The Little Nurseries That Could

 

I was reminded of Christopher Lloyd ‘s fondness for unpretentious nurseries on a beautiful drive to Lexington, Kentucky, last week. My destination was the 121-year-old Michler’s Florist, Greenhouses & Garden Design.

“The Michler family opened their namesake florist and nursery in 1901, and it quickly became Lexington’s go-to for flora.”

–Washington Post

I know what’s it like to be a small, nursery owner, though for nowhere close to 121 years. I had a front-row seat to nursery life for 15 years: April blizzards, droughts, green house heaters that go kaput in the night, Christmas Eve winds that rip off greenhouse coverings, and so on. I also know how much pleasure and sense of purpose Holbrook Farm and Nursery gave me. I loved our customers—well, most of them.  I have fond memories, no nursery remorse, and have never lost my fanaticism for growing plants, especially those with a story about place or people. I am still surprised, and pleased, when I hear from former customers who saved old catalogs or who tell me their Heuchera ‘Molly Bush’ or the sweetshrub, Calycanthus ‘Michael Lindsey,’ is thriving 27 years later.

Christopher Lloyd, gardener and author, enjoyed a botanic adventure. Last week I imagined he was along with Rose and me for the ride to Michler’s. I loved Christo’s company— smart, curious, opinionated, and possessed of a great laugh. The backroad trip from Salvisa to Michler’s was a short, 45-minute drive on Highway 62, past the Wild Turkey Distillery, over the Kentucky River into Woodford County, with its dry-laid stone walls and rolling pastures. Christo would have demanded we stop a few times for a closer look. There were lots of poison hemlocks in ditch banks.  He would have made an odd-looking trespasser with his impressive white head of hair, old sports coat and baggy pants. My role would have been to provide cover. “Good morning, Sherriff. We’re looking for flowers today.”

We drove through Versailles (pronounced Ver-sales) and then into Lexington. We found Michler’s on tree-lined Maxwell Street, a block and a half from Woodland Park.

I met John Michler, who keeps his hands on the wheel of his 5^th generation family business with his son Robin, who is the rejuvenating “real entrepreneurial spirt.” John steered Rose and me back to the Kentucky Native Café. It felt like we were being led blindfolded for a surprise.  John understands stagecraft. I began looking around.  There were bistro chairs and tables with carnival lights strung overhead.  I was in a forest in the middle of a nursery. It was quiet. The moment was dreamlike. 

John Michler is bold. Seedling native hackberries had volunteered nearby and were given refuge. Hackberries suffer garden ignominy with leaves that often get decorated (a nice way of saying disfigured) with leaf nipple galls. There is a flip side: they are tough and might withstand the apocalypse. Migratory warblers and the hackberry butterfly depend on them in the meantime. They are seldom planted but should be.   

“Our best planting intentions can’t save the world,” Michler said. “We must allow some plants to grow when they show up unannounced.” Black locusts and the blue-flowering Eurasian dayflowers had gained a toehold.  The bold, notoriously weedy, greater burdock was here, also, but tamed. I credit my daughter Molly for teaching me about burdock’s medicinal value.  

The forest is a beautiful, highwire-balancing act, not an anything-grows hodgepodge. “This is good growing versus show horticulture,” Michler explained.  “I want this to benefit the environment and not just be about blue and yellow.” Pollinators and hummingbirds are at home.  Native wild gingers and lawn violets were given free rein. American spikenard (Aralia racemosa) and the woodland bluegrass (Poa sylvestris) were happy. So were bottle brush buckeyes, a southern Appalachian Mountain species. Attractive parchment-colored drumsticks—drying bulb stems and spent-flowering satellites—on Allium ‘Mount Everest’ must have made a stunning punctuation a few weeks ago. There are a few other non-natives. I recognized the Japanese lady fern and the clumping, low-growing variegated Carex ‘Ice Dance’ that is nearly impenetrable to weeds.

The formula for my favorite small nurseries boils down to nursery owners who are plant proselytizers, passionate, persistent, patient, and hang out in potting sheds.

