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For The Love Of Plants
by Mary Jasch
White Flower Farm in Litchfield, Connecticut, is a destination. Driving up Route 63, the gardener first notices the retail store surrounded by lavish display and test gardens. The old barn and stables from living gone by still stand at the top of the drive toward the greenhouses.
The farm sells annuals and perennials the old-fashioned way they grow them first. And the few they don't grow, they hand¬pick.
White Flower Farm is mostly a mail order business ¬ a farm with a marketing firm attached, according to its owner Eliot Wadsworth. But it's not just about propagation and sales. Shipping is a major deal and after a plant has passed decorative, horticultural and storage tests, it must pass the big one ¬ shipping. Everything about a variety is tabulated, once it calls the farm home.
"We want people to succeed with our plants. We can't just go to a public garden and say 'I love this plant, let's sell it.'"
The plethora of conditions in the 34 greenhouses are precise and a study in differentials. Some do like it hot, others like it cool. Some houses are moist with wet pads under plants and misters; others are dry.
In the house for seedlings, heating coils on timers coddle newly germinated sage and heliotrope but other flowers, like cleome and columbine, prefer to sprout in temperatures more reminiscent of spring.
Verbena 'homestead' purple branches and blooms all over the tables of one house. Ren Beaulieu, marketing director, says it grows wild in Georgia and is known to survive a 10 degree temperature.
Some annual seedlings grow in cooler greenhouses. Another house protects a mini¬forest of potted standards, while others shelter test plants and stock plants. In still more houses, holiday bloomers like peachy abutilon and a pink tubular¬flowered fuschia are being groomed for photography.
In the topiary house, Laurel Saramak trains and grows over 300 standards, including clematis on bamboo that gardeners can over¬winter in a garage and fragrant heliotrope. Trial¬test plants pack the tables: 'dipped in wine' and rattlesnake coleus, and 'Voo Doo,' a blood red abutilon.
In the big fridge in the cold house, plants stay dormant before shipping. And hemerocallis, Siberian and Japanese iris, hostas, phlox, monarda and peonies cover flower fields .
The range of cultural requirements is so extensive that the farm's database has details about each variety, so customers can be assured of having their questions answered.
In the propagation house, Jim Farnham lifts a hefty¬rooted sedum and plants it into a mix of sand and compost. Succulents are an issue here given recent years of drought conditions. Among the succulent trial¬tests, the farm studies how long it takes to get a finished crop, do the plants like it cool or warm at night, and whether or not they'll survive the mail. For that, they ship plants to all corners of the US map in different packing materials.
"Sometimes we find something that's just wonderful but won't survive the mail," says Ms. Beaulieu. "We want people to succeed with our plants. We can't just go to a public garden and say 'I love this plant, let's sell it.'"
Other gems under trial are tiny¬leafed lime-colored coleus and tiny variegated Swedish ivy.
In the warehouse, packers prepare plants for shipping. Bare root plants are wrapped in some combination of excelsior that helps keep things dry and aerated, shredded magazine paper that helps retain moisture, and peat. Storage trials, of course, are done on each variety to determine temperature and duration, and what materials it survives best in.
Today workers pack the Crescendo Lily Collection of 24 daylily varieties with roots bigger than a man's hands, and catnip with excelsior around the top and paper around the 8¬inch roots.
"You get what you pay for," says Joel Stephens. "When buying from the mail, there's a certain faith involved. We're a dinosaur in this business. Very few companies propagate plants. They're retail or they specialize. Some places just grow the plants on."
Indeed, the field¬grown lilies and catnip were dug up last fall and over¬wintered in the fridge. The lilies were frozen solid to keep the bulbs as compact as possible, for once they're brought to room temperature they begin to grow.
In big bins, roses and other shrubs hydrate before getting packed in shredded paper. Roses are #1 grade with three sturdy canes, are well-rooted and have a good graft union.
The crew picks plants at the last minute before sending them to their shipping plant in nearby Torrington. The plants are out of the greenhouse as short a time as possible to keep their flowers bright.
The store carries almost everything in the catalog, and also specialty plants like the Kaleidoscope Phalaenopsis orchid. Since 1985, Shepherd's Garden Seeds has been a part of the farm.
So take a fun ride to the Berkshires, not far from the crowd, and visit White Flower Farm. Your garden will love it.
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published June 01, 2003
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