Rich Purple Foliage

This time around, we're going to look at what is pretty much the opposite of gold foliage: burgundy, wine, or red leafed plants. Where the golden gems shout "look at us!" the burgundy plants are more subdued, and need the foliage of lighter coloured plants to really show off their true colours.

One of the favourites for flowering shrubs is Sambucus or elder, 'Black Lace'. This cultivar has highly cut foliage and flat clusters of dainty pink flowers.

We love barberries, and encourage other gardeners to enjoy these deer-resistant, 4-season interest, tolerant shrubs. Baldwin's carries a number of cultivars, from the golden 'Nana Aureum' to the purple-leafed 'Rose Glow', 'Concorde', and others.

Everyone needs at least one tree that has purple foliage, whether it be this handsome birch...

Or this red maple, (a bit past Canada Day, but every day is a good one for a maple tree!)

Or perhaps you'd prefer the more delicate foliage of one of the Japanese maples, like this dainty cutleaf variety.

There are other interesting deciduous shrubs with purple or wine foliage, including several varieties of smoke bush, including 'Grace' and 'Royal Purple.' This is a shrub for the more sheltered site, and isn't hardy everywhere in Nova Scotia.

On the other hand, the elegant and four-season ninebark is a terrific shrub anywhere in our province. Tolerant of most growing conditions, it has deep wine foliage and clusters of white flowers that are beloved of pollinators.

Perhaps the showiest of purple-foliaged trees is the beautiful copper beech, which can have colour varying from bright copper to deep purple. These are European beeches and don't get the disease which affects North American varieties.

We don't carry a lot of purple-foliaged perennials, but we do have Euphorbia 'Chameleon', which boasts a variety of colours as the season unfolds, as well as great fall colour. There are no purple-leafed purple coneflowers yet, but with plant breeders, you never know...

Which reminds us--the coneflowers in our containers are blooming sporadically, so if you're looking for a particular colour, come out and see what we have. We'll tell our favourite next time around!

Baldwin's is blooming nicely despite the wet spring

Despite it being a very wet and cool month of May so far, things are blooming nicely at Baldwin's Nurseries. It's been a very busy time, first with the successful and hectic Saltscapes Expo, and now with some changes to the nursery property.  

In the nursery trade, we often remark that cool, wet weather brings out the serious gardeners, the ones who like to take their time looking through nursery stock, chat with staff about challenges and interests in their garden, without a lot of rushing around. There's certainly lots to see around our nursery right now, from the early-blooming rhododendrons like the PJMs,

To the blazing colours of the quinces, with their showy pink, red, or scarlet flowers.

This seems to be an outstanding year for magnolia bloom around the province, as we're hearing reports of fantastic bloom on most people's trees and shrubs. The Leonard Messills have been fantastic for us this spring, with a rich display of colour.

We've brought in some new Japanese maples for those with a fondness for these handsome, colourful trees. The cutleaf varieties are especially popular.

We have a selection of hostas, which are beloved by many shade gardeners but also work well in container plantings, or as border plants around trees and shrubs.

One of our favourite flower-and-foliage plants this year is Dicentra 'Burning Hearts' bleeding heart. Its lacy, blue-green foliage contrasts nicely with the rich crimson-red heartshaped flowers. This is a low-growing variety that spreads gradually, and blooms for a long time.

Last year tree peonies were especially popular, and we have brought in more this year. These are magnificent plants, taking a few years to get well established, but even with only a few blooms they are showstopping and wonderful.

These photos represent only a very tiny portion of what's in bloom, or what's in bud, at Baldwin Nurseries. We're open 7 days a week, and we look forward to helping you get inspired about your garden landscape. Don't worry about the rain--it will stop one of these days. It always does. And we're always glad to see you, rain or shine.

Springing into the Season

Although this hasn't been the most weather-pleasant of springs so far, we feel pretty safe in saying that all signs point to it being time to kick off the garden season. We are open for business daily, and the staff are busily tending to our thousands of container grown perennials, trees and shrubs. The propagation house is filled with flats of seedlings and cuttings, and there's all kinds of bloom in the yard, like this Acadian daphne (Daphne mezereum).

No, your eyes do not deceive you. These are black pussywillows, (Salix gracilistyla var melanostachys) showing off their striking catkins. The twigs are equally attractive, displaying red and black colour over winter and flushing green as spring goes on. Best kept out of the worst of our winter winds, you should keep it well pruned to keep it robust and producing large, healthy catkins.

We love seeing the rich variety of colours in the young evergreens in the nursery. Most of these plants are still displaying some of their winter colour, but are equally striking and unique in their summer foliage hues. From Chamaecyparis to Thuja, from Picea to Juniperus, from Microbiota to Pinus, we have conifers in all shapes, sizes, colours and textures.

'Burning Hearts' bleeding heart (Dicentra) was very popular last year, and we're pleased to have it again this year. It's a beautiful plant in any stage, but especially striking as the new growth appears and unfolds.

The variegated periwinkle (Vinca major 'Variegata') is a good choice for a shady spot where you want a ground cover. It's not as vigourous as the all-green form, and the periwinkle-blue flowers are larger and more numerous.

One of our favourite creeping sedums for containers or rockeries is 'Angelina'. Its winter colour is spectacular and hard to describe, but as these shades fade, the gold and green is still very eyecatching. This sedum grows quickly but is not difficult to control.

The native wintergreen, Gaultheria, makes a fine evergreen groundcover if you have acid soil. The plants produce an edible, fleshy red berry that tastes more strongly of wintergreen than do the leaves, and which often last through the winter and into spring. The foliage changes colour through the fall and winter.

We are really excited about the selection of hellebores we have this year. These handsome plants are like potato chips--you can't possibly have just one. Our biggest dilemma was deciding which ones to order, as there are so many fascinating new colours and forms. This is 'Winter Jewel Double Painted', a fantastically ruffled and speckled variety.

This delicate hued lovely is 'Winter Jewel Apricot Blush'. There is some variation in the flower colours but that's the appeal of hellebores.

For those who fancy green flowers, we have H. argutifolius 'Silver Lace'. This one is best suited for milder parts of the province, and should be protected with a good mulch around the crown in late autumn. But it's definitely worth pampering a little, we think.

These are just a few of the spring jewels you'll see at the nursery. Come and visit us, and check our our blog for more posts as spring continues. We'll have a booth at Saltscapes Expo again this year, and our free tree seedling giveaway will happen for the month of May, so keep checking back!

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.

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.