Online Nurseries 2000 - Specialty Perennials
© Marge Talt
Those of you who frequent Perennials or Shadegardens mailing lists already know Paul Henjum, owner of Specialty Perennials, as a person who provides excellent information, from personal experience, about a wide range of plants.
For those of you meeting him for the first time in this article, Paul began his love of plants in highschool, carried it onward to college where he studied biology, botany and horticulture. He started his nursery as a wholesale operation specializing in native woodland plants; jack-in-the-pulpits (Arisaema), Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum), Mitella diphylla (miterwort), violas and native columbine (Aquilegia), among others.
For the past twelve years, Specialty Perennials has concentrated on the farmer's markets in the vicinity of Minneapolis and St. Paul. A year and a half ago, Paul put his extensive array of plants online, making them available, via mailorder, for all of us. Since his nursery is in the challenging climate of Minnesota (very hot summers and very cold winters), his list of plants will be especially suited for you northern gardeners. Of course, most will do well in warmer climates, too.
Specialty Perennials
481 Reflection Road
Apple Valley MN 55124
Phone or Fax: 612-432-8673
Email: Meum71@aol.com
There's no print catalog at present, but Paul has plans for one in the works for next year. The web site has secure credit ordering online.
Paul tells me that he likes variety, something that is reflected in the listings on the Specialty Perennials site. He buys liners from many different wholesalers and grows them on. Until recently, all his plants have been container grown, but he's run out of room for containers so he is beginning to field grow plants, which also provides him with stock for propagation. He says he's always changing his plant list to reflect his current interest, so if you see something you want, you'd better grab it while he has it. He's doing a lot of propagation from seed this year, he tells me, so look for seed grown plants to show up next spring.
In addition to his regular perennial listing, Paul offers fall shipped bulbs (Allium, Crocus and daffodils), herbaceous peonies and bearded iris.
For those of you with some sunny spots or places that only get very light shade, there's a huge list of tetraploid and diploid daylilies (Hemerocallis) offered on the fall shipping pages. I've found, in my USDA zone 7 climate, that daylilies will grow as foliage plants in fairly deep shade, but it takes at least three hours of direct sun or most of the day in very light, dappled shade for them to bloom well.
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