New Hampshire

• Perennials From Susan

• Wayside Farm

PERENNIALS FROM SUSAN
58 Seaverns Bridge Road, Amherst, NH 03031-2114
(603) 424-2300
Susan Kierstead

Field-grown perennials. Woodland wildflowers. Small specialty nursery. Open late April to mid-September, Wednesday to Saturday 10-4. Free catalog at the nursery. No mail order. Discount on advance orders. Display gardens. E-mail: SKiers2808@aol.com.

Perennials From Susan is a godsend for gardeners in southern New Hampshire, where proprietor Susan Kierstead offers some 1,000 perennials from organic growing beds surrounding her home in Amherst, Just west of Nashua. Kierstead has good horticultural contacts and the ability to source unusual plants. The owner, who says that “gardening is a way of life,” founded the nursery 20 years ago by planting a long field next to her home with perennials for sun and shade.

Many unique and lovely perennials are offered here, especially woodland plants that are scarce in commerce. Since retirement, Susan’s husband, Ronald Kierstead, plays a supporting role in the nursery, Just for the fun of it. Because the Kiersteads winter elsewhere and tire of spending their summers pulling weeds in the hot sun, they are gradually transforming the nursery to a shade garden, with increasing emphasis on shade-loving perennials and woodland plants. On the verges of the nursery, meandering display gardens support more than 2,000 plant species and contain ornamental grasses, a heather garden, shady woodland gardens, and a sandy hillside sheathed in ground cover.

Perennials From Susan is an excellent resource for tough, mature plants that have survived the rigors of at least one New Hampshire winter. We wasted a whole year trying out different ground covers in an urban tree pit (all failed), only to have this nursery provide us with a dwarf white creeping potentilla that proved tough as iron. We were impressed with the nursery’s trove of single and double bloodroot; its prized double pink rue anemone caused quite a stir among woodland gardeners.

Special plant collections include native wild­flowers, Asian wildflowers, more than 300 daylily hybrids, and hardy Japanese iris that can be dug while in bloom. Good assortments of aster, ornamental grass, cranesbill geranium, heuchera, and hosta are also available. It’s nice to see someone in the nursery business wake up to variegated tovaria, a delight­ful airy ground cover (we first spied it in California) that tolerates the driest shade.

Perennials From Susan grows plants in organic soil, digs to order, and offers plants bare-root or potted. The nursery’s stock and plant list can be obtained only on the premises; no mail order is offered. Discounts encourage advance ordering; this permits plants to be dug and ready when you arrive. (As a special incentive to early birds, even unlisted plant treasures are for sale if ordered in April, provided you can spot them in the display beds.) All these conditions are a boon in disguise, for they force gardeners to visit the nursery and discuss plants with its engaging owner, who is wise in the virtues and habits of all her plants. She welcomes visitors (Kierstead can usually be found in the fields, wearing a bleached sunbonnet), and maintains that her gardens are happiest when visited by other plant enthusiasts. In spring, the sun-dappled gardens, ornamented with double bloodroot and rare woodland wildflowers, are well worth the trip.

Directions: The nursely is located off Route lOlA, north of Nashua. From Route 16/Everett Turnpike, take exit 11, and go west on Continental Boulevard. At the inter­section of Route lOlA, turn right. At the next light, turn right again onto Seaverns Bridge Road: the nursery is 1.4 miles on your left at #58. The driveway is on Woodbine Road, just after the house. Support civility: Do not turn around in the neighbors’ driveway.

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WAYSIDE FARM
507 Whiteface Road, North Sandwich, NH 03259
(603) 284-6886
Ben and Lisa Shambaugh

Unusual annuals, vines, and continaer plants.  Perennials, Native plants, Daylilies. Small, family-run greenhouse and nursery. Open daily, April to June 8-5, July and August 9-5, September by appointment. Plant list $1. No mail order. E-mail: Wayside@LR.net.

