Smallwood’s Driveway by eskinola
Yesterday was a gloriously beautiful day, so TheGardenLady and her friends decided to visit Atlock Farm, an outstanding nursery at 545 Weston Canal Road in Somerset, NJ. If you see a house surrounded by topiaried or sculpted trees, you know you are next door to this wonderful nursery.
Besides selling really excellent and unusual plants, Atlock Farm also has one of the largest displays of topiary trained plants that are for sale. Among all the plants, they sell a lot of coleus (see photo above), one of the easiest to care for and most decorative plants to add to your garden or your container garden. Coleus need little maintenance besides watering and has few pest problems. This plant can be raised easily from seed, though most people prefer to buy the plants so that they can choose from the amazing variety of leaf coloration and decorative leaf shapes. Coleus is an annual but you can take snips of leaves and root them in water and when they root can keep them over winter in a container to plant outdoors the following spring. Atlock Farm has many coleus to choose from and they even make topiary out of coleus. See here. Besides the plants for sale, Atlock Farm has a small show garden and this year they have lots of vegetables, all which seem to be heirloom vegetables, growing in their show garden. They sell these vegetables plus some wonderful gifts for plant people.