Contents:
• Information on plants
••••••• databases: pages of information
••••••• databases: nurseries
••••••• roses
••••••• paeony, hortensia, clematis
••••••• perennials in general
••••••• hostas
••••••• daylilies
••••••• bamboos, grasses and rock plants
••••••• bulbs & tubers
• Gardens
• Nurseries
••••••• rose nurseries
••••••• paeony, hortensia, clematis
••••••• perennial nurseries
••••••• bulbs & tubers
Royal Horticultural Society: For me it was extremely interesting to have an insight in the life of the most important society of gardening of a country where gardening is pursued with as much enthusiasm as in Britain.
Gazlap: Everything in one place – in Hungarian.
ON PLANTS:
databases - pages of information:
Dave’s Garden: One of the largest databases and forums on gardening in English. I use it primarily as a database. Besides the height of the plants it also includes their width, blooming period and water demand, often pictures and various opinions as well, and – very important for me – their tolerance of cold temperature.
Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center – The PlantFinder: A database on the page of the Missouri Botanical Garden, with the data of more than 3500 plants. Very thorough and reliable. This is the one I use the most besides that of Dave’s Garden.
BackyardGardener: An American gardeners’ information page. I have linked it principally because besides the American hardiness zones it also provides the heat-zones and sunset-zones of each plant, accompanied with detailed information. The knowledge of these latter is important for knowing which plants tolerate our hot summers and which ones not. If I knew this earlier, I would have known for example that I should not plant Astilbe which, to my deep grief, were spoiled in the hot of this year.
University of Connecticut: A large and meticulous database of trees and shrubs. I check it before any new purchase, because it always indicates if a plant spreads is spreading or stoloniferous, as to my experience the majority of the shrubs at sale in Hungarian garden shops are such (obviously because they are easy to propagate).
BBC - Gardening: A useful and informative gardening page of the BBC.
Le Jardin de Béatrice: A page in French, and although I do not speak French, it has well constructed tables, figures and images that help me a lot. Like the one before, it also provides data on the durability of the plants, and indicates realistic period of bloom.
databases - nurseries:
I have no experience with the nurseries below, but they have so good catalogs that I often use them as databases.
Digging Dog Nursery: An American nursery. As the master of three dogs that show a keen interest in gardening, I can appreciate their name. Apart from this, they offer very precise plant descriptions.
Lazy S'S Farm Nursey: One of my favorites, with exceptionally realistic information. And in addition they are also dog fans, with very sympathetic dogs.
Fort Pond Native Plants: It not only indicates the optimal circumstances of plants, but also provides their limits of tolerance.
Crocus: The page of a British nursery with beautiful photos and with many realistic information.
Binny Plants Nursery: A British nursery with a large offer. Their catalog often includes the description and eventually the image of some rare plants.
Esveld Plant Store: A Dutch nursery with so good plant descriptions that I use it as a database. In the case of ground-covering plants, for example, it also indicates whether they are compatible with other plants or not. This is very important to know when you put these plants not under shrubs but together with other perennials, because those incompatible crush all the other.
Artner Bio-Baumschule: An Austrian bio-nursery. It has an especially large offer of berries and wild fruits, with detailed description of each of them.
Gärtnerei Naturwuchs: A German nursery with a large offer of wild fruits, also with detailed inscriptions.
roses:
Rosenmeile: The page of Christine Meile, rose gardener and photographer (as well as a dog fan). Wonderful and rich in information.
Helpmefind: Everything that is rose. They publish several photos of each plant (and eventually links to gardens where the respective rose can be found), give very precise data about their height and width, and often also about their tolerance of shade. They provide detailed information about special sorts like the completely cold hardy Canadian roses which had been developed in the last decades. This is the site I use the most about roses.
RogersRoses: The web version of that fabulous English book whose illustrations incited us ten years ago to establish our rose garden and that I have been regularly browsing ever since. The internet version has a very good search function.
EveryRose: One of the largest rose databases with an advanced search function. Its composite searches were a great help to me as a beginner.
RoseFile: Another rose database with many good images and information, and with a special page on roses for cold climate.
JustOurPictures: The most beautiful rose photos I have ever seen.
paeony, hortensia, clematis:
Klehm's Song Sparrow: A breeder with superb plants. It is a must to watch!