I enjoy the search and the stories

Christopher Lloyd once put the concept of “authentic” in perspective for me. He visited my little nursery near Asheville, North Carolina, in the early 1990s while he was on an east coast speaking tour. Christo spent most of his life at Great Dixter, his family’s home and garden in East Sussex. (Great Dixter has a charming little nursery with a potting shed.)  I asked him if he’d like to go sightseeing. The Biltmore Estate and Sandy Mush Herb Nursery were on the table that day. A 200-room Vanderbilt-built summer home on 8,000 acres that included a formal and woodland gardens versus two acres on a steep and remote mountain hillside. Christo thought the Biltmore Estate sounded peculiarly French. Too chateau-like. “Why bother?”  he asked.

Off to Sandy Mush

We drove out of Asheville on the Leicester Highway, swung left on North Turkey Creek Road, headed toward the beautiful Sandy Mush valley, forded a small stream along Surrett Cove Road, threw the truck gear into bulldog, and fishtailed up the mountain with a ragged ravine hanging out the passenger-side window. We made it! Once Christo calmed his nerves, he began to see, and feel, the unique character of Sandy Mush Herb Nursery. A tiny pit greenhouse (doubling as a potting shed) was built in 1972 before the Jaynes had built a floor in their house. There are outdoor beds and greenhouses of perennials and herbs (1400-1500 species and cultivars) surrounded by hundreds of acres of Blue Ridge Mountains preserved with a conservation easement in perpetuity. “Plenty of clean air and water,” Kate Jayne said in an email.

Their grown children, Nicketie and Christopher, are now vitally involved in the business that expanded to mail order in 1978. I dare you to compare Sandy Mush to any other nursery.

There is a subset of the botanically possessed who seek out unique, small nurseries. This is not an exclusive plant posse. It is open to all who are curious. We understand how perilous gardening can be. Nursery shoppers struggle with high hurdles—what to plant, where to plant—and are full of self-doubt that purchases may not be foolproof.    

Plants die

Don’t worry. If you are patient and pay attention, the odds are stacked in your favor. Gardening is not like combing a Florida beach with a metal detector. (You don’t really think you’re going to find gold doubloons from a sunken Spanish galleon, do you?) The prospect of joy and ecological benefit from your backyard is within reach. Trust me. 

A wiser soul might say: start on a small scale. There is no shame in a 12’ x 12’ garden. I would add: Don’t be afraid of letting spring get the best of you. Roll the dice. We all  bite of more than we can chew. Block out visions of the dog days of summer.

I am not wed exclusively to native plants, but Kentucky is remarkably plant rich, so of course I am proud and curious. So is John Michler. There’s so much I have left to learn, especially with what’s growing under my nose. Purple rocket (Iodanthus pinnatifidus) and corn-beak salad (Valerianella radiata) are species new to me, growing within a hundred yards of where I am sitting now in Salvisa. Purple rocket is flowering along woodland edges; the edible corn beak salad filled up the Salt River bottomland after our daffodils were finished blooming.

I am a habitual offender. I didn’t need to buy more plants at Michler’s. I’ve planted way too much this season already, but the temptation for a few more was too great. It often is. Michler’s assortment includes not only Kentucky natives, but also low-maintenance perennials for sun and shade, cottage garden plants, fragrant shrubs, heirloom plants, culinary and fragrant herbs, ornamental grasses, ferns, hostas, and pollinator plants. The greenhouses hold orchids, houseplants, cyclamens, spring bulbs and seasonal poinsettias and Easter lilies.

It was warming up outside as we loaded up the car for the drive back to Salvisa.  Christo was still thinking of the tens of thousands of poison hemlock he’d seen earlier. He began quoting bits of Phaedo’s account of the death of Socrates and the immortality of the soul. “If there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty it is beautiful only insofar as it partakes of absolute beauty.”

Michler’s was absolutely beautiful.

 

Visiting Hours:

 

Michler’s Florist & Greenhouses
Mon-Sat: 9am-5:30pm
Sunday 11am-4pm

Kentucky Native Café
Tues-Fri: 4pm-10pm
Sat: 11am-10pm
Sun: 11am-5pm

Sandy Mush Herb Nursery

Thursday, Friday & Saturday, 9 am-5pm; March – November. Dec, Jan & Feb – by appointment. “Always contingent on weather!”