High Country Gardens
When I first began my gardens in Connecticut over 10 years ago, one of the mail order plant catalogs I loved was High Country Gardens. I ordered a lot from them over the years, even though they specialized in western adapted plants and I had a garden in the wet northeast.
High Country Gardens was one of the better online sources in the garden world, mostly because of its founder, David Salman, a horticulturist who introduced many new varieties, spoke extensively at plant conferences, and was well known. The High Country Gardens catalog was one of the best presented and most informative about plants.
I was vaguely aware at the time that the physical location for High Country Gardens' mail order operation was located somewhere in the west, Colorado maybe?
It turns out it was in Santa Fe. On Rufina Street, three miles from my house. A block from my hairdresser. I drive past it frequently as I'm out doing errands in town.
In addition to offering mail order plants, David Salman ran a retail garden center at the Rufina St. location, named simply Santa Fe Gardens, which the locals adored and still talk about.
It closed a few years ago, well before we moved here. The mail order business was sold to American Meadows, a wildflower seed catalog company in Vermont. They still operate the mail order catalog under the name High Country Gardens, with plants supplied from growers in Denver and from David Salman's operation here.
His garden center on Rufina Street is now the wholesale breeding business, no longer selling plants at retail. The site looks industrial. But on several weekends in May they open to the public and sell stock, and it's already on my calendar.
David continues to write blog posts about southwestern plants, and that's on my reading list now.
I contacted him about the May weekend sales, looking for a couple plants I had back east that I would like to replicate here in my courtyard. David got right back to me, and said yes, he'd have exactly the two I'm looking for, in 5 inch pots this spring.
They are both honeysuckle vines that are proven to grow well in this climate. With all the fencing around my back yard, I finally have great places to grow vines and there are two I loved that I want to try again.
The first one I want is a red trumpet honeysuckle called 'Major Wheeler'. I never had a structure it could grow on in my old garden so I ended up giving it to my sister, who planted it on her pool fence in central Connecticut where it now thrives.
It's a gorgeous colorful vine, adaptable to New England and reliably suitable for this climate. The profuse deep red blooms will look nice behind the red chairs and I have the trellis all ready for it.
Nancy, whose courtyard is on the other side of the fence, will get to enjoy the flowers too, as they spill along the top of our shared fence.
The second vine I want is 'Kintzley's Ghost' lonicera reticulata, a strange and goofy honeysuckle that I first saw at the Denver Botanical Garden years ago. I had just planted one in Connecticut but it was only a couple years old before we moved.
Now I get to try it again, and I'll put it on the fence by the kitchen door.
I drive by the Rufina St. location of High Country Gardens all the time, and it doesn't look like much since it's no longer a retail center. It's a wholesale operation behind a chain link fence, not welcoming to shoppers.
But in May I'll be there to pick up these plants and surely to find other treasures offered as well.
There is so much that feels happily right about our move to Santa Fe, and finding High Country Gardens so near, with the plants I want available and David Salman accessible --- it's truly a bit of garden serendipity.
High Country Gardens was one of the better online sources in the garden world, mostly because of its founder, David Salman, a horticulturist who introduced many new varieties, spoke extensively at plant conferences, and was well known. The High Country Gardens catalog was one of the best presented and most informative about plants.
I was vaguely aware at the time that the physical location for High Country Gardens' mail order operation was located somewhere in the west, Colorado maybe?
It turns out it was in Santa Fe. On Rufina Street, three miles from my house. A block from my hairdresser. I drive past it frequently as I'm out doing errands in town.
In addition to offering mail order plants, David Salman ran a retail garden center at the Rufina St. location, named simply Santa Fe Gardens, which the locals adored and still talk about.
It closed a few years ago, well before we moved here. The mail order business was sold to American Meadows, a wildflower seed catalog company in Vermont. They still operate the mail order catalog under the name High Country Gardens, with plants supplied from growers in Denver and from David Salman's operation here.
His garden center on Rufina Street is now the wholesale breeding business, no longer selling plants at retail. The site looks industrial. But on several weekends in May they open to the public and sell stock, and it's already on my calendar.
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| The former Santa Fe Gardens retail center -- now a wholesale plant propagation operation. |
David continues to write blog posts about southwestern plants, and that's on my reading list now.
I contacted him about the May weekend sales, looking for a couple plants I had back east that I would like to replicate here in my courtyard. David got right back to me, and said yes, he'd have exactly the two I'm looking for, in 5 inch pots this spring.
They are both honeysuckle vines that are proven to grow well in this climate. With all the fencing around my back yard, I finally have great places to grow vines and there are two I loved that I want to try again.
The first one I want is a red trumpet honeysuckle called 'Major Wheeler'. I never had a structure it could grow on in my old garden so I ended up giving it to my sister, who planted it on her pool fence in central Connecticut where it now thrives.
It's a gorgeous colorful vine, adaptable to New England and reliably suitable for this climate. The profuse deep red blooms will look nice behind the red chairs and I have the trellis all ready for it.
Nancy, whose courtyard is on the other side of the fence, will get to enjoy the flowers too, as they spill along the top of our shared fence.
The second vine I want is 'Kintzley's Ghost' lonicera reticulata, a strange and goofy honeysuckle that I first saw at the Denver Botanical Garden years ago. I had just planted one in Connecticut but it was only a couple years old before we moved.
Now I get to try it again, and I'll put it on the fence by the kitchen door.
I drive by the Rufina St. location of High Country Gardens all the time, and it doesn't look like much since it's no longer a retail center. It's a wholesale operation behind a chain link fence, not welcoming to shoppers.
But in May I'll be there to pick up these plants and surely to find other treasures offered as well.
There is so much that feels happily right about our move to Santa Fe, and finding High Country Gardens so near, with the plants I want available and David Salman accessible --- it's truly a bit of garden serendipity.
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