Paeonia Project: A fantastic database of Carsten Burkhart in several languages. An incredible amount of images and information on paeonies, easy to use and linked to nurseries as well. Unfortunately the plants I purchased from them were not this high quality.
Piviones Rivière: A paeony nursery active since 1849, with 650 sortments.
All About Hydrangeas: A beautiful and informative page by an American lady about hortensias.
Clematis: Polish wholesaler clematis nursery with a good English language encyclopedia.
Clematis on the Web: Data, good description, accessory information about more than 3000 clematis.
perennials in general:
Heritage Perennials: One of those few gardening pages that does not only provide the optimal circumstances of the plants, but also their limits of tolerance. To me it was of a great help.
Bluestone Perennials: A similarly good American nursery that also provides the limits of tolerance of each plant.
Walters Gardens: An excellent American perennial nursery that gives exceptionally detailed and realistic information on plants.
Homestead Farms Nursery: I saw it when browsing for hostas, and found it very informative. It also offers exhaustive information on daylilies, paeonies, clematises, Siberian irises and cold hardy ferns (by the way Hungarian garden shops regularly offer ferns that do not survive our cold winters?).
Plant Delights Nursery: Another American nursery with a very good selection of plants and excellent descriptions.
Annie's Annuals & Perennials: Detailed and precise descriptions of more than 2500 plants with good images.
Cotswold Garden Flowers: A British nursery specialized in rare perennials and small shrubs. Its encyclopedia gives very useful descriptions of about ten thousand plants.
Staudenkulture Stade: A German perennial nursery that offers more than 3000 plants. It has a very useful composite search function. A search for “dry, half shadowy forest border” for example had a result of 122 plants.
Helenium - Phlox: On Heleniums there are a few reliable and nice photos, but about Phlox hardly any. This page, however, has many of them. They are so beautiful that it is worth to check even if you do not actually want to buy Phlox. (But after checking it you will surely want.)
Hortensis: A small German nursery selling mostly rare and unusual perennials. I have never purchased from them, but I have learned a lot from their catalog.
Staudengalerie Olaf Grabner: A nursery specialized in wild flowers and difficult sites (dry shadow, dry sand). Their catalog was of a great help to me.
hostas:
Mickfield Hostas: This is one of the most informative pages I have found on hostas.
Q & Z Nursey: The width of a fully developed hosta can be even two and half meters. Obviously, if a nursery keeps quiet about these sizes, can sell more plants. This is what nurseries usually do. This page, however, belongs to those few that correctly report the actual size of each hosta.
Bridgewood Gardens: Exceptionally beautiful photos, more than one about each plant.
Hosta Patch: With realistic sizes and beautiful photos.
Homestead Farms Nursey: Apart from the height and width of hostas it also indicates the size of the leafs. With beautiful images.
DirectSourceHostas: This page does not give as exact descriptions as the previous ones, but it adds many useful personal commentaries to its beautiful images.
Hostas & ZO: A Belgian hosta nursery with the description of very rare sortment in its catalog.
daylilies:
When buying daylilies at our climate, one has to take in account that our hardiness zone (Z5) is only good for the dormand sortments, while evergreen and semi-evergreen ones require at least Z6.
Daylily World: The page of the American daylily breeder David Kirchhoff. I guess here you can see the most beautiful daylilies of the world. It is a must to see. One would not believe that such a beauty even exists.
Iris en Provence: The nursery of a French breeder in Provence with beautiful plants and informative pages.
Tagliliengarten Baumgarten: I found it rather expensive, but it has beautiful images.
Eurocallis: Expensive too, but similarly beautiful images.
Hemerocallis-web: A German nursery of hostas and daylilies with a nice catalog.
bamboos, grasses & rock plants:
Fragesia - Der Gartenbambus: A German page on bamboos, composed with a true German thoroughness. It also indicates whether the given bamboo is spreading as well as the degree of their cold hardiness. As most bamboos aggressively spread and are not cold hardy, therefore in Z5 – and unfortunately the most part of Hungary, in spite of any contrasting opinion, belongs to this zone – is good to know these data before buying bamboos, in order one could avoid any unpleasant surprise.
Bluestem Nursery: Another favorite of mine. A beautiful Canadian page on the grasses usable even in cold climate field grown plants.
