Nursery Review: Native Plant Nursery (Ann Arbor Farmers Market)

Yesterday we explored the wonderful opportunities afforded to us by Butterfly Weed, one of the many excellent native plants found here in Southeastern Michigan.  While I fully intend to launch at length into a diatribe about why native gardening is utterly amazing, for now I figured I would just mention a good place to stop by tomorrow, if you happen to be heading to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.  Even if you didn't have such a trip in your plans, consider going just for the Native Plant Nursery.  As the deceptively simple name suggests, they pretty much specialize in plants native to our local region, with emphasis on wildflowers and grasses.  That said, they also produce trees and shrubs, and will be happy to break down that broad wildflower category into appropriate packages, depending on your growing conditions and the level of restoration to wild conditions, if any, you want to achieve.  You will almost always run into this fellow here:

Greg is holding my latest purchase, a Prairie Dock, two Ohio Spiderworts, and two Joe Pye Weeds.  More on these individually later.

His name is Greg Vaclavek, probably the most (mind the pun) gregarious individual I have ever run into in the plant growing industry.  He's able to answer even my most plant-geek plant questions, and much can be gleaned about what you can/should be doing with plants just by listening to him talking; there will often be a line full of patient people waiting to get a chance to pick the ear of the guru.  Even if you end up buying nothing, a trip to even catch a little free garden wisdom here is worth it.  That said, if you do come to buy, everything is laid out with a ton of information in front of each plant.

Sorry for the usual glare.  This was on a tablet camera. 

My advice to first time native plant growers is the same advice that I would give to novice gardeners of any type: pick the right plant for the right place.  If that label calls for sun or shade, bake or cover accordingly.  If it calls for moisture or dryness, soak or neglect accordingly.  Native plants will work well in cultivation in general, but even more than some exotic annuals and perennials, they will thrive if you try to mimic their natural conditions.  They were, after all, made for doing it well right here, right now.  Greg and company have their plants displayed as such, with simple yet abundant data on what does and does not work for each plant.  Best of all, they are all locally sourced and grown from wild type seed; your flower will actually be a child of a long line of plants from our corner of Michigan!

In addition to keeping it real with the local varieties, they offer kits to make breaking into the experience that much easier and once you get used to the game, can also take requests to bring in the following week for offerings that they don't typical bring in.  They take cash, but you can always get tokens at the market office if you are running on plastic.  As should be obvious by now, they don't have an independent storefront, and you pretty much have to come to the market to visit the nursery, although in a pinch alternative arrangements could probably be made.  That should not be an issue though; why would you not want to go to the market?!

Going Native: Butterfly Weed

While I intend to spill into a lengthy diatribe later regarding how amazing native plants are, for now I would like to mention one in particular, our lovely little orange wonder, the Butterfly Weed (a.k.a. Asclepias Tuberosa).

I honestly forget where this is from, and might even be home grown from local seeds.  Those cacti you see at the bottom, by the way, are indeed "perennial"!  We will see them later on.

It's pretty damn easy to grow, and here in Michigan we can usually neglect it and it thrives.  It can make its way through most drought, owing to a large taproot (which means it does not do so carefree in confined situations like pots or urban dirt that has a concrete bottom).  It does fine in rock gardens, sandy patches, and seems to be fine in my thick, unyielding clay.  For those gardeners who have trouble finding a strain that their clay can make friends with, Prairie Nursery out of Wisconsin does offer a clay-loving variety.  I've personally never had a problem with it, though I also tend to be very intense when it comes to establishing perennials.  A bit of water goes a long way to getting that long taproot where it needs to go.

Soil issues tend to not be much of a problem for this species compared to just being able to find it.  In some years it gets touted as the be all and end all of "attract monarchs to your garden" sales pitches at nurseries.  In most years, however, I find people asking even at native plant sources where they can find some of this amazing plant.  The most consistent source for stock that I have yet found is George's Livonia Gardens, which offers a very basic native plant selection, but is a great place to get the bare bones of a wildflower garden going.  That said, they are also fairly easy to grow from seed and can be found along roadsides and meadows/fields/prairies.  They form very distinctive pods which are architecturally pleasing and carry the plant through the winter as a design element.  Leave the pods to ripen in the garden, where they will do the work for you, usually giving out a nice healthy plant the following spring.  Failing that, you can find their seeds even at most hardware stores, but for a fine native such as this, nothing beats our local type population (more on this in another post).

