Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?

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SouthernLady
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Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?

Post by SouthernLady »

I am so excited! I am taking the week of February 27 off from work and caregiving (I will still check in once a day to make sure all is well with my friend and her family). Friends have encouraged me to take off to Charleston, South Carolina (one of my two favorite old cities to visit), but I am looking forward to working at my old house. Maybe it's the 393 years of farmer blood in me, but I find digging in the dirt to be rather therapeutic.

As my tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths are out with buds (way too soon for us) and the weather isn't supposed to get below freezing any more after this month in my area, I am setting my eyes to prepping my new veggie garden and installing a picket fence for the dog to run off the leash.

For me, I have determined I want to stick with heirloom varieties of plants that would have been available for John McCuiston in 1884. I am very excited about growing a number of varieties of flowers and vegetables that most of us aren't familiar with in this day and age.

I have found a couple of sources online that sell the old varieties of plants. I ordered seeds for my Victorian vegetable garden from http://www.heirloomseeds.com. A few of the varieties I ordered were some that I haven't seen since my grandmother threw away my grandfather's old seed packets. He always saved seeds from his crops for the next year's plantings, and some of his seeds can't be found today. His Ledmon watermelons were always in high demand in the small community, and those seeds are almost impossible to find nowadays. This site had the crowder peas he grew that I loved so much as a child. I am really looking forward to my first fresh batch.

My garden will certainly be nothing like the acres I was accustomed to as a child, or the acres and acres my ancestors tended at Warrascoyack Plantation outside of Jamestown, but nonetheless it will hopefully be enough to keep the farming tradition alive in my family branch to some degree.

I also plan to start a good-sized collection of old garden roses. I am ordering from http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com this year, and hope it turns out to be a good experience.

Do any of you folks have a good source for heirloom or "old garden" plants?

Have any of you attempted plantings in a historical manner? I am going to give a shot to historical methods of gardening this year, as best as I can and am curious if anyone else has tried anything similar.

As always, if you have pictures, I want to see! :-)

JRC
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Re: Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?

Post by JRC »

There aren't as many abandoned homes in my neighborhood anymore, thankfully, but some neighbors used to walk around the neighborhood, looking for flowering plants at abandoned houses that they would dig up and take home. I imagine some of these plants could have been quite old. (or derived from plants that were quite old)

I have another neighbor who has offered to share some of his perennial plants, when they needed dividing. In some cases, he would actually mention where they originally came from. (e.g. his peonies came from his grandmother's house, and he remembered seeing them there, when he was a child)

If I recall, you're located in a more rural area, so option #1 probably wouldn't work for you. (unless there are a lot of abandoned farmhouses in your area) Option #2 might work, if you have friendly neighbors with flower/plants you like.

I don't think either option is right for you, if you're looking specifically to recreate an 1884 garden/landscape, unless you get lucky, and someone is able to give you a plant's provenance that goes back that far.

At my house, I hope to do a lot of planting this spring. I don't plan to do any heirloom gardening, but I want to stick with plants/flowers that are more traditional, at least. I want to stay away from trendy, newly developed plants that can be found at just about any big box store's garden dept. (for example, knockout roses are everywhere, around here)

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Wackyshack
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Re: Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?

Post by Wackyshack »

Let me put a shout out to my Civil War pals. There are many heirloom gardeners among them.

Update: They came through. I will put the active links below but thought you might like to read the insights some provided to their choices.

Nativeseeds.org
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://turtletreeseed.org/
Rareseeds.com
https://www.southernexposure.com/

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Corsetière
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Re: Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?

Post by Corsetière »

I LOVE these folks: https://oldhousegardens.com

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