The Alpine and Grass Nursery: A British nursery. I have no personal experience with them, but their catalog is overwhelmingly rich and informative. I regularly use it as a database.
Jeepers Creepers: A very good page on ground-covering plants that even includes the limits of tolerance of each plant.
Green Roof Plants: A page of an American company producing green roofs. It includes the description of several very resistant plants that tolerate both shining sun and dryness on the one hand, and half shadow and humidity on the other. It also reports their cold hardiness which is very important because for example the real zone of the Sedums are often quite different from popular ideas on them.
bulbs & tubers (lehet, hogy a tuber nem kell):
Dahliaworld: The data of more than fifty thousand dahlias and several dahlia nurseries.
The National Dahlia Collection: They have a large dahlia database with beautiful images.
Deutsche Dahlien- , Fuchsien und Gladiolen- Gesellschaft: The reliable description of more than 1200 dahlia with photos. Good search function and links to dahlia nurseries.
Brent and Becky's Bulb: An American nursery giving thorough and reliable information on their plants.
ON GARDENS:
The National Trust: The most beautiful buildings, parks and gardens of Great Britain.
Gardenvisit: Garden history, schools of gardening, garden tours and more than 2000 gardens all over the world.
Great British Gardens: Short overviews on the gardens of Great Britain, with the links of the gardens’ homepage if available. One can also search for the works of some more renowned garden designers.
The Beth Chatto Gardens: The portal of Beth Chatto’s garden. Unfortunately it is rather a commercial page and it does not really convey how fantastically beautiful the garden of Andrew and Beth Chatto is. Nevertheless it is worth to visit. The books you can order here give a much better presentation of the garden, and you also find much useful information on their plants. In my opinion Beth is one of the greatest gardeners of all times.
I think that at this moment it is Hortus Carmeli where you can find the most photos on the garden of Beth Chatto.
Sissinghurst Garden: This was the first famous English garden I got to know (by the way from a very good book, Tony Lord: Gardening at Sissinghurst. Frances Lincoln Limited, London 1995). Not everybody can be a British aristocrat, but this garden has a sort of a generosity that can make even the smallest garden look monumental.
The Great Dixter House and Gardens: Another world famous British aristocrat’s garden. The emphasis is again on generosity.
Bressingham Gardens: The page of one of the most beautiful British gardens.
Privétuin van Anja et Piet Oudolf: In my opinion Piet Oudolf is amongst contemporary garden designers like Rembrandt was among the painters contemporary with him. This page of a Dutch nursery presents the most images of the garden of Anja and Piet Oudolf.
The Battery Gardens: One of the most recent works of Piet Oudolf.
Timbers Press: Piet Oudolf: This is the shop that sells the most of Piet Oudolf’s books.
The Claude Monet Foundation at Giverny: When I started to compose our garden, I always compared each part completed with the paintings of Monet to check whether it was done successfully. Not much later I found a book that revealed that Monet in turn composed his pictures by painting his own garden (Vivian Russel: Monet’s Garden. Frances Lincoln Limited, London 1995).
Foerster Stauden: Karl Foerster was one of the greatest German gardeners of the twentieth century. This is the page of his still active nursery with some information on him as well.
Ein Garten in Norddeutschland: This was one of the first pages on gardening I saw on the net. From time to time I come back to check it and I still find it beautiful.
Moosey's Country Garden: The beautiful, rich and interesting page of Moosey from New Zealand on her – beautiful, rich and interesting – garden and on everything that is garden.
ON NURSERIES:
Check the information on gardening as well, because many nurseries are presented there!
Praskac: The West-European nursery that lays closest to us. It offers a full scale of plants. It is among the few nurseries that have an official license to sell the roses of David Austin, and with right, because their English roses are excellent. They have an extremely good web catalog in German. They do not only include the height and width of plants, but also their demand of light, soil and watering, and all this quite reliably. They also report correctly the blooming period of flowers – in contrast to the publications of Hungarian nurseries, they do not want to make you believe that all flowers bloom throughout all season.
rose nurseries:
David Austin Roses: In my opinion the most beautiful roses of the world. They look as marvelous as historical roses, but in contrast to them they are remontant. They have fantastic colors, some of them smells wonderfully, and some are extremely sturdy. In my experience, however, we in Central Europe should better import his roses from more nearby regions, Germany or Austria, because they are stronger and develop better at us.
