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Our greenhouse is now full of beautiful, lush, tropical color for your landscape. Palms, mandevillas, bird of paradise, cannas, taros, philodendrons, crotons, and many more!

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Ranunculus, Pansies, Violas, whatever strikes your fancy! We have them, and even more coming in. We’ve even arranged some beauties in planters for you to showcase on your deck or patio. Living colors to brighten everyone’s mood. Here are a few examples of what we have in stock right now! And don’t forget our veggie seedlings ready for transplanting.

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Phlox! Andromeda! Cherry! Chokeberry! Rhododendron! Redbud!

What can we do for ourselves to help us overcome our fear and stress during this crazy time? According to psychologists, you can find the answer by stepping outside your door — into your garden!

We all know that sunshine is good for the soul and good for the body as well. The “sunshine vitamin”, Vitamin D, is made by our skin coming into contact with the sun’s rays. Vitamin D is necessary for many of our body’s metabolic processes, including our immune system, but it also raises our mood. In winter, some of us suffer from what is known as seasonal affective disorder – depression – because we are unable to catch the sun’s UV rays upon our skin, or sunshine through our eyes, at that time of year. Well, guess what? It’s now spring! Sunshine is returning! Trees are budding. The forsythias are blooming. Daffodils, hyacinths….

Yes, we can get lots of sunshine from walking or hiking outdoors, but, I just heard on the news that parks are getting so crowded now, with many ignoring the directive to stay at least 6 feet apart. In your own garden, there’s no one else there except you and nature. No one to avoid.

Aside from all the sun exposure, the act of gardening itself has been found to bestow its own benefits to our well-being. Check out this article from Psychology Today – 10 Mental Health Benefits of Gardening. One of the article’s points needs updating a bit for today – the one about friends being there in the garden with you – sadly, not advisable anymore, but if your family is home with you, what an amazing, shared experience it would be to open them up to the joys of nature in their own backyard.

Our nursery is trying to carry on despite what has been going on around us all. It is only our second year here in Sloatsburg, and we thought that we had planned some great ideas for this season: to expand our plant offerings, a membership discount program, furthering the idea that saving our environment also includes a movement back to native plant species, gardening classes, etc. But then came the virus and all the accompanying governmental and health directives, causing our own continued existence as a nursery to be in question.

As things go now, we are still hoping, currently planting vegetable seeds, praying that everything will be back to normal when these seedlings are ready to be transplanted into your gardens. We’re taking each day as it comes. We’re still open. 

So go out into your garden between the rains this week. Get some fresh air and exercise clearing up all those twigs. Look at your beds and decide what should be planted there this season. Envision your vegetable garden as a family project to teach your children about growing food: the seeds, the plants, fruit, and then the seeds once again. Switch your thoughts onto life, spring, growth, the beauty of nature. 

To save you a trip over here, we can deliver your purchases if they are over the set minimum. We can also text you photos of the items you are interested in, and we’re still happy to help you with your garden plans.

Let’s all hope and pray for better days soon! From all of us at Sloatsburg Nursery to all of you: Stay safe and healthy!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that there seems to be fewer and fewer bees, butterflies, birds and other critters visiting our gardens every year. Those with ponds have also noticed fewer dragonflies, toads and frogs. We certainly have plenty of beautiful flowers, shrubs, trees and perennials – but, sadly, few pollinators are noticing them. We may attract some birds if we set out feeding stations, which now seems to be the only way for us to arrange birdsong every morning.

Old timers (like me) can remember playing in gardens filled with buzzing honeybees – one had to be very careful going barefoot on lawns filled with flowering clover (watch out for the bees!). We also had fun with butterfly nets, and since there were so many butterflies around, they were quite easy to catch (and release!). We also used to fill up jars with lightning bugs every evening. Where have they all gone?

The problem is that we – humans – have overrun the planet. There are very few untouched forests and meadows left. We have built on, paved over, and fenced off everything. We then imported the more “beautiful” plants from all over the world, displacing what was there before — our native trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. We then ended up with our showy, beautiful gardens, but as a result, we lost the wildlife that depended upon the previous natives for food and shelter.

What? How could that be? We have trees, we have flowers, and they have just as much pollen as the native varieties….. So where are the bees and butterflies?

