Open House at Carolyn’s Shade Gardens Nursery, Saturday, March 27

Carolyn’s Shade Gardens Nursery is having its first spring open house on Saturday, March 27, from 10 to 3, rain or shine (checks and cash only). Directions are attached. For the convenience of her neighbors, please park on the right side of Robinhood Rd only and do not block mailboxes and driveways.

Feel free to schedule an appointment if you can’t make it on Saturday—you won’t want to miss all the exciting plants described below! Carolyn is available days and evenings this week. Just send her an email with a suggested time.

Carolyn Walker has an excellent assortment of top quality shade plants available right now, and her gardens are beautiful. Here are descriptions of some of the exciting offerings:

Hellebores: For hybrids, the Immanence Collection bred for outward facing flowers; the lovely and vigorous Lady Series with blooming plants of ‘Blue, Red, Yellow, and White Lady’; my own flowering “Carolyn’s Select” hybrids; and ‘Double Vision’ and ‘Double Integrity’ with double flowers. For hellebore lovers, I offer the green-flowered Helleborus viridis; exquisite, plum-colored H. purpurascens; rose dusted ‘Silvermoon’; and unusual ‘Honeyhill Joy’; in addition to the ever popular Bearsfoot, Corsican, and Christmas Roses ‘Josef’ and ‘Praecox’, which bloom from November to May.

Snowdrops: If you didn’t order snowdrops, all is not lost. She has potted up almost all the varieties, including ‘Atkinsii’, the giant snowdrop (G. elwesii), ‘Magnet’, the common snowdrop (G. nivalis), the double-flowered snowdrop ‘Flore Pleno’, fall-blooming ‘Potter’s Prelude’, ‘S. Arnott’, ‘Virdi-apice’, and G. woronowii.

Unusual Bulbs and Wildflowers: She also has a great selection of dogtooth-violet, fritillaria, hardy cyclamen (spring and fall blooming), Corydalis solida (three varieties), camassias, Italian arum, scillas (six varieties), pink and blue glory-of-the-snow, and grape-hyacinths (three kinds).

Pulmonarias: Carolyn is excited to have her best ever selection of pulmonarias for this open house—hard-to-find ‘Majeste’ with heart-shaped silver leaves and pink and blue flowers, ‘Blue Ensign’ with cobalt blue flowers and dark green leaves, ‘Dora Bielefeld’ with all pink flowers, ‘Roy Davidson’ with pale blue flowers and spotted leaves, ‘Samurai’ with narrow all silver leaves, and ‘Silver Bouquet’ with rounded silver leaves.

Native Coral Bells: The new coral bells with our native Heuchera villosa as a parent are head and shoulders above the competition. Their eye-catching leaves remain attractive all winter, and the plants are extremely vigorous. She has available the beautifully colored ‘Miracle’, ‘Mocha’, and ‘Caramel’.

Ferns: the evergreen tassel fern and Japanese holly fern plus the rare tatting fern.

Plants you have requested: ‘Pink Saucers’ Japanese anemone (a shorter variety), Acanthus mollis/Bear’s Breeches, blooming Chinese ginger (be sure to check out the flowers), variegated brunnera, native variegated Jacob’s ladder ‘Stairway to Heaven’, and many more.

Questions: Her catalog is an excellent resource for information about the ornamental characteristics and cultural requirements of the plants she offers. She often finds incorrect information on the pre-printed plastic plant tags and recommend that you go to my catalog first. Printed copies will be available at the open house. If your question is not covered in the catalogue, please feel free to consult one of my knowledgeable open house “volunteers” in the blue aprons.

Reusable Plant Crates, Boxes, and Pots: If you took a plastic plant crate at a previous open house, don’t forget to reuse it on Saturday. Additional crates will be available for those who don’t have them. Carolyn would also love to have any cardboard boxes that are suitable for holding potted plants. You have been great about dropping off pots for reuse. She currently needs 4” and 5” square pots and nursery pots in sizes 400, 200, and 100 (if the number is not on the bottom, she can’t use it).

Email Issues: Please add Carolyn’s email address to your “safe sender’s list”—in Outlook this is found in Actions, Junk Email. If you wish to be removed from my customer email list, please click on this address carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net and put “delete from customer list” in the subject line.