The picture above really does not do the plant justice.  The orange has an intensity that is in my opinion unmatched in the plant world.  Only the California Poppy (a.k.a. Eschscholzia Californica) comes even close to the brilliant, almost neon orange that this wonder puts out.  Gardeners have long since bred it into various other colors, but the original orange remains the most brilliant, awe-inspiring flavor.  Back when Michigan had more in the way of natural prairies, it probably stole the show even among other wildflowers.  Such has certainly been the case in every prairie and savanna patch I have ever been to where it has been present even in small numbers.  In the garden, it can compete with even the flashiest annuals.

Even way in the back there, it still has a commanding presence and is the brightest thing next to the orange marigolds up front.  That little patch, by the way, has quite the plant diversity and history, and is something I will re-visit frequently for individual plant coverage and design concepts.  Speaking of which, Butterfly Weed is obviously a very painless choice for integrating natives into an overall design.  Unlike most other milkweeds, it has a very clean appearance and does not usually get derided by the ordinary, non-gardening folks as "weedy".  In contrast, those tall common milkweed stalks were responsible for this patch getting repeatedly mowed until I dressed it up some more.  That's a real shame, as both plants offer very different structural contributions to the broader garden landscape.  Alas, Butterfly Weed tends to look more like a typical garden plant, and tends to be a happy find while weeding, at least if the weeder has ever seen one in bloom.  Half the time I find them growing freely in the lawn and am very reluctant to send them away; for what its worth, they do tend to transplant easily at such a young age.  Keep that soil ball around the roots intact and well-watered in its new home and you can transplant fields of them. 

Equally at home in rough or formal settings, Butterfly Weed works well with many plants, notably other wildflowers.  I am particularly fond of using them in contrast with white/silver foliage plants such as the various sagebrushes of the Artemisia genus, and they also look nice with other shrub-sized plants such as roses.  Alternatively, group them with low-growing annuals for some vertical contrast.  In South East Michigan, Butterfly Weed tends to give an opening bloom around Mid-June (these pictures were taken today, June 18th) and even without deadheading (pinching off the faded blooms) tend to give another bloom later in July and early August.  They like it hot, and tend to finish blooming before the fall, but I have seen the rare late August show as well.  The blooms tend to last the better part of a week, sometimes as long as two.  Don't pinch off the second bloom, as the pods will develop, and they look amazing!  Give it a go, you will not be disappointed. 

Things To Do: Settling Into Summer

By now the initial surge of spring energy has mostly evaporated from many gardeners.  That nursery binging and bed creating has given way to maintenance and the art is looking more like a chore to many.  This past spring we SE Michiganders were absolutely blessed with a very early last frost in April, and May featured quite a lot of heat and moisture; as a result, especially after our brutal February and lingering cold March, we got active very early.  Burn out is inevitable in those who sprint instead of marathon run!

So what can still be done these days, especially with local nurseries that still have stock?  Well, don't be afraid to go out there and grab some of those last veggies or annuals.  Many of them will start to come on sale, and the creative does not need to give way to the preservative so quickly.  Eastern Market still has lots to offer the eager grower, and the Ann Arbor Market is going to keep on being impressive through early July.  Those two shows are by far the best around, but most towns and cities will also feature a more intimate, local flavor market: click here to find one.  As usual, get excited over your local market, but don't neglect your local permanent nurseries either.

In particular, I would like to take the opportunity to say thanks to a great vendor at the Ann Arbor Market, namely Wagner's Homestead Farm.  Cheryl Wagner had a lovely display of color that managed to immediately draw in my discriminating eye. 

As the sign notes, her family has been at this for some time now, and it shows in the quality of the bedding plants they bless our little slice of the world with.  The displays are reason enough to go visit vendors like the Wagners, as they serve a vital early summer role as both sustaining art and inspiration.  This is a wonderful time to make some minor additions and write new chapters in the organically evolving garden, and with frost a distant memory and certain perennial shows being "in between", now might be the time to consider the merits of annual beds.  Anyway, the last time I visited Cheryl's stall I purchased an Annual Phlox which I then decided to punish/experiment on by putting it in the cacti boulder pile I have going.  Don't worry, I actually do water the things, and they seem to be doing pretty well in the pile.