Every plant has its own particular mix of chemicals in leaf, stem, flower and root. Our native insects, including bees and butterflies, have adapted over many thousands of years to the chemical attractant mix within the native plants in their environment. Each insect has its preference for certain plants – as the best tasting food, or as the best place for their young to feed after hatching, etc. For example, the Monarch butterfly requires Milkweed for their egg cases, no other plant will do. No Milkweed, no more Monarchs. Certain insects only like to munch on the leaves of certain plants, those that provide the correct nutrition for that species. If those plants no longer exist, the insects either move on, or their species disappears altogether. So, what we have accomplished with the replacement of native flora with alien imports, is that we’ve removed the specific plants required for our native insects’ continued existence, creating the right conditions for their erasure from the environment. And in so doing, we are also removing many of our native bird species because their favorite food was….. you get the idea. Same thing goes for our pond life.

So, many of us have been recognizing that we have to return to what used to be, or eventually, the problems now faced by our insects and birds may start to climb all the way up the food chain to us, as well. Yes, we should also be curtailing our use of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, but doesn’t it also make logical sense to provide our pollinators their necessary nutritional, living and breeding requirements in our own gardens?

This year we plan on greatly expanding our selection of native species, together with planting instructions and help with designing your own native garden. We will also be hosting lectures on this important topic. Spring is on the way! See you soon!

Our first year is almost over. We’re winding down. We had a great time this year and we hope you did, too. We’d like to thank all our new customers, both retail and wholesale, for enabling us to firmly establish our nursery in this ever-brightening corner of Rockland County – the great Village of Sloatsburg.

A highpoint of the season was our Octoberfest with pumpkins and fun for all, with an “official” ribbon cutting ceremony led by Sloatsburg’s mayor, the honorable Carl S. Wright.

And to close our year, we had Santa and Mrs. Claus visiting us before their trip back to the North Pole to get things all set for Christmas. They spent lots of time with all our young visitors, and we hope that all Santa’s promises to them came true with lots of presents under the trees. We’re sure they did, especially if the trees were purchased from us, since ours were the freshest, fullest, and most fragrant – Mmmm….that heavenly scent of Frasier firs……

But, all winter long, we are still selling our salt and firewood, as well as the fire pits you need to burn your wood in for some cozier outdoor winter evenings. Call us to arrange delivery or pick-up time.

All of us at Sloatsburg Nursery wish you and yours a Happy and Healthy New Year and a warm and safe winter.

See you next spring!!

One of the great pleasures of gardening is to be able to sit in one’s backyard paradise and enjoy the fruits of one’s labors — the many shapes, colors and heavenly scents of the flowers from both annuals and perennials. Many gardeners think that perennials are best — plant them only once, and they come back every year, faithfully providing almost labor-free beauty to your landscape. Annuals are the more showy ones with prolific blooms that can appear all season long, in every color of the rainbow, but sadly, they perish with the first frost. However, one good thing about annuals is that you can always plant new and different varieties every spring, so that your garden view will always be a fresh one with new beds, new colors, new arrangements.

Whatever you choose – annuals, perennials, or both – we will be ready with advice to help you pick the right ones for your planting situation. Much depends on the location, whether it be sun, shade or a combo, as well as the soil quality. Will your plantings flourish in a wet, boggy area, or must the soil be well-drained for their best performance?

Now is the time to plant, before it gets too hot. Stop by today and choose from our bountiful stock of annuals and perennials, as well as our vibrant greenery – shrubs and trees of all sizes, from arborvitaes (the ones that deer do NOT eat) to fruit trees, from rhododendrons to roses.

COME AND GROW WITH US!

This week has really been busy — truckloads of fresh, beautiful planting stock have been arriving daily. Our staff has been super busy artfully arranging everything on our fabulous, terraced grounds. We have extended our business hours, and we are now also open on Sunday from 9 to 3. Even though we haven’t gotten our big Sloatsburg Nursery signage yet, we ARE open now! Come on over and GROW WITH US!

We’re getting ready for our grand spring opening. Meanwhile, we are ordering inventory and beautifying our own nursery landscape! You can come in now for mulch, stones, rocks, and firewood.

We are also proud to offer the mighty Cowboy Cauldron, the king of fire pits, as well as some other unusual, more artistic ones to grace your landscape.

And we are happy to announce that we are now carrying Belguard’s line of beautiful pavers. More to come about this.

Things are hopping. We can’t wait until all this snow melts and spring begins!

Call us now — we’re ready to deliver.
845-206-1054.