Peter Beales Roses: The other world famous British rose nursery alongside with Austin’s. They sell more than 1300 classical roses, and have a quite fantastic offer concerning wild roses and historical roses. The page has a very good advanced search function that also includes the roses’ demand of light and soil, an information otherwise hard to obtain. (Nevertheless, take with caution the periods of blooming reported by them.) Their roses curiously tolerate better the change of climate between Britain and Hungary than those of Austin.
Rosen von Schultheis: The doyen of German rose nurseries with a large offer and good quality. It sells a lot of English roses, and also a number of such specialties like the Canadian and Estonian hybrids which are surely cold hardy at us.
paeony, hortensia, clematis:
Staudengärtnerei Gräfin von Zeppelin: They are mostly specialized in iris, daylily and paeony, and are especially good in this latter. Our winters are usually too cold to the Chinese paeonies on sale in our nurseries, but they usually offer certainly cold hardy sorments, and send beautiful plants.
Miely's Pfingstrosengarten: An Austrian nursery specialized in paeony, with a huge offer. We received very good plants from them.
I have never bought hydrangea from any special hydrangea nursery. Two types of the common hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) with white globe flower, the Grandiflora and Annabella are often on sale in any garden shops. The problem is that they usually do not know which sortment they are just selling, and the Grandiflora is twice as large in our garden than the Annabella. In Budapest, in the New Garden chain sometimes very interesting and good sortments are on sale, but you only must buy there if you exactly know what you’re buying, because otherwise you can make a gross mistake. The Praskac has a not too large but well selected offer, and their plants are nice and strong.
Westphal Clematiskulturen: I am just going to buy from them, but their catalog is overwhelming anyway.
perennial nurseries:
Staudengärtnerei Gaissmayer: I have browsed through a large number of perennial nurseries until I found them. They have a sensitively selected offer, and I have good experiences with the quality of the plants sent by them.
Friesland Staudengarten: An incredibly large company, at this moment they offer 25945 plants in their catalog. They have so good search function that it can be also used as a database. However, it turned out only after sending my order that at least half of the plants that were indicated as being on stock were in fact not available at the moment. Their shipping fee is also higher than usual. But at least we received very good quality plants from them.
Rühlemann's: A German nursery offering 1400 medical plants and spices. A friend of mine often buys from them and is satisfied with them.
Vasteplant: A Belgian perennial nursery. I have very mixed experiences with them. They have a fantastic offer and the plants they sent were beautiful. BUT: They counted an irrealistically high shipping fee. They required payment in advance, and then only sent two thirds of the plants ordered, saying they were not at stock. (In every other place they check the stock after receiving the order, and send the invoice only on what they have on stock indeed.) They did not reply to our reclamations. What will be with the money paid in vain to them? After several months they replied that if we send them our invoice number then they will send the money back. (We originally paid by bank transfer, thus they always had our invoice number.) Thanks to God, this was the only case when a Western nursery made an unfair advantage of the fact that their clients are not Western people.
Kwekerij Joosten: The nursery of Freddy and Marianne Joosten in the Netherlands. They offer more than 1500 daylilies and irises. They have a good catalog with beautiful and realistic images, and they send very good quality plants.
Dolce Daylily Farm: A daylily nursery in the Czech Republic. The photos do not always do justice to the beauty of their plants, but if you click on the name of the plants you receive exact descriptions. Due to the Hungarian customs and post service, their first package arrived after two weeks – and all the plants survived.
Hostakert: I can say the best of them. You might be terrified by the fact that it is in the Eastern Hungarian city of Nyíregyháza, and that they are a bit more expensive than usual at us. But you should not. They guarantee an absolutely professional Western quality, for a price much lower than there. They have a huge offer, selected with a great knowledge (almost a thousand breeds of hostas, including a lot of very special ones). I received beautiful, strong plants, including some that were so large that I could immediately divide them. The plants were carried to us by my friends, and they praised for a long time how fantastically kind and friendly they were with them. At first I was afraid to order by post from them, but the plants carried by my friends were so skillfully packaged that then I risked it. It was worth. Immediately the next day following my order I received an extra copy of a hosta (a much larger plant than usual, as we agreed by phone) that is only on sale at two more places in all Europe. I planted it on a difficult place (this is why I needed an extra copy) and it developed beautifully throughout the summer. I trust that after three or four years it will be really two meters large, with two meters high flower stems.
