Hello Friends & Fellow Gardeners!

Happy Spring! This year's spring weather has been terrific for the plants at the Nursery. Our cold frames and greenhouse are bursting with plants that are ready to enhance your home landscapes. We resumed our normal operating hours on April 1st and have enjoyed seeing many of our great customers over the past 2 weeks.

We are here to help you have success and enjoy your landscape. That means we will recommend plants that will do well but also try to help solve problems like why an established plant has declined. Bringing in a sample can be helpful at times but please read the note below on samples. A dead branch or dried up leaf sample is often just the result of the decline and can't tell us the cause. The first thing we consider is what changed around the plant. Things like weather extremes, drainage, sun or shade exposure, fertilization practices, and pesticides can all adversely affect plants.
Plants also have a lifespan, so knowing an approximate age of the problem plant can also help determine if it was just time for the plant to go.
 
Pests and diseases can certainly be the problem but not always, so please do not treat a plant unless you know what the issue is. This is where the sample is helpful. A good sample will have dead, declining and healthy plant parts. You may need to take a few samples from different parts of a plant in order to get a good sample. Samples should be put into sealed zip lock bags and then you should wash your hands before bringing them to the Nursery. We do not want to expose our plants to any pests or diseases. If we can't help we will refer you to the Penn State Cooperative Extension in Creamery where they can further examine the sample or send it off to the Penn State Plant Pathology Laboratory.