The Dutch Heritage Gardens (Part 3)

The final installment of my tour at the Dutch Heritage Gardens! I mentioned in yesterday's post that this is a family owned business, one of about 26 individual greenhouses around the US owned by members of Aaron's extended family, the original one having been started by grandfather Aart in 1947. They're not necessarily affiliated with each other aside from the obvious family connection, however. Here's an interesting statistic: counting all the various greenhouses together, about 20% of all flowering plants sold in the US are grown by Aaron or a member of his family. That's pretty cool!

As for the Dutch Heritage Gardens, 40% of what they sell is what they've dubbed "combination container gardens." Have you ever bought a decorative planter that's been artfully sown with a mix of beautiful plants, fully grown and ready to go on your front porch? No muss, no fuss, right? That's a big part of what the Dutch Heritage Gardens produces and it's what put them on the map. The idea was Rozie's (Aaron's wife and co-owner of the business), and she's got a great knack for putting together wonderful combinations of ornamental plants. Another 5% of their sales are culinary specimens like tomatoes, peppers and herbs, 10% are ornamentals in hanging baskets, and the rest are perennials and houseplants. They really do cover  the complete gamut. 

Here's another interesting thing about this large commercial nursery: they start their spring planting in November! As an avid gardener myself, November is when I finally take a break from it all and enjoy a few months off. I didn't realize that there really isn't any down time for a grower like this. In May they start planting for fall, which largely consists of mums, and around Fathers Day they start planting masses of poinsettias for Christmas. They've gotten non-stop plant production down to a science.

This was not the first time I've ever been to the Dutch Heritage Gardens, although it was the first time I've been there and wasn't surrounded by hordes of plant shoppers. Every year on Memorial Day Weekend they do an open house when anyone can come and buy plants. It's a madhouse! But in a good way. I compare it to Black Friday shopping, only with plants, and it's a ton of fun. And around Christmas they do it again, featuring the aforementioned poinsettias. If you're in the area and would like to experience plant shopping directly from a large commercial nursery, keep your eye on their Facebook page, which they update regularly.