Évelőpark: We have bought from them for more than ten years. They have an average stock, but they always have some interesting sortments as well. In 2007 for example they sold some really fantastic daylilies. They are a wholesaler nursery who sell in small quantities only in the shop at their center in the countryside. Nevertheless, as their prices are usually half or less than what you spend in a garden shop, you’d better collect a voluminous order and ask them whether you can buy that quantity.
Szigeti & Társa Kertészet: They have an average offer, but they are in Budapest and have good prices. They are wholesalers, too. When I went to their nursery, I was able to buy in a smaller quantity as well, but you have to agree with them in advance what they are willing to do for you at the moment.
Hegede Kertészet: I can only tell the best of them. They were cooperative and flexible, we received very beautiful plants from them with a short shipping time. On the internet they are wholesalers, they only sell small quantities in the shop in their center. Nevertheless, as their prices are usually half or less than what you spend in a garden shop, you’d better collect a voluminous order and ask them whether you can buy that quantity.
Zsohár Kertészet: I have also known them for more than ten years. At that time they had a good offer, but since then they have moved rather to the average. One thing, however, has not changed: that each time when I enter in connection with them, somehow they always come off well at my disadvantage. The last time – as I still have not learned from my previous experiences – I have ordered a larger quantity of plants from them, including twenty-some special ferns (two euros per piece plus VAT plus shipping etc.) When you receive a lorry of plants you do not have the time to individually check all the plants. Nevertheless I should have done so, because among the ferns they sent there were only two of that special breed, otherwise they grafted off their idle inventories of much less valuable ferns to us.
Beretvás Kertészet: I was looking for one kind of ground-covering plant, I wanted to buy a large quantity of it, and also some two dozens of other plants. As they are more than sixty kilometers from Budapest, I called them by phone to know whether they have that given plant. Yes, they have. I can calmly go. I went. They did not have it. They shrugged their shoulders, they were not really touched by the fact that we drove more than a hundred kilometers in vain. They behaved if they did me a favor by serving me for two dozens of plants. I also took some special perennials to them as a gift. They put them under the striking sunshine and left them there as long as we were there.
Nursery of Pál Mocsáry: Since we have our garden, I have bought the most from him. His nursery is a true joy for me. He is passionately interested in plants and loves them. Accordingly, he has the best offer of perennials in all Hungary. He grows a lot of plants that one could buy only from the West – for ten times more. He has no homepage, but he has a printed catalog. He is also a wholesaler only. (e-mail: mocsaryp@freestart.hu or mocsaryp@t-online.hu)
Etnoflora: The herbs nursery of Zoltán Zatykó. I hope he will also sell wildflowers again. Ten years ago, when one could not find wildflowers in any nursery, he gave us the first real woodland plants. He had some stems of woodroof and pulmonaria that he generously shared with us. Since then we have become a great power of pulmonaria, while the emphasis of his nursery has shifted on medical and spice plants. As he also belongs to those few who live not only from, but also for the plants, he always has a very exciting offer. The last time I found at him an apricot-colored, cold hardy Agastache that I had searched in vain throughout all the net, but in all Europe it was only sold in a German nursery, for ten times more than at him. He has no homepage either, but you can contact him by e-mail: etnoflora@chello.hu
bulbs & tubers:
Gärtnerei Wagschal: A German dahlia nursery with some cannas and daylilies as well. They have a fabulous offer.
Köstritzer Dahlien: They have a large offer, and send very good quality plants.
Tulipánvilág: They have an interesting offer of bulbs and tuber crops.
• Information on plants
••••••• databases: pages of information
••••••• databases: nurseries
••••••• roses
••••••• paeony, hortensia, clematis
••••••• perennials in general
••••••• hostas
••••••• daylilies
••••••• bamboos, grasses and rock plants
••••••• bulbs & tubers
• Gardens
• Nurseries
••••••• rose nurseries
••••••• paeony, hortensia, clematis
••••••• perennial nurseries
••••••• bulbs & tubers
Royal Horticultural Society: For me it was extremely interesting to have an insight in the life of the most important society of gardening of a country where gardening is pursued with as much enthusiasm as in Britain.
Gazlap: Everything in one place – in Hungarian.