Hey, she did say it could take hot and dry, and so far both plants are positively thriving.  Annual Phlox (or Phlox Drummondii) is a gift to us from Texas, but has not been eagerly received in Michigan for the most part.  As is usually the case, this North American native is extremely popular in Europe and people went nuts for it ever since Thomas Drummond brought some seeds back with him from his Texas adventure in the 1830s.  You could be exciting Michigan and exotic and unique by trying out some of the stuff like our fussy European friends, or you could be boring Michigan and just buy some flats of whatever over at Home Depot.  If you are one of the cool gardeners and happen to be in Ann Arbor tomorrow, buy some phlox and see what other great offerings Cheryl and her neighbors have to offer.  If you are slowing down on the momentum and enthusiasm, this might be just the ticket to rekindling the romance!

Some Advice For New Gardeners

One of the reasons that I started this blog was because I was getting inundated with requests for help from people trying to dive into the gardening game.  Everyone had different ideas of what the art and science meant and how they should make their mark in the horticultural world, and I can say that seeing gardening through novice eyes once again has been a very awesome thing.  Perhaps these eyes have forgotten all the confusion and worry that goes into setting down roots for the first time, but one of the things I would like to share with everyone, novice to expert, who reads this blog is... relax.  Just relax. 

1.  Take it easy.  Unless you are growing kelp or kudzu, and in SE Michigan that means neither plant, things are going to take time.  Gardening is not for people who like instant results; plants are living things that are trying to make existence happen like the rest of us.  Be patient with your plants, respond to their needs with deliberation and reason, and enjoy the unfolding drama. 

2.  This is a footnote to "take it easy": dream big but proceed slowly.  Start with a few plants that you like, and then with a single bed, and give it a few weeks to see how it fares under your guidance.  If the weeding and care does not seem to dominate your gardening experience, then consider more plants and more beds and diversify and enlarge your entry into growing country.  This is very important because you want to enjoy your experience and not let it turn into a chore.  Yeah, it can be easy to go crazy once you get into this path of life, but it can also come with some degree of conversion zeal that burns out a lot of people.

3. If you do find yourself really taken by a particular plant, be it an entire species, or just a single sort of fellow, feel free to go crazy anyway.  Stick to the one bed at a time rule, but feel free to indulge in reading up on your favorite botanical friend and possibly plant a whole lot of him or her until you are satisfied.  For me personally, my weakness is for rhododendrons.  I could have a garden full of them, even just one type, and be thrilled.  There is no such thing as too many!  You can learn a lot about plants in general by focusing on your particular friend.  When the time comes to find new friends, you may find your attention moving around; in a few years you will be surprised at just how many different plants you have in your garden and by how well you have come to know them, simply because you did take things one step at a time and were not overwhelmed.  You may have then become a plant junkie, and your garden will be amazing.  Good job!

4.  Listen to good advice but laugh at bad opinions.  What I mean by this is don't let snooty plant people push you around.  If you like X plants, don't stop liking them just because someone says that they are hard to deal with, ugly, etc.  A weed to one person is a beautiful flower to another (within reason, don't go nuts with the milkweed because odds are the neighborhood association with tar and feather you; yes, I like milkweed and its benefits to monarchs), meaning that a weed is something growing where you don't want it to.  Now, if they tell you that X plant is going to be hard to deal with here in Michigan, by all means, listen up and find out what they mean, so that you can enjoy it and give your friend a fighting chance at survival.

5.  Your local library is your friend for helping your plant friends.  In some parts of SE Michigan, we are blessed with a network of libraries that you can get books from even if out of your local area.  Head to the gardening section and take advantage of the free information.  For that matter, you might even have lovely landscaping around the building that has been lovingly made possible by volunteers.  If you see them in action, converse, learn, enjoy how awesome our libraries are!

