Spring arrives at Baldwin Nurseries

After the spectacular moon of last night, spring has been ushered in today with cool temperatures and winds but sparkling blue skies and brilliant sunshine. We're all feeling pretty happy that the snow has mostly disappeared and while we're a ways from planting yet, we just had to tell you about some of the new and new-to-us plants we're carrying this year at Baldwin's Nurseries.

The daphne that grows around here is budded up and will be blooming soon, and don't we love its fragrance. This year, we're also carrying the variegated-foliage 'Carol Mackie' daphne, hardy to zone 5 and beautiful whether in bloom or simply in leaf.

Winter-weary gardeners always welcome the sight of spring blossoms, including those of Chaenomeles, or flowering quince. This year along with the red and salmon-coloured varieties we've carried, we're offering the cheery 'Pink Lady' for those who are more fond of rosy colours.

Hamamelis or witch hazels bloom even earlier when they're in containers than when they're planted out, but it's about time for 'Arnold Promise' to be blooming in much of Nova Scotia. The hamamelis is very important for early-waking pollinators to visit for nutrients, and they're pretty important for those of us who want flowers in March, too.

There are many different types of flowering viburnums, and we at Baldwin Nurseries carry a great selection of native and introduced species. Some are spring-flowering and very fragrant; others are later blooming and cherished more for their prodigious amounts of sparkling white flowers, like 'Summer Snowflake'.

We've talked about hellebores before, and for many of you, the flowers are stirring and beginning to open. We are carrying a wide selection of hellebores, which are deer resistant and easy care perennials once they are situated where they like to grow. Look for the double or waterlily-type hellebores as well as new introductions in striking new colours,

...Such as 'Metallic Blue Lady', from Fraser's Thimble Farms in British Columbia. We're looking forward to seeing this and other unusual-coloured varieties bloom this spring.

We've carried 'Tricolor' beech (Fagus sylvatica) for several years, and while it's a pricy tree, it's perfect for those looking for a unique, marvelous specimen tree.

Cratageus or hawthorn is a terrific small tree, with a number of species native to Nova Scotia. Birds love the fruit of these thorny shrubs or trees. We are carrying 'Paul's Scarlet' this year, a popular hybrid with good disease resistance.

The dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is sometimes called the dinosaur tree because for years its existence was only known through fossil records. In the 1940s living specimens were found and propagated, and today this marvelous tree is widely available. The dawn redwood is similar to larches (Larix) in that it drops its needles in the autumn, and produces a new crop in spring. We have carried the standard species for several years, and this year have added the brilliant yellow-foliaged 'Gold Rush' (also known as 'Ogon' ) to our inventory.

While not for the colder parts of Nova Scotia, the redbud (Cercis canadensis) is a terrific tree for early spring flowers. It covers itself with pink or white flowers in May, and has beautiful heart-shaped foliage to boot.

These are just a few of the new plants you'll find at Baldwin's this spring. Others include a number of new Japanese maples; 'Satomi' flowering dogwood as well as the beautiful native Pagoda dogwood; a hardy apricot for the fruit tree fanciers, the bald cypress (Taxodium), and more. Stay tuned for more new arrivals very soon.

Images of Winter, whispers of Spring

Sorry we haven't posted for a while...although winter is a time of slowdown for many gardeners, for nursery operators, it can be a very busy time. We're planning for the spring and summer, choosing new plants, tending our overwintering plants, and enjoying the joys of winter.

With all the snow we have this winter, it's a great idea to look around your garden and see what you have for 'winter interest.' Do you have shrubs with interesting shapes that look like living sculptures when snow or ice cover them?

Or shrubs and trees with bright bark, like this red-osier dogwood, which looks its best when surrounded by a blanket of pristine snow?

Perhaps you have some terrific evergreens, as we've talked about before, that will turn brilliant shades during fall and winter. The purple-bronze microbiota or Russian cypress is one of our favourites.

But we also like Thuja 'Sunkist', here just getting started in turning its winter gold colour when it was nearly buried in snow.

Take heart, fellow plant fans and gardeners. Before we know it, we'll all be busy in our gardens again, and enjoying the glorious blooms of such perennials as this Japanese Tree Peony...

Or this exquisite magnolia. It's too bad we can't put fragrances somehow into a blog post, because scented magnolias are wonderful.

And before we even know it, we'll be enjoying the tasks of the garden, dividing hostas, daylilies and echinaceas, pruning shrubs, planting our vegetable gardens. We're over the worst of winter now, and counting down til spring.

Stay tuned...we'll have news about new plants here at Baldwin's Nurseries in the not too distant future!

Nothing false about falsecypresses

To continue with the evergreen love, we turn now to one of the most diverse and excellent genera in the ornamental plant world: the Chamaecyparis, also known as falsecypress. Sure, the genus name is a bit tricky to say, but these are excellent garden and landscaping shrubs.

