Featured Nursery Stock for Spring

At Crocker Nurseries we have always taken great pride in the quality, health and variety of our Nursery Stock. In choosing our suppliers we go through a rigorous process that typically involves one of us actually traveling to the grower, inspecting their plants and also seeing their growing practices, since this is important to the health of the plants. We develop working relationships with each of our suppliers so they understand what plants we consider acceptable and which are not, and this often comes from us hand-selecting plants from the growers. In keeping with this commitment to finding quality nursery stock I attended the Mid-Atlantic Trade Show in Baltimore, MD, which is considered by many to be the best green goods show in the country. It took the whole 2 days to walk through the thousand or so vendors, and at the end of the trip I came away with about a dozen new suppliers that met our standards. Having more qualified suppliers will help us provide our customers with a great selection with competitive prices.

Some of the featured plants for Spring are as follows:

Ilex x Koehneana—Koehne Holly: This holly has beautiful glossy, moderately spiny, marginal dark green leaves and bears handsome large red fruit in abundance. It is pyramidal in habit, reading 20-25 feet in height and around half that in width. This is a very attractive holly that has been shown to be hardy on Cape Cod. It will pollinate with any Blue Male Holly.

Chamaecyparis nootkatensis—Alaska Cedar, Nootka Falsecypris: This medium sized evergreen can reach over 30 feet, but what we carry is the Pendulous form ‘Pendula’ which has beautiful, graceful, elegantly-arranged pendulous branches with rich green foliage. It likes full sun and is hardy to Zone 4. It is used best as a specimen or border plant in your landscape.

Pinus flexilis ‘Vanderwolf Pyramid’—Vanderwolf Pyramid Limber Pine: A handsome specimen with dark green to glaucous needles and prefers full sun. It is hardy to Zone 4 and will tolerate strong winds. Again, use as a specimen or border plant in your landscape. It will grow to 30 ft high and will have a15-20 ft spread.

Our Nursery staff are ready to assist you with these plants or to offer suggestions to your landscape. We have two Massachusetts Certified Horticulturists and we can help determine what plants will do best in your yard. We ask the questions that will help determine the best plants for your needs, not just whether there’s sun or shade but also how close you are to the water, how much room you have and what other shrubs you have in your yard. If needed we also offer on-site consultations and design services to help create the perfect garden space. We have years of experience of Cape Cod gardening and know what plants will work even in the most extreme Cape settings. We also have a lot of experience dealing with conservation issues in many of the towns on the Cape. We are not interested just selling lots of plants that may not survive, we want to sell you the correct plant or plants for your needs and then we can confidently guarantee that it will survive, thus saving you money and offering piece of mind. Come to the place where we help you do it right the first time.

Come check out our selection of Nursery stock early this year. We are offering a 20% discount on all trees and shrubs throughout the month of March.

David Shea
MCH