Basically, as the meme says, keep calm and carry on.  Oh, and if I am allowed to sneak in a quick 6: Placement is not always permanent.  Like plants tend to be, let your imagination and design mission go organic and make things happen as they work for them and for you.  I'm going to throw out a before and after set of pictures to show you the start and current status of a garden bed to sort of visually demonstrate what I am getting at in this post.  This bed had some ups and downs and is now considered my "shut up, neighbors" bed made for curb appeal as much as my enjoyment.  I let it get out of control at one point and it turned into quite the mess of grass and buried plants; seeing the abandoned lot aspect of it prompted me into action to make things better.  Only one of the original plants is still there, while the hostas have remained and served as the core of a partial-shade foliage dominated garden.  In fact, the whole thing pretty much started when my beagle of happy memory passed on; she used to make this her spot to pee on the grass and ensure nothing could ever grow here.  Every time I muck around in the dirt here makes me think of an unfolding story inspired by a fascination with hostas and the need to do something about a bare spot. 

Like I said, an unfolding story.  An epic poem rather than an article, a marathon rather than a sprint.  A beagle that has become a birch!

This?

Started out as this:

Market Review: Ann Arbor Farmer Market

Every Saturday from 8am to 3pm Kerrytown in Ann Arbor gets swarmed by people doing everything from protestors seeking signers for various political petitions to hagglers trying to get the best price on a wooden duck doorstop.  From April to October, the crowds are joined and enhanced by plant sellers and searchers.  True, this is not expansive in scale as the legendary Eastern Market, which despite my general avoidance of I find to be an experience all SE Michiganders should give an annual pilgrimage to, well... the Ann Arbor market is just friendlier and easier to handle.  The Ann Arbor Market has the charm and relative calm of our smaller town markets (even though peak Saturdays can often by crowded) with the more exotic availability expected of a larger market.  Plant wise, you can find everything here from heirloom veggies to exotic perennials to native plants.  I have a few favorite vendors which I will visit in individual posts more closely, but I felt that Friday night was a good time to introduce the Saturday morning market. 

Busy, but not insane.  My apologies from the horrid lighting on the shot.

They also have a Wednesday morning and evening scene, which I have been to only once in the dead of winter.  Obviously they did not have a lot in the way of plants available, but you could still get some cold frame greens, seeds, and make a few new friends with the heartier vendors.  If you need a January nursery fix, even this little bit can help quite a bit.

That said, the best time to go looking for plants is May and early June.  The sales, however, continue unabated until August, when some vendors head away for the month. 

For the novice gardener, the Market can be a great place to meet some gardener friends, see what other people are trying (in an effort to both broaden the plant palette and get some ideas about combinations and garden structure), and learn about plant prices.  The best part about going to any market, and this one in particular, however, is the expert help close at hand.  Here you are face-to-face with vendors who usually also happen to be owners and growers and can respond to individual questions immediately.  You also get the advantage of on-hand variety and can walk back more easily to a vendor when you change your mind about not making a purchase; this is much easier than turning the car around after leaving a nursery.

For the experienced gardener, this is just a really fun place to go.  I've found odd things here I never figured I would find outside of a catalog.  The vendors are typically friendly and seem to be in it for the conversation as much as the profit.  If you want to dive head first into the realm of total plant nerd-ness, this is the best venue to do so in short of a conference or society meeting. 

For both types of gardeners, and non-gardeners, it offers to the jewel that is Kerrytown, full of bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants (including Zingermann's Deli, which among other treats has some of the best Root Beer on the planet, perfect for the thirsty plant shopper), etc. 

Getting to the Market can be tricky, but not impossible.  It is easy to find, being pretty much at the last stretch of Detroit street before it hits an end at Catherine.  Parking is a challenge, and my best recommendation would be to find one of the ramps that are four or five blocks away from the market.  Carry bags and/or boxes to transport your treasures back to the car, as the vendors can sometimes be in short supply.  Expect to pay about 2-4 dollars for parking for an average visit; the kiosks at the ramps have card readers, but as the Market mostly takes cash (except for the tokens you can get from the Market office in case you forgot to bring non-plastic currency) this should not be a problem anyway. 

Best time to visit: May and June.

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Nursery Review: Alexander Farm Market

Alexander, like our last reviewed nursery, Blocks, is distinguished by decent prices (for the most part) and quality of product.  They are not nearly as large, but perhaps because they are a bit more out of the way for most in metro Detroit (but pretty much easy to get to from most of greater SE Michigan), they tend to be ready and waiting for the customer a bit longer.  As a smaller operation, they tend to take longer to get everything up and running, but this year they exploded onto the scene within their opening week with almost everything laid out.  They certainly do an excellent job at presentation.

