The Elisabeth C. Miller's Guide to Sources for Plants - 2004
The growth of gardening as a hobby and the increasing use of technology have made finding plants for your garden easier than ever. With hundreds of nurseries in the Puget Sound region alone, an avid gardener need not rely solely on one neighborhood nursery and the local Super Store for garden plants. The challenge of finding unique plants to put in one's garden has made the library an ever more important resource to the gardening community. The books and online databases available at Miller Library will enable you to find plant sources from around the country. This guide is intended to clarify the array of choices you have when coming to the library in search of your perfect plant.
Traditionally the
first stop for many Northwest gardeners has been the Miller Library's
own tried and true collection of over 1000 nursery, bulb, and seed
catalogs.
The catalogs are indexed by type of plant, location, and nursery name.
Finding nurseries
specializing in clematis, or located in Arlington, for example, is really
quite easy. Other people may simply want to get their hands on the
latest
catalog from Forest Farm Nursery. The catalogs themselves are often attractive
publications filled with eye-catching pictures and illustrations.
As you
browse through the collection you'll enjoy learning about nurseries you
never knew existed, some of them in your own backyard, so to speak.
PDF List of the Miller Library's Nursery Catalogs (81 pages)
Try
Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs for nurseries organized by
categories such as grasses, bulbs or tools. Many nurseries are a click away,
but some still maintain a low-tech print only catalogs, so require a phone call,
or even a letter to request a catalog.
http://www.gardenlist.com/
The Mailorder Gardening Association also lists
its member nurseries by category. This site advises consumers
on how to order and receive plants through the mail successfully.
http://www.mailordergardening.com/index.cfm
Google Catalogs is not what it used to be, but still provides a virtual cyber catalog experience. Thousands of mail-order catalogs have
been scanned
and made searchable, but only a handful of plant and garden catalogs are current. A general Google search of the plant name and the word "nursery" often yields great results.
http://catalogs.google.com
Garden Watchdog Guide to Gardening by Mail
Dave’s Garden is a long time gardening community site with forums, a plant description database and other features, much of it for free. Garden Watchdog harnesses one of the more potent Internet developments: the customer review. Plant hunters should search the Watchdog database for over 28,000 customer reviews of 5,000 vendors and nurseries before buying.
http://davesgarden.com/gwd/
Specialty Nursery
Guide Western Washington Edition is a free pamphlet that contains
maps, descriptions and an index of plant types and services for 80 specialty
nurseries in Western Washington. Write to them at 20055 235th Ave S.E., Maple Valley,
WA 98038 for a free copy. Or visit them on the web.
http://specialtynurseries.org
FindNurseries.com
offers a National Directory of Nurseries and related
businesses organized by state. The individual listing are very basic, consisting
of only the nursery name, address and phone number. Although the search options
claim a search can be made of general plant types, in fact this kind of searching
doesn't work well. However searching for a city or zip code does work.
http://www.findnurseries.com/
Online plant finding services come and go, but the idea is appealing - one focused database to search multiple suppliers.
The best
choice would be Andersen Horticultural Library's Plant Information Online. This free
online index of nursery catalogs and gardening literature has earned
the distinction of being the first place library staff use to look for sources. From home you can find out about subscription
information. Need to fill you garden with plants? Come into the library to access our account on your own. You can search
for mail-order nursery stock throughout the United States and Canada by
genus, species, or variety. Results give full nursery contact information and links to those that have web sites. An added feature of the Plant
Information Online index is the capability to generate a list of books and magazine
articles on the specific plant for which you're searching. Nurseries are not charged for being included in the database, they need only send their catalog to Andersen Library.
http://plantinfo.umn.edu/default.asp
PlantScout from Dave’s Garden searches listings from 150 vendors (as of Oct. 2006). Searching for a plant will generate a list of linked nurseries who report to selling it. From the results page, the plant name link goes to the Plant Files database; “purchase” goes to the nursery’s web site; while the nursery name link goes to a list of all the plants offered by that nursery. The nursery inventory page has a link to the Garden Watchdog customer review page for that nursery. Vendors pay a yearly fee to include their inventory in the database, but it is free to visitors.
http://davesgarden.com/ps/
findmyroses.com will help you locate that rose you're
looking for. They have information for over 6,100 varieties and species, many with sources.
