kt,

After reading your post I went to Google Maps (as opposed to just Google) and typed in "Nurseries Massachusetts" and instantly came up with quite an extensive list. At first glance it looks somewhat limited, but as you scroll in closer to the areas that are of interest to you additional nurseries just keep popping up! Give that a try and see if it will meet your needs.

Thanks Eric,
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to look at this dream of mine. I too did the "My Maps Search" the only problem with that and the gps Nusery search is it pulls up every tom, dick, and Home Depot. Frankly when I am on a long distance trip I am not willing to risk that a 20 minute drive from exit 33 could be hard+ware store+ that sells petunias. This same hard+ware +store could be a wonderful place for locals to buy non-box store material but that may not be what I am looking for. How do we Eric as serious gardeners map with reviews the more interesting nurseries along our interstates? Katy

Hi Katy,

I think it's a fabulous idea! I did something similar years back. I have sort of what I call my "Bucket List" of Horticultural Highlights. It includes nurseries, open days, GW members gardens, public gardens, etc. I spread out a tri-state area map on my kitchen table and started filling it with post-it notes. Not sure if I have time to help because I'm crazy busy getting ready for our garden club plant sale. After Mother's Day I might be able to help more.

And for sure - if you're coming through CT let me know. I'm always up for nursery hopping!

Virginia

Virginia,
I think of your moss garden often and consider it a model for moss gardens. What a great idea to include Horticultural Highlights in the mapping. Frankly after we have the plant stuff written in stone it might be great to include lunch stops, places to stay, points of interest, ect.

KT - now, why aren't you out working in your garden, instead of creating
maps? :-)

Of course, it's a great idea. . . but like Virginia, I tend to stuff all that related
info into a folder and then tediously refer to it whenever I'm headed out on
a trip. Now, if you ever decide to expand beyond NE, I could probably supply lots of info for NJ (along the Turnpike), PA (along I-95) and right on down
into North Carolina (which is LOADED with great nurseries!). How about if we
spend the growing season this year collecting information, and then, come
hibernation time, a bunch of us sit down at a BIG table, with endless pots of
coffee and collate all that info. And, I concur with your suggested criteria
that this map/list include ONLY interesting nurseries - places in CT and MA
(that I know) like Avant Gardens, Twombley, Logee, Variegated Plant Nursery,
WFF, Broken Arrow. There are any number of nurseries that I use, which
supply excellent plant material, but which I certainly wouldn't recommend
as "must see" destinations.

It's fascinating that you have even brought this subject up, but along with traveling far and wide to visit gardens in the Open Days program, I have been
an avid collector of "interesting" nurseries for decades. Keep us posted !

This is a great project and I hope it goes forward. Don't forget about that most interesting and useful book, "The Adventurous Gardener" by Ruah Donnelly. It's all about just the kind of New England nurseries you are talking about, altho not necessarily right off the interstate. And it came out awhile ago but most are still around. Any New England gardener should have this book--in the car at all times!

I just added "The Adventurous Gardener" to theFAQ on Recommended Books.

Thanks,
Claire

Oh, this is really a great idea. I use those specialized maps at google maps that other people have made, all the time when I'm traveling in far-away areas, and it would be wonderful to have something like that for garden shopping along I-95, I-90, etc etc.

I often am ready for a break from driving, on trips to NYC and environs or western MA, and would really like to know about nearby garden centers.

Also, by making this public, it could easily be kept up to date. A couple of years ago I spent over an hour looking for Sean Conway's nursery in RI, only to finally find it with a sign at the gate saying that it was closed, indefinitely.

So, yes, please do this and let us know how we can help!

Didn't someone make a list of nurseries here recently? Maybe it wasn't on this particular forum, but perhaps Perennials? Claire? You are our wonderful, organized poster here :) - did you make this list?

