Is Spring really here? YEA!

Send ALL EMAIL correspondence to smallplants@gmail.com until further notice.

Now that I've gotten that little bit of administrative annoyance out of the way...Welcome to Spring! Here are a few shots of my 'helpers' around the nursery...

(yea, that's my boy with a pink watering can. He stole it from my daughter!)

Yes, Spring is here. God plans it that way every year, yet we still get so excited to see it again. I'm so glad we finally got rid of that pesky snow that just kept coming and coming this year. Normally we get just one or two dustings of snow each winter, but this year was a BIG exception. Luckily we never got around to putting the plastic on the hoop house and it's a good thing as you will see below. Most all the plants did just fine, except for the Geisha Hollies...lost every one! For some reason, all the hollies around our area suffered this winter. There is a very large pair of chinese hollies between here and my daughter's school that have large dead branches in them now. Clearly, they've been around a long time, but this winter did some serious damage.

This is what our greenhouse looks like with a cozy blanket of snow. Quite picturesque, really.



The first snowfall we had was the deepest and it took out our covered greenhouse, which thankfully was empty. It used to be our propagation house when we first got started in this business, but has not been used since last winter. Once we get it cleaned up though, it will become a new shade house like it's neighbor, so I'm looking forward to that.


The bright side is that Spring has now arrived and it's very near time to set your garden plan in motion. We are working on a major renovation to our website this year, so hopefully you'll see some big changes real soon.

Email delays

To all my customers: We are not getting an automatic email from Paypal when orders are being placed. It is causing a delay in getting a confirmation email back to you, so bear with us when you order. The reason is, our website is woefully out of date and since I bear the "web design" tag too, it hasn't been updated yet which causes problems with Paypal.

I sincerely apologize. Feel free to email me directly when you place an order and I'll try to respond more quickly. Right now, I'm only able to check our Paypal account on the weekend.

Thanks for your understanding!
Kelly McCartney
SmallPlants.Com

New grafts coming in!

We were very pleased to see some new grafts show up at the nursery this week. Among them were some new plants that we'll be adding to the website eventually, Disanthus cercidifolius 'Rikyu', Acer palmatum 'Enkan', and Viburnum dilatatum which is a dwarf form originating from Japan. Also a neat one to add to our Unusual Plants site, Nyssa sylvatica 'Zydeco Twist' which has a contorted form similar to Harry Lauder's Walking Stick.

Some of our regular web listings that have been out of stock for a while were also delivered, Muresaki kiyohime and Red Pygmy Japanese Maples. Look for them to come online next year.

Is there a 'spring' in your step?

It's sure does look like spring around here! Many weeping cherries are flowering everywhere, daffodils are all but done, forsythias are in full blaze, spireas are just getting to their peak, the bradford pears (don't let me catch you with one of these in your yard!) are almost done flowering, and the crabapples are also just fabulous right now. I finally had a chance to grab my camera and head up to the greenhouse to capture some action while the baby was taking a nap. Here's what I found:

This is one of my favorites! A dwarf baldcypress called Peve Minaret. It's just starting to send out it's new needles for the year. They look neat when they're in their "nobby" stage. Here is a Pixie Japanese Maple whose just starting to push out new leaves. They have a silky look to them at this stage.
And finally, this is our weeping Katsura called Morioka Weeping which is planted on our property. I just wanted to show that the outside plants are perking up too.
That's it for now. Thanks for visiting!
Kelly

The big announcement! There is a new addition to our nursery staff...we were blessed to have a beautiful baby boy, Logan, on Feb 12th. Once I can get some semblance of a schedule going, we'll resume shipping. Hopefully in a week or two. Thanks everyone for your patience!
On another note, during my 7th month I was making an attempt to revamp our entire website. It's still ongoing and several of the current buy now buttons are not working. Please email me if you are having trouble ordering and I can invoice you directly for the plants you want. Thanks again for your patience in this area too! Kelly McCartney