About Us

We are a nursery specializing in the cultivation of herbaceous ornamental wildflowers, grasses, and select hybrids and cultivars. In creating our plant selection, particular attention is given to plants that are reliable – hardy, robust-growing, long-lived, and low-maintenance – while embodying a more natural or wild aesthetic.  It is the very same selection of plants we as designers use to practice the art of naturalistic planting design, a practice that, through much trial and error, greatly informs our decision of which plants to carry.  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

Because nature is in constant change from season to season, our interest is not only that a plant looks natural, but that over time its appearance reflects this change, all the while remaining beautiful, known as having a “long season of interest”, and thereby helping to keep our gardens attractive from spring into winter.  And in temperate climates in particular, such as Maine, the quality of a plant that best fits this criterion is its structure, or plant architecture, which has as much to do with a plant’s overall appearance as with the shape of its inflorescence or flower head – spike, button, globe, plume, daisy, umbel, etc. –  and the persistence of both over time.  Whereas flowers themselves, and their color, are much more ephemeral, with very few perennial plants blooming all season long.  Thus, from a design perspective, color could be seen as an important, but added extra.

The commercial plant industry continues to entice the public with an ever-increasing selection of plants.  Yet, in our opinion, many newly introduced hybrids and cultivars are often redundant, no better than already existing, tried and true forms.  Thus, from these new introductions, we carefully pick and choose.  Professional trials for some of the more popular genera, native and non-native, can be found on the website of Mt. Cuba Center, as well as those of other organizations.  Sometimes we ourselves select new cultivars for our nursery, the result of the genetic diversity found within the seeds we sow.  A description with the words “A local selection” means a plant has been propagated from locally found stock.

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 designed gardens.  Along with the use of natural-looking plants with a long season of interest, it is the placement of these plants that further distinguishes this design approach from others, in which plants are laid out not only in blocks, but also intermingled.  And with a much greater use of grasses, such plantings immediately evoke the beauty of a natural grassland, such as a meadow or prairie.  No matter the source of inspiration or the style, it is always a living, participatory process that entails the gardener having both artistic vision and a basic understanding of the scientific disciplines of ecology, biology, and botany, making it wholly unique as an art form.  Complete artistic expression is still 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 and planting 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 also 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 plant and animal species can be found.