WildThings Rescue Nursery Native Plants with purpose
About the Nursery(and the Crazy Plant Lady that runs it.)
Deer browsing is a huge problem for me here, so propagation beds must be covered in wire cages.
The deer decapitated hundreds of Trillium on me one year, but this has been a good solution.
The nursery in late May.
Tables stuffed full of gorgeous healthy plants,
always grown pesticide-free!
As I started to understand the bigger picture, boredom disappeared and was replaced by a growing curiosity. I started to understand why holes in my picture perfect plants were a good thing. I started to photograph and ID the caterpillars and other creatures I found in my gardens. Began learning who they would grow up to be and what plants they needed for their survival. Oddly enough, locally Native plants.
Gardening stopped being about ME and started to become something much more. A multifaceted world of intricate balances and purpose. A whole new fascinating world to explore and try to understand. Plants and their relationships with the creatures that depend on them.
And this is how the “Collector” turned “Native”.
I am told that I should explain where the business name came from.
(No. We do not dress up in camo, lunging into the woods with buckets and shovels.)
We began rescuing plants many years ago, from logging sites.
It was done legally, with the property owner’s permission, because it was just too heart-breaking to see so many treasures being bulldozed under after all the cutting was done.
Those plants were brought back to the property here and planted in the display and propagation beds. They are the great grandparents of many of the plants we grow and sell today.
It has been many years since we’ve done any rescues, but that is the name on the DBA and how we began.
For the last 10+ years, all plants have been grown here in the nursery by me.
I collect my own seed from my own plants and also take divisions from the beds.
We also ocassionaly trade with fellow native plant enthusiasts, or purchase seed to be able to introduce new species into the gardens.
So what was all this buzz about “Natives” starting to pop up everywhere? Hey! I like natives. I grow natives! Come to think of it, my Native Woodland Gardens have always been my favorites.
Well…..I began reading.
I read about why many of my favorite plants were popping up on Threatened and Endangered species lists. I read about how favorite critters I loved as a child weren’t being seen much any more. I started learning about chemicals, systemics, insects, why there were holes in my precious, perfect plants’ leaves. Who put them there and why.
A little bit about the nursery,
and the Owner/Operator/Grower/Promoter/Public Relations Specialist/Gardener/Go-fer Woman at the Wheel.
Although I have always adored, and dabbled in Native plants…..The nursery, (and I) really had our beginnings in growing, (and collecting), rare plants. Some Natives, but many that were not.
I was caught up in that “OMG, but what a GORGEOUS leaf!”, “ Whozeewhatzit will be wild when she she’s I’ve gotten one of these in my garden”…”I just HAVE to find something chartreus to plant next to that chocolately foliage” mentality.
Yes. I gardened and grew for self satisfaction. The plants were in my gardens to serve me. Never had enough…always searching for some new rarity to top my last acquisition, and after many years of this….I grew bored….and quite honestly..started to feel a bit selfish and detached, disconnected from my gardens.