If you can find it, then perhaps you can use that. And maybe I'm repeating what was already said above, but I've seen a map where you can add things and they come up with big red pinpoints - is that the Google Maps everyone is talking about? If so, I apologize, but I was thinking if you could take that list and input the info into that map, you would have a good working start.

:)
Dee

Ah, here it is!

But man, I'm losing it. I swore this was a more recent thread than 2005, lol! And it was Sue, not Claire...

Anyway, if you can use some of the info from this list and use that pinpoint map to map them, would that be helpful?

:)
Dee

Here is a link that might be useful: nurseries

Wow, this is a great idea. The NE is loaded with lots of great nurseries that I have learned about by lurking here.

One's off of 95 I can think of are,

Weston's (Hopkinton, MA) The propagator of nearly every rhodie in my yard!

Blueview (Norton, MA)

Tranquil Lake Nursery (Rehobeth?, Ma) for the daylilly collector

Briggs Nursery

Bigelows (Northboro, MA)

Glad to see others would be interested in this project as well. I spent wayyyy too much time playing around on google maps this morning with little to report but I will keep you up to date with my progress. I decided to broaden the area of interest to;
Nurseries Along I 95 in the North East
Nurseries and horticultural highlights that can be found from Maine to Maryland within a short distance from I 95. (Yes I know there is the NJ turnpike/I95 issue but it looks as though Carl has been holding out on us as NJ is loaded with nurseries.)

I have Sedum Sues list from 2006 that I will go through and find those nurseries within a short drive from an I 95 exit. I will also post a list of google found nurseries near I-95 (not on SueÂs list) for your review. Now here is a question for you all When traveling long distance on an interstate, from the exit how far are you willing to travel to a nursery?

Well enough of this for now I am headed out into the wet and cold to go buy some plants.

When traveling long distance on an interstate, from the exit how far are you willing to travel to a nursery?

Never more than 4 hours, unless the detour is for a really good nursery. (LOL)

The straight answer is that it really does depend on how much of a draw the nursery it - maybe we can rate these, and instead of using stars to indicate how good they are we can use miles; how far out of the way we'd drive to visit a particular place.

Then again, it depends how far from home they are; if I've still got 3 or 4 hours of I-95 ahead of me I'm much less likely to take a 45 minute detour. By the time I get to the exit for Sylvan Nursery or Haskells, though, the time and distance no longer seem like a problem.

Now that I've seen Sue's massive PDF listing of nurseries in New England, it
kind of underlines kt's question above: "How far are you willing to travel from
an exit on I-95 to reach a nursery?" Well, as DTD says, "never more than four hours!", or, in my case, "As long as I don't have to cross more than two state lines. . ." Of that whole list, I managed to isolate perhaps three or
four that would actual warrant a special visit - as for all the others, as good as they might be in filling your needs, I have comparable nurseries right here.

So, now the question becomes: "Are we looking for nurseries that are truly
DESTINATIONS?" - or, perhaps, just a better-than-average nursery where we
can kill an hour, in order to break up the monotony of driving down I-95.
Is that distinction too subtle? And since plants, either for sale, or artfully
displayed, are what most of us are interested in, couldn't this listing include
interesting/unusual gardens along the same route?

And here's another wrinkle you may not have thought of south of New York:
technically, the NJ Turnpike CEASES to be I-95 when it intersects I-195. . .
to actually "continue on Interstate 95" you must go west on I-195, then north
on I-295, which becomes the official I-95 when you cross the Delaware River
into Pennsylvania ! Look at a map - it's a crazy complication, but there's the
usual convoluted story behind it (another time!). This "real" section of I-95
passes south through Philadelphia and rejoins the terminus of the NJ Turnpike at the Delaware Memorial Bridge. My only reason for pointing this
out: there are some great gardens and nurseries along this "official" section of
I-95 in Pennsylvania. . .

