his Helleborus x
hybridus strains. Virtually every species within the genus is also grown. Barry maintains more than 100,000 flowering size stock plants on a 6 acre section of the nursery for further breeding work and seed production.
Barry Glick is a summa cum laude graduate of UHK (University of Hard Knocks).”