MEMBER PROFILE 



Stratham Circle Nursery 

 The Big Box on the Circle 



"Look out the window." We ivere in the office above the shop. "They're 

 taller than the tele-phone pole." 



The view overlooked the nursery yard. It was dusk. At the far end, they 

 rose— soft, clear, vertical—above the dark horizontal of the nursery stock. I 

 counted: "Seven. ..eight..." 



"Ten. Crimson kings." 



"They look like poplars." 



"I got them today. They haven't opened up yet." 



"Can you sell them?" 



"A guy's coming to look tomorrow." 



Y^ AVE SHORT, OWNER AND 

 m m operator of Stratham Circle 

 * -^ Nursery, admits that there 

 may be something in the truism 

 that a person can expect to do only 

 one thing really well. The thing he 

 has chosen to do is to sell nursery 

 stock. 



Within this focus, he has cho- 

 sen an even more precisely de- 

 fined niche: Stratham Circle spe- 

 cializes in "big stuff" — trees of 

 three-inches-and-up caliper. And 

 the unusual. "People want dis- 

 tinctive landscapes, but they want 

 them immediately. They're willing 

 to pay for full-sized specimens." 



He began the business seven 

 years ago. Dave and his wife 

 Jeanne were living in Rye (Dave 

 was working as a landscape con- 

 tractor) when ten acres of field on 

 the traffic cijrcle came up for sale. 



The first year, a 30'x36' shop (a 

 clapboard cape with a checkout 

 counter, hardgoods display area, 

 and a south-facing glass wall for 

 interior plant material on the first 

 floor and an office in the loft) 

 was built 100 feet back from the 

 road and maybe an acre of mate- 

 rial was offered. Today, material 

 fills six of the ten acres. 



The site — on the Stratham traffic 

 circle, at which Route 33 (to Ports- 



mouth) intersects 108 (Exeter/ 

 Newmarket/ Durham) — is certainly 

 visible. The sign — in a bed of tulips 

 across from a grove of pine at the 

 head of the driveway — is small, but 

 the nature of the business is obvious. 



ORGANIZATION IS STRAIGHT- 

 FORWARD. Perennials are in and 

 around a 14'x96' hoop house on 

 the other side of the parking area 

 across from the shop. A 20'x80' 

 lath house holds less sun-loving 

 shrubs. Access roads — some bridg- 

 ing drainage swales dug by the 

 CCC in the thirties — divide the 

 yard into blocks. 



There is no final plan — he "chips 

 away at using space effectively." 

 "Good land is getting hard to find. 

 It's best to use what you already 

 have efficiently — when you think 

 about it, you find you have all 

 kinds of room." 



Behind the yard is their home — 

 and a pond. A water source in case 

 there are well problems, the pond 

 is also a place for their three chil- 

 dren to fish, swim, skate — "every 

 kid should grow up near a pond." 

 The town was looking for clay to 

 use for filling and sealing the town 

 dump — "we had plenty and were 

 glad to help out. It worked out for 

 both of us." 



AESTHETICS ARE IMPORTANT. 

 Crushed rock has been spread in 

 many areas ("Mud is one of my 

 pet peeves — it looks bad and it 

 slows down productivity.") 



Specimen trees are focal points. 

 Dwarf Korean fir (Abies koreana) — 

 "unique purple cones" — and 

 camperdown elm {Ulmus glabra 

 'camperdownii,'are used effec- 

 tively, contrasting against the ma- 

 terial behind them. Across from 

 the shop, one 8-foot ToUeson's 

 weeping blue juniper {juniperus 

 scopularus 'ToUeson's blue') stands 

 at the beginning of an access 

 road. 



Holding areas can be garden- 

 like. Beyond the juniper, Daphne 

 'Carol Mackie' and Chamaecyparis 

 obtusa 'Hinockii' are displayed to- 

 gether under clumps of birches. 



And the drainage swales have 

 aesthetic value, creating a grid of 

 water and cattails and red-winged 

 blackbirds that break up the 

 blocks of trees. Along one por- 

 tion, mowed grass slopes to the 

 water and willows have been 

 planted. 



"Display gardens are a good 

 idea, but it's one of our lower 

 priorities." However, he concedes 

 their usefulness with an example: 

 "a mature dwarf arctic willow 

 (Salix purpurea 'Nana') — a beauti- 

 ful plant with slender silverly 

 leaves tht move in the slightest 

 breeze — shows off its potential in 

 the landscape in a way that con- 

 tainerized material cannot." 



HE BASES HIS ORDERS on previ- 

 ous years' sales, but this year's 

 trends will be based on what the 

 gardening magazines emphasized 

 during the winter. "People tend 

 to buy what they read, not what 



THE PLANTSMAN 