<drool>

Scratch that... they have some of the finest nursery displays I have seen anywhere in the industry.  Greenhouses four and five are a feast for the senses. 

Aside from the sheer beauty, they have a friendly, helpful staff who can tell you everything you need to know about making their products thrive.  If the staff and the selection of merchandise is any indication, Alexander Farm Market is run by gardeners who like beautiful and vigorous plants.  Why?  Because they practically give away their flowers and veggies, yet they are plants which of the same quality would qualify as premium offerings at many other nurseries.  Here you will find heirloom and rare varieties of vegetables, a huge selection of perennials, and flats upon flats of more types of annuals than you can imagine. 

Seriously, this is just a slice of the buffet.  Go see for yourself ASAP!

Picture your typical gardening dictionary, and you are likely to find everything and anything from it here.  That's right, this is a small, basically mom-and-pop operation, yet it makes Bordine's look small in terms of variety.  My only wish for them is that they start getting a native plant section going, but I would not be surprised if that is right around the corner; they improve noticeably every year I go there.

Even when the plants start to run out, there is still every reason to come visit for the fresh produce from local farms and their own home grown corn, picked daily.  Once they start opening the produce store on site, the place turns into a rival for the best farmer's markets of the region.  I could gush on and on...

For the novice, Alexander combines both an extensive variety in a very local, non-threatening small scale atmosphere.  You will find stuff to try here that will be more than suitable for most area gardens, but you will also have many options that will invite, rather than dissuade, you to dive in even deeper.

For the experienced green thumb, this is the place to get really crazy with perennials for a very obvious reason... wait for it...

They offer starter perennials at 99 cents.  That's right, 99 cents.  We're talking everything from coneflowers to lupines to lobelias and then some.  Yeah, they start out small, but by the end of the season they are positively huge and the following year, for an investment of around 20 dollars, you can have a garden that looks like you poured gold into the making thereof.  They rotate the stock too, so that every new year you are going to find new things to grow.  The same goes for their cells of annuals, which run 1.09 for four plants, or for their veggies which run a little bit more.  This year I encountered all the coolest heirloom varieties I figured I could only get by seed from the mail order places like Baker Creek.  They even sell flats of corn.  Corn!  Sorry, but I think that's fantastic. 

This is not to say that they don't have high end offerings either.  Do you want designer 70 dollar peonies?  They have those, and at a fraction of the cost that you would find them at big box garden centers.  They have bananas, cannas, variety pots, and even moderately priced faerie garden crap, which I will probably find a new love for with a niece on the way, meaning I will be sucked in even further into this awesome place. 

Just go pay them a visit, and bring as little as ten bucks, even though you will easily want to spend thirty and have to dig a whole new garden bed.  The downside to them is that you will wish you had spent over a hundred once you get home.  Yep, I love this place just that much.  OK, so the real downside is that the parking can be a pain in the behind on a busy day; don't bring a massive truck or try to come during the dead of the afternoon on a weekday.

Alexander Farm Market is located off of US 23 just north of Ann Arbor, off of Whitmore Lake rd, which is a left turn off of North Territorial which exits off the freeway.  Head west on North Territorial to the first light, which is said road.  Alexander is a few hundred feet down the next left, but you can't miss it for the giant sign at the corner.

Best time to visit: Now! Why aren't you there yet?

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Nursery Review: Block's Stand And Greenhouse

When I started this blog a few weeks ago, the planting season was getting underway and local gardeners such as myself were in their full spring fever.  Nurseries around the area were crowded full of plant fanatics and eager growers looking to tell winter to buzz off, and the concept of writing to share with all of you the rush was... a bad idea.  To new growers, the thought of having you smashed into a mob full of overly-energetic retiree-aged hobbyists and fanatical master gardeners is amusing but also intimidating.  Let's be honest, April is a time when you see the good, the bad, and the ugly in the gardener's world.  Now, however, the crowds have died off a bit, the staff is more than eager to keep sales running smooth, and nurseries are a grand place to visit.  I'm going to show you around a few of my favorites. 