Wayside Farm is a small family-run greenhouse nursery on a country road east of Lake Winnipesaukee. Owners Ben and Lisa Shambaugh (who are both town selectmen) work hard to provision New Hampshire gardeners with dis­tinctive flowering plants, propagating all their own stock by cutting, seed, or division. The nursery grows some 1,200 plant varieties, including perennials, vines, native plants, and uncommon annuals. Wayside Farm has a bit of everything, in the way of country greenhouses. Its adventurous plant collec­tion includes sophisticated items more commonly found in urban settings. The farm’s location in a rough, hand-cut woodland clearing, with long views to the peaks of the Sandwich Range, reminds one of the early homesteaders who settled this region of New Hampshire, intent on bringing civilization to the wilderness.

The Shambaughs’ ambition as plant pioneers is most apparent in their collection of annuals and tender perennials. Besides petunias and sunflowers, Wayside Farm grows exotic coleus, variegated begonias, trailing snapdragons, sweet potato vine, and Chinese forget-me-not. Gardeners interested in the flora of South Africa can find Cape marigold, African daisy, dill-leaf ursinia, and Monarch Namaqualand-daisy (Venidium spp.). Salsa lovers can spice up their container gardens with Chilean monkey flower (Mimulus spp.), Chilean bellflower (Nolana spp.), Chilean glorybush (Tibouchina spp.), and Peruvian mask flower (Alonsoa spp.) . Ambitious gardeners can dazzle their neighbors with little-grown trophies—flax-leaf pimpernel, red-hot cattail, blue Italian alkanet, clove-lip toadflax, meadow foam, and something called blue lips. Wayside also offers colorful annual vines such as scarlet runner bean, cup-and-saucer vine, morning glory, moonflower, lotus vine, and Chilean glory flower (Eccremocarpus spp.).

The nursery’s perennials, though necessarily less exotic than the annuals, offer well-selected specimens from an extensive plant list. We warmed to finding—this far north—ornamental sea pink, globe thistle. helenium, snakeroot. knautia, and sea kale. Wayside Farm carries native ground covers such as baneberry and bearberry; native perennials such as amsonia, joe-pye weed, goldenrod, rodgersia, and Jacob’s-rod (Asphodeline spp.); and native shrubs such as chokecherry (Aralia spp.) and shrubby dogwood. A large population of hanging baskets (25 kinds) rounds out the display.

As with any greenhouse nursery, plant selection and stock are best early in the season. Knowing customers visit Wayside Farm for bedding and container plants in May and June, before the summer crowds. August visitors are rewarded with discounts (normally 20 percent) and an annual bare-root daylily sale, in which 75 daylily cultivars are divided and sold at half price. By then, Wayside Farm’s containers may be a bit weedy, but the plants don’t seem to suffer. Frugal gardeners have long recognized the value of fall-planted perennials. Wayside Farm also sells its own organic compost, called Wayside Gold, along with bagged bark mulch and cocoa shells.

Directions: Wayside Farm is 65 miles from Concord, and 1.5 hours from Durham, New Hampshire. From 1-93, take exit 23/Meredith onto Route 104 east to Meredith. Take Route 25 east, and in about 10 miles, turn left onto Route 113 north. In 4 miles, in North Sandwich, turn right onto Route 1 l3A; the nursery is 2.4 miles on your right. From Route I 6/Spaulding Turnpike, go to West Ossippee and take Route 25 west. In about 5 miles, turn right at the second sign for Route 113 north, and follow directions above.

Nearby attractions: Sandwich and Tam worth are among the region ‘s prettiest towns. In North Sandwich, DiFiippe Farm & Greenhouse (603-284-6482), is a roadside stand, open year-round, doing brisk sales in greenhouse-grown annual and vegetable flats, perennials, and seasonal plants. South Tam worth ‘s Community School Gardens, 1164 Bunker Hill Road (603-323-7000), offers fresh organic vegetables, berries, fresh organic eggs, and scenic trails; open to the public daily 9-6, from late June to early September.

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