I think this nursery is both very overpriced, not the most ecologically sound in their selection, and not the most informative in their catalogue, although they do do a few things well. I'm reviewing them for their mail-order catalogue (and I know a number of people who have ordered from them). I have never visited their physical location.
I don't know the prices on all plants, but of the plants which I have experience comparison shopping for, many have astronomical prices in the catalogue here. For a particularly egregious example, I wanted to order Virginia Bluebell bulbs, and I see them being sold here for $17 for a single bulb! This is a ridiculous price for a plant that self-seeds and is relatively easy to grow. I can buy a whole plant at local nurseries here in PA for $8. This is just one example.
The catalogue also provides precious little information about ideal growing conditions for most plants. Each listing does contain very brief information on sun requirements, but only in the form of a little icon that shows either full sun, part sun, or shade. A few plants mention soil or moisture requirements, but most do not. When I buy a plant, I want more info. I want to know the plant's native range, I want to know whether it prefers wet, mesic, or dry conditions. I want to know both the plant's ideal conditions, and what it can tolerate or survive in. I want to know if it likes loamy soil, or rocky/gravely soil, or clay soil. I want to know if it can tolerate flooding or standing water, or drought. And I want to know what plants it can grow around (for example, which flowers can be grown under black walnuts? Which can out-compete ivy and other aggressive groundcovers? Which tolerate crowding by other tall plants? etc.). And with sun I want more info. This catalogue provides barely any of this info.
One thing that I think is a little better about the catalogue is that it does provide information about deer resistance, and plants that attract hummingbirds or butterflies. This info is useful, and from my experience, the information provided is pretty accurate.
My last, and probably biggest complaint about this nursery is that their selection seems very deficient in native plants, and particularly, in pure / straight species. In many species (like Columbine, Wild Ginger, and many others) this place actually ONLY stocks the non-native, in spite of the native species being quite beautiful and easy to grow (I love the red-flowering Columbine native to E. North America).
What few native plants they have, like black-eyed susans, asters, and trout lily, are hybrids and cultivars, which have little to no value for ecological restoration purposes. The hybrids and cultivars also lack genetic diversity, which I find can be problematic for establishing a population long-term in your garden. They may look showy at first, but I've found that they're less likely to naturalize the way I want.
I like to garden in such a way that my garden is itself a nature preserve, providing a seed source for locally native plants that can then seed out into surrounding wild areas. This nursery is not a good choice for my needs because an overwhelming majority of their stock is non-native, and the few natives they have are mostly hybrids or cultivars.
The few native plants that are straight species, the catalogue doesn't identify the source of the plants. This can be an issue for species with a big range. For example, they sell Asclepius tuberosa, Butterflyweed--which is a strikingly beautiful plant. But this plant has a huge range, from California to Maine and New Brunswick, south to Florida and Texas. If I'm ordering in Texas, I want to order from a local population because it'll be more adapted to local conditions, whereas if I'm ordering from, say, Connecticut, then, similarly, I'd want a population from somewhere in New England or nearby.
I am surprised at how behind the times this place seems. But I would encourage them to update their catalogue. A few relatively easy changes could make a big difference. I would really love to see them: (a) offer native versions of plants, preferentially to non-native plants, in the cases like Columbine or Wild ginger, where there are both native and non-native versions (b) provide more detailed information about the growing requirements of each plant, in their catalogue (c) sell more straight species and fewer cultivars and hybrids (d) identify what geographic regions the plants in question have been taken from, which would be very useful for buyers, when buying plants that have a very large and diverse native range. Maybe then their high prices would be justified! read more