To be fair, most of them are downriver, on the west side, or even further in both directions.  I know some of the more experienced visitors here will shout out names like Telly's and Eastern Market, as well as a slew of places I might have never heard of.  As we all know, however, metro Detroit consists of people who think that anything on the opposite side of Woodward is terra incognita.  By all means, suggest a place for me to go, but in the meantime you are going to see a lot of "west side nursery story".  Our first visit takes us south, actually.

The most incredible selection, in terms of sheer volume of healthy, hearty plants that you will find anywhere in SE Michigan is going to be at Blocks at Eureka and Middlebelt, just outside of Metro Airport.  You know how I said things get nuts at nurseries in late April and early May?  They get positively INSANE at Blocks.  This is because they grow their own stuff for the most part, they have incredible quality to it, and they have tons of stuff. 

Picture this times 20, and you have Blocks.  HUGE.

Mind you, they also tend to actually sell out of stuff, too.  Remember what I said about avoiding the crowds?  I apologize.  Don't do it for Blocks.  Learn to handle the mob, get some good plants, and go within the first week of their opening at the top of May.  Next year, if I still maintain this blog, I will make a reminder post about them around that time.  They are simply that good.  Their staff is helpful even under the insanity period, they carry a wide variety of selections of everything from fruit trees to exotic veggies, and their pricing is, well, affordable.  I am particularly fond of their 3 for 10 one gallon perennial pots; they seem to have a unique selection every year and said sale has brought many new perennial friends into my life.  For comparison, many gallon perennials cost anywhere from 7-20 dollars at most other local nurseries, and are often big box grower purchases.  Blocks sells you their own stock, for the most part. 

For the novice gardener, they are an excellent place to dive in to the hobby/calling and get lost for a few hours.  You will find everything from good, cheap garden hardware (like those adorable frog watering cans) to every sort of plant you will ever need to start making your little slice of paradise with.  They also have seeds, roots, mulch, and more free advice than you can shake a stick at.  Yes, Blocks will be intimidating if you are starting out, but it will also be convenient, one-stop shopping with help right around the corner.  Your wallet, if nothing else, will thank me, both in terms of initial investment and with how well your purchases do. 

For those with more advanced green thumbs, all I have to say is that if you have never been here, go.  In my opinion, Block's is going to offer a selection every bit as worthy as Eastern Market, and the prices and attitude are far, far less elitist.  Don't get me wrong, Eastern has some incredible stuff if you enjoy city driving, parking, and if your credit score is good enough to get you a bank loan.  At Blocks, you might have to park a fair piece from the gate, but you won't have to fight to get a spot, and the staff will actually smile at you.

Speaking of smiles, my two friendly cashiers.  They are friendly while not sacrificing efficiency; the crowd behind them was also ringing out and yet the lines were pretty decent.

OK, so I exaggerate, but for the most part, the experience in Romulus is going to be a bit less stressful than at the Market.  I accordingly promote Blocks as a worthy EM level alternative. 

The downside to them is that they do tend to sell out rather quickly, before summer even really gets going.  If you are finicky about frost and want to wait until Memorial Day to do your planting, you will most likely be out of luck.  The other drawback, to some at least, is that they are not very much into display.  Their flats are healthy and beautiful, but presented in unremarkable rows and tables.  For the novice, this can sometimes be a deterrent from getting too excited about the place; my best piece of advice is to go with a more experienced gardener who can point the way and draw you to some truly great purchases.  For my needs, the no-frills approach to the display works out just fine; Blocks is pretty much an essential trip for the basics concerning veggies and annuals every year, and a bonus in regards to perennials.  I come for the quality and affordability.  If you want a show while you set up the backbone of your garden, go to Eastern Market. 

Blocks is located at Eureka and Middlebelt in Romulus, Michigan.  It is two miles away from I-275's Eureka exit, and over 3 from I-75's Eureka exit, so fairly easy to get to from many places in SE Michigan.  I tend to combine my annual binge at Blocks with visits to other downriver nurseries, which can be another reason in justifying driving from as far away as Lansing or Port Huron to pay them a visit. 

Best time to visit: Early May (or whenever they open, usually the last weekend of April). 

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