Spring Greening

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A local garden shop guide

Chaves Gardens
935 East Main Road, Middletown, 846-0623

Best for: Annuals, perennials, specimen trees
Chaves is also a florist, so flowers—annuals, perennials—are a big deal. But don’t overlook the high-quality trees. We inquired about a lovely Japanese snowbell (a small deciduous tree with a rounded canopy that flowers in June) and were awarded a half-hour informative tour of scores of trees equally suited for a home landscape. To name just a few: American yellowwood, honey locust and linden (great for attracting bees to the garden). Our guide recited the pros and cons of each to help us determine which type would be most likely to settle in and then left us alone to deliberate. More than courteous, the staff seemed dedicated to matching the right tree to the right gardeners and eager to share knowledge. If you’re making a high-ticket purchase, such attention—plus a lovely tree—is worth the stop.

Peckham’s Greenhouse
200 West Main Road, Little Compton
635-4775, rifarmway.org

Best for: Annuals, perennials, rock garden plants
Many of the beautiful gardens in Little Compton and Newport owe much to this nursery. Peckham’s impeccable reputation for abundant, healthy stock stretches way back. There’s not a chance you won’t find your all-time favorite bed and border flowers, from peonies, roses and lamb’s ears to salvia and black-eyed Susans. In recent years, their diminutive alpines and rock plants such as the sedums and saxifrages, though, have also gained notoriety. Perfect for a small garden and easy care, some of these compact plants will tolerate a bit of shade, too. If you feel overwhelmed with choices, don’t hesitate to ask for assistance. Peckham’s has also been long touted for having one of the friendliest staffs around.

Avant Gardens
710 High Hill Road, Dartmouth, Massachusetts
508-998-8819, avantgardensne.com

Best for: Rock garden plants (miniature evergreens are a specialty), annuals, tender perennials, perennials
Avant Garden’s appealing ambience is due to its intimate size and the fact that it’s tucked behind a lovely eighteenth-century farmhouse. Still, though it feels more like a visit to a friend’s garden rather than a nursery, there’s a premier plant selection with a heavy emphasis on the unusual. A thriving shipping business dictates a good range of pot sizes, and—a real joy for visitors—every specimen is clearly marked with an identifying label and price. Containers abound, too, among them cement containers made on the premises for trough gardens (think succulents, small conifers, four-inch hostas and Lilliputian lady’s mantle, all available). The informative catalog, if you haven’t snagged one already, is a real keeper, sure to fan your enthusiasm for trying something different. Perhaps our new love, tube clematis, a sun/part-shade vine meant to sprawl rather than climb?

Seven Arrows Farm
346 Oakhill Avenue, Seekonk/Attleboro, Massachusetts
508-399-7860, sevenarrowsfarm.com

Best for: Hostas, bamboo, grasses, herbs
For all those who look down their noses at shade-loving hostas, a visit to Seven Arrows will be life changing. Roomy raised beds hold an array of well-labeled varieties, many with catchy, lipstick-like names: ‘Fire and Ice,’ ‘Diva,’ ‘A Many Splendored Thing.’ By mid-summer, the hostas have reached maturity and many are flowering. This is an idyllic time to judge which types will mesh with your landscape. Numerous ornamental grasses and low-maintenance bamboo—both the clumping and more invasive running types—are also on hand if you’re hoping to establish a hedge or blur the neighbors. Herbs, which put the nursery on the map to begin with (herb classes are available and herbs are for sale in the shop), are plentiful. And giving weight to the rumor that an afternoon at Seven Arrows is good for the soul and the senses, there are sometimes monarchs sunning on the fiery butterfly milkweed. Don’t leave before checking out the pretty perennials and tea room.

Briggs Nursery
295 Kelley Boulevard, North Attleboro, Massachusetts
508-699-7421, briggsgarden.com

Best for: Annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs
Spring 2008 is the opening of the nursery’s new greenhouses and well-appointed garden center. We don’t know how it can get much better. Annuals and perennials are cleverly broken into groups according to the color of the flowers or foliage. Mat-forming pink speedwell, not lavender, for instance, keeps company with rosy dianthus. Wind your way through the endless shrubs and trees, and the same level of organization applies. Japanese maple, umbrella pine, weeping blue atlas cedar: The choices are heady and include many not seen elsewhere, like the deciduous flowering shrub Harry Lauder’s walking stick, a winter interest winner. In addition, there are innumerable pots in luscious colors and glazes, water fountains, essential tools and decorations—more than any one gardener (need shoes, gloves, hats?) could use in a lifetime. “We’ve got quite a range,” owner Gary Briggs says. He’s not kidding.

Roseland Nursery
247 Main Street, Acushnet, Massachusetts
800-777-2292, roselandroses.com

Best for: Roses
Prepare to be blown away; there’s every type of rose you could possibly want, from floribundas, hybrids and climbers to shrubs, antiques and English, with many more in between. Rather than standing about willy-nilly, these plants are sensibly corralled in sunken beds in front of individual signs that clearly identify them by species, name and habit. If you’ve read about a certain rose and want to actually make its acquaintance before you invite it home, here’s your chance. A welcoming atmosphere tames the intimidation fledgling rose growers often experience. Why, tips can even be gleaned from fellow customers. On this particular day, the gardener next to us drew our attention to ‘Eureka,’ a yellow-flowered floribunda with, as he pointed out, pleasing glossy green foliage. The nursery’s catalog is an invaluable guide to what’s what and includes planting instructions.

The Potting Shed
711 Union Street, Portsmouth, 847-2183

Best for: Herbs, perennials, shrubs
If you’re in need of inspiration, the Potting Shed, with its winding paths, romantic scrambling vines and charming garden buildings, is a must see. Not only are you likely to come away with a plant or two, but you’ll also gain fresh ideas on how to forge a similar ambience (it’s a lot more complex than you think). Seemingly a happy accident of nature, this unique nursery is actually a fine-tuned composition with an abundance of shrubs, flowers—okay, maybe a few might be self-sowed—and herbs elbowing one another. Long-stemmed butterfly bush and Japanese willow are just two show stoppers. The combinations of textures and colors playing off the stone paths and walls give gardeners a different way of looking at things. Really, multiple visits are the only way to drink it all in.