Plant Shopping in Lancaster County

Eileen at Homestead

This past weekend was our annual plant shopping weekend in Lancaster County. Every year we go up  to Pennsylvania at the beginning of May and stay at Landis Farm for a few days and hit all our favorite Amish nurseries and greenhouses, and a couple of local garden centers. We find beautiful plants in Pennsylvania, good prices, and lots of ideas.  Some of our favs are Homestead, Newswangers, Spooky Nook, Leacock,  Wengers, and Henry's.  We visit nurseries, load up cars, get milkshakes and ice cream sodas at Udder Choice,  eat chicken barbecue,  and relax at night at Landis Farm. It was great to see our friends Evelyn and Earl (owners of the farm), who welcomed another granddaughter,  born while we were there.

Eileen and Judy with lettuce, at Spooky Nook

Hanging baskets at Homestead

Henry's

Always cool displays at Henry's

Old trough planting at Henry's

Loved this rusty old mailbox planted with hens and chicks

Landis Farm

Prudy, Judy, Eileen at Landis Farm

Slowly, Spring

Daffodils

Slowly, slowly, spring is coming. I love winter, but I am officially over it and ready for spring. We've had a few teasers of warm days but then the next day it's 20 degrees.  Or it snows. So crazy.  Often March is a busy garden month, but not this year.  I've pruned my roses and cut back the ratty hellebore foliage but that's about it. It has been so long since I've taken any photos outside because it just seems like it's been gray and dreary for so long and there has been nothing worth taking a picture of.  I spent a few hours on Sunday and Monday outside, doing more cleanup and cutting back of perennials. It's always so rewarding to clear out the garden debris and see all the bulbs and perennials  starting to poke through. I've made my list of things to do in the garden, and now have officially begun the spring garden tasks.

Sedum

Iris pallida

Daffodils and Galanthus

Hellebores

Perennial garden, cleaned up

Last week Eileen and Prudy and I took a quick day trip to Pennsylvania, a pre-plant shopping trip. We stopped by a few of our favorite greenhouses to check out their inventory and it was kind fun to see all the flats of seedlings.  We just bought some pansies and primroses, and a few bags of the PA potting mix we like,  but we'll be back at the beginning of May for the big plant shopping.

Pretty hyacinths in PA

Spring fleurs in PA

Newswanger's Greenhouse, March 26

Henry's Farm and Greenhouses

One of the reasons we went to PA last week, in addition to seeing Longwood Gardens, was to visit our new favorite nursery, Henry's Farm and Greenhouses in Holtwood, PA. When we were there in the spring, people told us we had to come back in December for their Christmas Open House, and so that's where we went on Friday, after our usual PA breakfast of Weaver's bacon, eggs,  and sticky buns. Henry's is a greenhouse filled to the brim with plants, and outside are all kinds of cool holidays plantings, pots, greens, berries, lots of things to make your own arrangements. Inside are the poinsettias, and all the planted containers.  They had a great selection of all kinds of varieties of poinsettias, all colors and sizes, and many unusual varieties.

We loved all their little containers of potted bulbs, poinsettias, and mosses. They plant in all kinds of cool vintage containers.

These birdseed doughnuts were so cute! Lucky birds!

Christmas at Longwood Gardens

Last week Eileen, Prudy, and I took a short road trip to see the Christmas displays at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. We stopped first at Terrain, a very fancy garden shop and restaurant in Glen Mill, PA, to get some inspiration. They had beautiful displays of Christmas greens and trees,  wreaths, arrangements, and tons of potted bulbs. That arrangement of white amaryllis in the copper tub (above) was absolutely gorgeous. After shopping around a bit, we had lunch in their garden cafe and then were on our way to Longwood to see the conservatory and the sparkly lights in the gardens.

We loved these orange chairs at Terrain

Christmas trees at Terrain

Terrain

Pots at Terrain

Pots, vases, watering cans at Terrain

Potted hellebores at Terrain

Conservatory at Longwood

Prudy and Eileen at Longwood

Winterberry at Longwood

Conservatory at Longwood

Outdoor lights at Longwood

Outdoor fountain show at Longwood

Oh Henry's!

Every time we go to Lancaster County, we seem to find a new favorite place. This time, our friend Evelyn told us about Henry's greenhouse (about 40 minutes away) that she thought we would like. It is only open a few weekends in the spring because their main job is growing plants, which they supply to big institutions like Longwood Gardens. They were only open 8-12 on Saturday, and Evelyn suggested getting their right when they opened, so Eileen and I were up and on the road by 7 am, stopping first at Weavers for a chai latte. As soon as we drove down a windy country road and parked in the field,  we knew we had found a treasure. It's a big farm,  with a house, several barns and a greenhouse and lots of land.  It was just our kind of place.  Outside the greenhouse was a huge windmill with a chicken coop beneath, surrounded by all kinds of garden art and plants. We walked around that in a kind of daze, there was so much to look at.

The greenhouse was filled with plants, both annuals and perennials, very nice quality and lots of unusual stuff, including the best selection of specialty begonias I have ever seen. But what we loved the most were all the crazy containers they had planted--in pots, baskets, picture frames, and in a whole array of vintage containers.  The containers were hanging everywhere, on the walls, from the rafters, and in the middle of the tables filled with plants. There was an old push lawnmower planted with grasses. There were even old gutters hanging in the greenhouse, planted with succulents. Loved those.

Everywhere you looked there were little vignettes of plants--even the tiniest container like a pepper shaker contained a succulent or fern. I particularly liked these planted meat grinders!

Seeing potted containers like this little ceramic donkey made us want to go home and look for all those tchotkes we have laying around our houses that we could plant up. You can even plant an old toaster!

They had lots of these planted frames that you can hang or lay flat.

And lots of cool garden art, including this colorful peacock made from recycled metals.

We loved the way they combined plants, including even veggies in their containers.

We bought a few things, some unusual plants and we each bought a planted container, but mostly we got some great ideas. While we were there, we talked to several people from out of state who told us they come here twice every year, in the spring and at Christmas, which all said is just amazing. Guess  we'll be taking a day trip at Christmas time...

The enamelware bowl planted with succulents that I brought home