Possible Name: YOUR EXIT STRATEGY / The Interstate-95 Northeast Corridor Plant & Garden Guide

Carl

You both made some interesting points, there are some very fine lines in this project. To limit our list to nurseries and hort. places of interest located within a certain distance from the highway may eliminate some really worthy places. Of course what immediately comes to mind is to include distance and drive time from the highway in the description, this however may become problematic if it includes every nursery and hort. place of interest in that area the list maybe come so long that sorting through it all becomes impractical. Should we ask GW members to rate via five stars different places and exclude the lower rated ones?
Carl Great Name

Now you have raised some MORE problems: if we ask GW members to rate
the different "destinations", you are going to get a fairly skewed rating if only
one or two GW folks have ever been there. Example: there may be the odd
nursery or novel garden just off the NJ Turnpike that only one GW person (like me!) might ever have been to. . .does my 5-star rating make it a "must-see"?
I'd be the first to admit that someone else might find it only a 2-star. . .after
all, this is very subjective material. Perhaps a tight, concise commentary on
each "destination" would serve us better, possibly even following a standardized format. . .that way, we could each "read between the lines" and
apply our individual value judgements as to whether we deem it worthy of a
visit. And certainly in my case, I'd be more than happy to elaborate further
on a particular destination I was familiar with, if someone needed greater
feedback. . .following in that vein, perhaps a listing (w/ permission, of course) of those GW folks who had visited and/or recommended each location? Too complex?

As to your concern about eliminating "worthy" destinations if they are "too
far" from I-95: providing mileage (at least) , and possibly estimated driving time from an exit, should be a given starting point. Would I recommend visiting Chanticleer as you're cruising down I-95 south of Philadelphia, even
though it's 15 miles from Exit #7?. . . in a heartbeat! What if you're over on
the NJ Turnpike, a distance of 26 miles from Exit #2 ? . . .still, in a heartbeat!
Shouldn't people know that Longwood Gardens is just 11 miles from Exit #7
(I-95 in Delaware), or that Wintherthur is a mere 6 miles from the same exit?

All these hypothetical destinations point up two more criteria that might be
important: best time (season) to visit (Chanticleer = only open April to October, no bad time; Longwood Gardens = year-round interest because of
the conservatory; Winterthur = Spring). . .and perhaps a minimum length of
time for a visit, which in the case of all these three, at least, would be half a day! In other words, these three are examples of destinations that you would
decidedly want to include on an otherwise mundane trip down I-95, but
they are NOT hour-long breaks in an otherwise tedious journey. The ideal,
to me, would be a core of "casual", near-by nursery/garden breaks along any given route, but making sure to point up I-95's proximity to major destinations as well, even if it means traveling an extra 25 miles (or up to an hour?). Of course, any listing would include a web address (if available) to
inform folks of hours and/or fees.

This whole subject seems to get more convoluted with every key stroke! Yet,
it still fascinates me. . .years ago, there was a wonderful book listing healthy/
interesting off-the-beaten-path places to eat when you traveled the country.
Sadly, given the flux inherent in the restaurant trade, the book was quickly
out-of-date and I've never been aware of any similar replacement (anyone?).
This project has a very similar feel to it, and especially if it included garden
sites, might prove more lasting. . .and once I-95 in the NorthEast is nailed
down, we can start radiating outward onto I-90, I-76, I-78, I-80, I-84,
I-91, I-87, California, here we come !

Carl

Carl,
Is this what happens when you have that second cup of coffee on Sunday mornings? LOL
You have some great suggestions. A number of issues you have raised have been resolved by technology, for example Google maps will tell us the distance and drive time from the highway exit to the location. Oddly enough exit numbers seem to be a fly in the ointment as they are numerically different depending on what direction you are traveling.
I think your suggestion to come up with a standardized format will be crucial, but I am not sure how best to do that. I also love the addition of best season to visit.
There are so many frame work issues to resolve before we start with the nitty gritty of choosing which places to include on the list. Right now I am struggling with the decision whether this list should be public or private. If it is a public document updating the list is more likely to happen, on the other hand so is the likely integrity of our particular vision.
More later