Nooks and Nurseries

The First Garden Request of Spring

This week two different clients said almost the exact same thing to me. “I need a garden nook. Just a little spot to sit outside.” Both of them absolutely craved  a place to sit and with the scent of flowers on the air, to  feel the sun on their shoulders, and look out at something green. It happens every year. For most of the calendar, landscaping is practical. We talk about drainage, lawn repair, grading, property value, and privacy screens. Gardens are infrastructure.

But spring is different. Especially after a hard winter like the one we just had. Spring becomes a psychological need for green.  After months of cold temperatures, short days, and being trapped inside, people start craving something very specific: light, warmth, green leaves, and color. They want somewhere outside where they can simply be, breathe. And so the requests begin. A bench tucked beside a flower bed. A some sort of natural patio surrounded by flowers where the sun hits in the morning and I can sip my coffee. These spaces are rarely complicated. But they answer something deeper than design, they answer the human need to reconnect with the living world after winter.

The Timing Problem

From a purely horticultural standpoint, spring is actually not the best time to plant many landscape shrubs. Fall planting is often better. The soil is warm, the weather is cooler, and plants can establish roots without the stress of summer heat. Annuals are still tiny plugs in a greenhouse and perennials are dormant nubs. It  feels awful to show up  at someone’s house someone who has spent four months staring at bare branches and snow with pots of sticks and nubs so plants have to be selected carefully, a combination of what looks good to satisfy the need for instant and what will look good and keep the design cohesive as the season progresses.

Where Spring Plants Come From

A newly arrived Peach Tree from the South in full flower

This week I made a  scouting trip to the wholesale nursery to start selecting plants for upcoming jobs. Most people do not give a lot of thought to where plants come from, but there is a massive amount of planning and logistics behind it.  Because spring arrives at different times across the country, nurseries move plants north as the season progresses. Flowering trees and shade trees often arrive from Tennessee. The growing conditions there allow them to leaf out about two weeks earlier than they do here, which means they already look like spring when they reach us. Shrubs also come up from further south, following the warming weather.

Boxwoods newly arrived from Oregon at wholesale, and a Nursery Cat who was angry I didn’t bring treats. Many nurseries have a collection of cats that show up and are actually very welcomed.

Perennials and annuals are usually grown locally in greenhouses so they can be full and ready just as the weather finally cooperates. One of the earliest shipments to arrive each year are color evergreens and Japanese Maples from Oregon. They come across the country on trains and need to be shipped while the weather is still cool. Evergreens can dry out easily, so they have to move before the temperatures rise too much. It’s an entire quiet migration of plants happening behind the scenes

A Petunia plug and a tray of plugs ready for potting into 4” pots for April.

Spring is a reminder for me that we ultimately design for the human spirit. The migration of plants from the south continues, and soon the 'sticks and nubs' of early spring will be replaced by the nooks my clients are craving. Because, in the end, a garden nook is more than just a design request; it’s a desire for homecoming. It’s the simple, profound relief of being able to sit outside again and realize that, finally, spring has arrived.