About Us

We are a specialty nursery growing herbaceous ornamental wildflowers, grasses, and select hybrids and cultivars. In creating our plant selection particular attention has been given to plants that are hardy, robust-growing, and low-maintenance while embodying a more natural and wild aesthetic.  It is the same selection of plants we as designers use to practice the art of naturalistic planting design.  Our sales approach is hands-on and we go to great lengths to help customers understand the plants in our nursery from both an ecological and design perspective, which often includes a guided tour of the nursery’s display gardens.

Naturalistic Planting Design

Nature is in a state of constant and dynamic change from season to season, and our focus is on herbaceous perennial plants that reflect this change while remaining beautiful, thereby keeping our gardens attractive from spring into winter.  Plants that embody this important characteristic are known as having a “long season of interest”.  In temperate climates such as Maine, the aesthetic quality of a plant that most often persists is its structure, and thus this plays a particularly important role, whereas color is best seen as an important yet added extra.  Ultimately we chose to grow a plant not for its rarity or popularity but for the artistic effect it contributes to the garden as a whole.

We are keenly aware of the ongoing effort in the commercial plant industry to entice the public with an ever-increasing selection of plants. In our opinion, newly introduced hybrids and cultivars are often no better than already existing tried and true cultivars and species, and feel this often leads to confusing the gardener rather than enlightening. From these new introductions, we pick and choose carefully. One exception is the renewed interest and introduction of native plant cultivars which we believe is a very promising and beneficial trend.  Professional trials for certain important genera can be found on the website of Mt. Cuba Center.  That said, we actively select new plants for our nursery.  These new selections not only result from the genetic diversity found within the seeds we sow but also from our effort in ‘plant hunting’ when from season to season we explore different local habitats to find indigenous plants with unique qualities.  As new introductions such plants have the added benefit of potentially helping to support a wider array of wildlife while introducing new possibilities in design.  When looking through our plant selection, a description with the words “A local selection” means it has been propagated from local genetic stock.  A visit to the ocean and the shores and tributaries of Merrymeeting Bay, as well as fragments of sandplain grassland, meadows, open woodlands, and even roadsides, each with its unique and diverse flora, provide continuing inspiration.

Naturalistic planting design is an aesthetic grounded in the natural world, and inspiration is found as much in the spontaneous beauty of natural areas as in highly designed gardens.  No matter the source of inspiration, gardening remains a living process that requires not only artistic vision but a basic understanding of the scientific disciplines of ecology, biology, and botany, altogether making it wholly unique as an art form.  Complete artistic expression is not yet achieved until all those creatures that flutter and buzz, creep, and crawl, find refuge in the plantings we create not only for us but for them.  As both gardeners and nature lovers our goal is to inspire and encourage imagination in the art of garden design with particular attention given to the dynamic beauty and emotion of nature.

Display/Demonstration Gardens

Campo di Fiori and its display gardens are not only a showcase for the natural beauty of plants but a place of ongoing experimentation in designing with them.  Every year and every season is different, and like all gardens, they are by nature forever works in progress.

Perennial Meadow

Traveling past the sales area and through the white pine hedge is the largest display garden known as the Perennial Meadow. Here is the greatest diversity of plants with strong and long-lasting structures artistically juxtaposed in an informal, open-border, meadow-like planting.  The heavy clay loam supports large clumps of Calamagrostis, Filipendula, Eupatorium, Panicum, and Vernonia, which rise above a semi-matrix of Sesleria, intermingled with clumps of Sedum, Allium, Liatris, Echinacea, Persicaria, Penstemon, and Zizia, among several others.  This garden is at its height of visual interest from mid-summer into late fall. A path runs through the center of the meadow allowing one to immerse oneself amongst the plants and animal life and to experience the planting more intimately and from different angles.

Deschampsia/Calamagrotis Meadow

This garden is located in and around the lower nursery area and parking lot and is a minimalistic matrix-type planting largely dominated by the grasses Deschampsia ‘Bronzeschlier’, a native cultivar, and Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’.  Both have a very long season of interest and thus can be used in large masses effectively. From these emerge a minority of forbs such as Rudbeckia maxima and Digitalis ferruginea.

Carex Woodland Meadow

This garden is located in the upper nursery area and is another example of a matrix-type planting.  Under the semi-shade of a giant red oak tree, in well-drained silt loam soil, we are challenged to make a shade garden adapted to our increasingly dry summers and that remains attractive through the seasons.  Here Carex muskingumensis, an ornamental sedge native to the Great Lakes region, is the primary matrix plant that creates the woodland meadow-like feel.  Growing within the matrix of Carex are Geranium maculatum ‘Alba’, Smilicina racemosa, Blephilia hirsuta, Hosta ‘Krossa Regal, and the statuesque ornamental grass Spodiopogon sibiricus, among others.  A sitting area in the middle of this planting overlooks the fields that foreground the Cathance River wetland.

Nature Walk

For those interested in nature study or just wanting to take a walk, a mown path provides an opportunity to explore the fields and edges of the designated conservation land surrounding the nursery and the Cathance River.  Bluebirds, bobolinks, tree and barn swallows, and a nesting pair of bald eagles are often seen utilizing and nesting in or around the fields.  From here the adventurous may make their way onto the abandoned railroad bed and walk along and through the middle of the wetland and riparian areas adjoining the river where a whole other mix of native plant and animal species can be found.