Who doesn't love a topiary?!

I’m lucky to live in a city that is home to a renowned nursery that caters to the landscaping elite, and plant perfectionists. I made my first trip of the season to Haskell’s nursery Yesterday a family owned gardening emporium that been in operation for more than 50 years. The Son of the late genius plantsman Allen Haskell, David now presides over the seven-acre retail nursery and landscape design business created by his father.
Haskell who was called “the king of topiary”.

The Haskell family’s exacting standards have attracted diverse patrons, from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Martha Stewart, and Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands to local do-it-yourself gardeners. David says this breadth of clientele is the nursery’s greatest strength. “People tell us it’s like a museum. It’s one of the most flattering comments we get,” he says.
Allen C. Haskell Horticulturists is a salmagundi of beautiful gardens and resembles an English country estate. Twelve greenhouses, including four classic Lord and Burnham glass structures, teem with exquisite plants not found elsewhere: Dispersed among them are some 3,000 orchids; tropical plants; scores of flawless myrtle, ivy, and rosemary topiary that Haskell’s nursery made famous; 30 types of coleus; and rare camellias, among many others.

The nursery, which draws plant lovers from all over the world, includes the city’s oldest house, a Colonial structure dating back to 1725.

Along the shady, meandering paths that link the brick buildings filled with statuary planters and pottery, there are espaliered trees, exotic birds, and lush beautiful gardens planted decades ago. Shopping at Haskell’s is a treat and I love going there.

About these ads