Some become tall, stately, graceful trees, like the weeping Nootka in this photo...

Some have truly fascinating capsule like cones, which take two years to develop.

For those with small spaces, there are the excellent dwarf varieties, like this sculptured golden Hinoki.

And as with other evergreens, there are falsecypresses with a great variety of autumn and winter colour. 'Heatherbun' is a fascinating variety, with bronze to plum winter foliage.

Threadleaf chamaecyparis make a striking display at the front of a border or as specimen shrubs. Make sure to match your plant's mature growth to the proper site, as you don't want it overgrowing its area. There are compact forms that don't grow more than 3 feet tall, and others with a much larger mature height.

For something choice and handsome, look for the golden fernleaf falsecypress, C. obtusa 'Tetragona Aurea'. Its brilliant yellow summer growth deepens to a more bronzed gold in winter.

The odd little charmer Golden Sawara Pincushion grows in a mound about three feet tall and wide. It's a good choice for an alpine garden or dwarf conifer collection.

Some more dwarf chamaecyparis in pots, waiting for their new owners to come and find them. They resemble the graceful sculpture of potted bonsai.

As we start to put things away for the winter months, there is more and more fall colour showing up in the conifers and broadleaf evergreens at Baldwin's Nurseries. We're working most days, weather permitting, so do stop in and have a look around, and let our fall colour display inspire your garden plans for next spring. Thanks as always for visiting!

Fall & Winter Colour: Evergreens, Part 1

It's very gratifying to see more and more people getting excited over evergreens, both broadleaf and coniferous. Here at Baldwin Nurseries, we've long been fans of all sizes, shapes, species and colours of evergreens as the ideal plants for mixed borders, formal landscapes...you name it, there's an evergreen or 9 for the site.

There's more to evergreens than ever-green, too. Plant breeders have been very busy developing new varieties and cultivars, and many of the colourful evergreens have amazing fall/winter colours, making them ideal 4-season plants.

A photo taken in late winter or early spring from plantings at the front of the nursery property, when the snow had gone but nothing had begun to leaf out or green up yet. As you can see, there is a variety of colour from evergreens, subshrubs like heaths and heathers, shrubs like chamaecyparis, and taller trees including spruce, pine, and thuja.

From weeping standards to upright forms, from tiny dwarfs to towering trees, there's an evergreen for every site. This is a young columnar Scots Pine, which will have a very pillar-like, upright shape as it grows.

One of the most beloved of decorative evergreens is the Colorado blue spruce. This is new growth and older growth on 'Hoopsii', blue spruce, which to us displays the bluest of colour, but we carry other fine cultivars as well.

Juxtapose that blue spruce foliage with the glowing gold-bronze winter colour of 'Sunkist' thuja, and you have a brilliant display even on the bleakest of winter days. In addition, 'Sunkist' provides food and habitat for a variety of songbirds.

The swallows that visit here from spring to late summer like to promote the evergreens too, even if they are a bit camera-shy sometimes.


Junipers are a popular evergreen for sites that are 'high and dry', with lots of sun and moist soil with good drainage. There are many, many different species and cultivars, and it can get a bit dizzying trying to make a choice. Tall or creeping, standard or dwarf--please don't hesitate to ask us for suggestions and help when choosing a juniper.

Juniper 'Dream Joy' is a wide-spreader with creamy yellow new growth, contrasting nicely with the more mature blue-green needles.

J. ''Gold Star', also known as Bakaurea, is resistant to root rot and has a nice spreading but compact growth habit.
We like J. horizontalis 'Wiltonii', more commonly known as the blue rug juniper, better than 'Blue Star', which is prone to limb breakage from snowfall buildup. This form is also available as a standard.

One of the most underutilized evergreens we know of is the Microbiota. There's only one species in this genus, (Microbiota decussata) and it was unknown outside of the former Soviet Union until about forty years ago. We call it by the common name of microbiota, but you may call it Siberian cypress. What we like about it is its gorgeous plum-copper winter colour, and its tough-as-nails constitition. It's an excellent groundcover or edging species.

For something equally unique and unusual, we carry Thujopsis, a native of Japan with again, only one species in the genus. Think of this as a thuja (what many call cedar) on steroids: it has the similar scaly foliage, only larger, a glossy, brilliant green colour, copper-red tips in winter, and splendidly unusual, petite cones.

Don't just take our word on the variety of colourful evergreens--our friend Jill at Bunchberry Nurseries also carries a wide variety of evergreens, and has many planted out in her display gardens. You can also see excellent evergreens at the NSAC Rock Garden in Truro.

Next time, we'll talk about one of the most varied and wonderful of evergreens, the Chamaecyparis, or falsecypress family.