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/index.php?tab=1
eSeeds.com, a British based company, acts as a distributor of many international seed company’s seed packets. eSeeds.com ships internationally and is not charging shipping charges in 2007 to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
http://www.eseeds.com/
Growit.com is wholesale, and mostly lists Southeast USA growers. http://www.growit.com/index.htm
Library staff use the (British) Royal Horticultural Society PlantFinder database more for plant name verification than finding a mail-order source simply because importing plants into the USA is tricky. Still, confirming a plant is commercially available may encourage the intrepid plant hunter to keep trying.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder.asp
Northwest Native Plants
Northwest native plants are no longer so difficult to locate because of the recent surge of interest in sustainable and environmental gardening. Native plant societies and local governments not only encourage the use of native plants in the landscape, but also provide resource lists of regional nurseries where plants or seeds can be purchased.
Locally, we are lucky to have the help of King Conservation District, King County Department of Natural Resources and the Washington Native Plant Society. All have compiled a list of nurseries offering both seeds and transplants of northwest native plants. The WNPS site also includes a number of good articles about gardening with native plants.
Nationally, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center provides a list of suppliers that can be searched by region, state or city; while the North American Native Plant Society maintains a directory of state native plant societies for the US and Canada.
For serious eco-restorationists, the origin of the native plant seed is critical.
The Native Seed Network is a service offered by the non-profit
Institute for Applied Ecology and the Bureau of Land Management to help people
find sources for plant material from specific eco-regions. Go to the Market
Place to search for seed sources.
https://www.nativeseednetwork.org
Today, the majority of nurseries in business to do mail-order have websites with up-to-date inventory. But before the Web became common in most households and libraries serious plant hunters used books to the plants they couldn't live without. Consider the following list of recommended books as resources for research, if a bit outdated.
Plant Locator Western Region, 2004 is the latest entry in the
growing ranks of plant finding aids. Published by Black-Eyed Susans Press and
Timber Press of Portland, Oregon. Plant Locator includes 50,000 plant listings
from 320 nurseries in the western United States. Nurseries from Oregon are
especially well represented. The authors paid particular close attention to
questions of nomenclature confusion. The nursery index at the end of the plant
listing has some nice touches, including a brief description of each nursery's
specialty and a web site address if available. The book's web site includes
information on ordering the book, updates to the newest edition, and numerous
links to northwest nurseries, plant societies and horticultural education sites.
http://www.blackeyedsusanspress.com/
Now in its ninth edition, Northwest Gardener's Resource Directory has become something of a necessity in gardening households throughout the Northwest. Its chapter on Northwest nurseries is of primary interest here. The narrative profiles of Washington and Oregon nurseries are a combination of history, personal knowledge, and practical information. The colorful writing gives the reader a sense for the character of the nurseries described. Gardeners not necessarily looking for a particular genus or species but still having a fairly good idea as to what they want (e.g. aquatic plants, trees, roses, etc.) will prefer the approach of a list such as this.
Cornucopia II and Garden Seed Inventory are two books vegetable gardeners won't want to miss. Cornucopia II is a directory of sources for over three thousand varieties of plants grown as food crops. Sources listed are worldwide and the scope of this amazing directory is comprehensive. Small-scale and alternative farmers, cooks and gourmet food aficionados, and adventurous vegetable gardeners will appreciate this resource. For gardeners who get a sense of satisfaction in growing plants exclusively from seed, then look for the Garden Seed Inventory, published by Seed Savers Exchange, now in its fifth edition. This catalog provides access to every non-hybrid vegetable variety available through mail-order seed companies in the U.S. and Canada.
Fruit enthusiast will want
to check out Fruit, Berry and Nut Inventory another guide published
by the Seed Savers Exchange, now in its third edition. Not only does this book
list sources for thousands of fruit and nut varieties, but it also gives a
description of the fruit, often including plant habit and size, pollination
needs, ripening time and hardiness zones. Some entries also include a bit of
historic information like who developed the fruit or the parent plants of a
hybrid.
http://www.seedsavers.org
Gardeners willing to jump
through a few hoops to import plant will want to use The Seed Search and
the RHS Plant Finder. The Seed Search, in its fifth edition,
lists 40,000 plants available from seeds, including over 9,000 vegetables from
around the world. Most nurseries are located in Great Britain, but also include
the US, Brazil, Australia, South Africa and others. The RHS Plant Finder, now
in its sixteenth edition, is the standard bearer of the plant source genre
published by the Royal Horticultural Society. Considered an authority for nomenclature,
the Plant Finder also relays additional information such as if a plant
won an award, has doubled flowers or which classification the plant belongs
to within its type (e.g. a damask rose is designated with a "D").
This book is useful simply for its reference value, even if you don't plan
to start importing. It's also free available online.
http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder.asp
To research how to import
plants go to USDA APHIS web site to read the regulations and restrictions
and download permit PPQ form 587, and then call 206-764-6547 for additional
guidance.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq/permits/index.html