ON PLANTS:
databases - pages of information:
Dave’s Garden: One of the largest databases and forums on gardening in English. I use it primarily as a database. Besides the height of the plants it also includes their width, blooming period and water demand, often pictures and various opinions as well, and – very important for me – their tolerance of cold temperature.
Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center – The PlantFinder: A database on the page of the Missouri Botanical Garden, with the data of more than 3500 plants. Very thorough and reliable. This is the one I use the most besides that of Dave’s Garden.
BackyardGardener: An American gardeners’ information page. I have linked it principally because besides the American hardiness zones it also provides the heat-zones and sunset-zones of each plant, accompanied with detailed information. The knowledge of these latter is important for knowing which plants tolerate our hot summers and which ones not. If I knew this earlier, I would have known for example that I should not plant Astilbe which, to my deep grief, were spoiled in the hot of this year.
University of Connecticut: A large and meticulous database of trees and shrubs. I check it before any new purchase, because it always indicates if a plant spreads is spreading or stoloniferous, as to my experience the majority of the shrubs at sale in Hungarian garden shops are such (obviously because they are easy to propagate).
BBC - Gardening: A useful and informative gardening page of the BBC.
Le Jardin de Béatrice: A page in French, and although I do not speak French, it has well constructed tables, figures and images that help me a lot. Like the one before, it also provides data on the durability of the plants, and indicates realistic period of bloom.
databases - nurseries:
I have no experience with the nurseries below, but they have so good catalogs that I often use them as databases.
Digging Dog Nursery: An American nursery. As the master of three dogs that show a keen interest in gardening, I can appreciate their name. Apart from this, they offer very precise plant descriptions.Lazy S'S Farm Nursey: One of my favorites, with exceptionally realistic information. And in addition they are also dog fans, with very sympathetic dogs.
Fort Pond Native Plants: It not only indicates the optimal circumstances of plants, but also provides their limits of tolerance.
Crocus: The page of a British nursery with beautiful photos and with many realistic information.
Binny Plants Nursery: A British nursery with a large offer. Their catalog often includes the description and eventually the image of some rare plants.
Esveld Plant Store: A Dutch nursery with so good plant descriptions that I use it as a database. In the case of ground-covering plants, for example, it also indicates whether they are compatible with other plants or not. This is very important to know when you put these plants not under shrubs but together with other perennials, because those incompatible crush all the other.
Artner Bio-Baumschule: An Austrian bio-nursery. It has an especially large offer of berries and wild fruits, with detailed description of each of them.
Gärtnerei Naturwuchs: A German nursery with a large offer of wild fruits, also with detailed inscriptions.
roses:
Rosenmeile: The page of Christine Meile, rose gardener and photographer (as well as a dog fan). Wonderful and rich in information.
Helpmefind: Everything that is rose. They publish several photos of each plant (and eventually links to gardens where the respective rose can be found), give very precise data about their height and width, and often also about their tolerance of shade. They provide detailed information about special sorts like the completely cold hardy Canadian roses which had been developed in the last decades. This is the site I use the most about roses.
RogersRoses: The web version of that fabulous English book whose illustrations incited us ten years ago to establish our rose garden and that I have been regularly browsing ever since. The internet version has a very good search function.
EveryRose: One of the largest rose databases with an advanced search function. Its composite searches were a great help to me as a beginner.
RoseFile: Another rose database with many good images and information, and with a special page on roses for cold climate.
JustOurPictures: The most beautiful rose photos I have ever seen.
paeony, hortensia, clematis:
Klehm's Song Sparrow: A breeder with superb plants. It is a must to watch!
Paeonia Project: A fantastic database of Carsten Burkhart in several languages. An incredible amount of images and information on paeonies, easy to use and linked to nurseries as well. Unfortunately the plants I purchased from them were not this high quality.
Piviones Rivière: A paeony nursery active since 1849, with 650 sortments.
All About Hydrangeas: A beautiful and informative page by an American lady about hortensias.
Clematis: Polish wholesaler clematis nursery with a good English language encyclopedia.
Clematis on the Web: Data, good description, accessory information about more than 3000 clematis.
perennials in general:
Heritage Perennials: One of those few gardening pages that does not only provide the optimal circumstances of the plants, but also their limits of tolerance. To me it was of a great help.
Bluestone Perennials: A similarly good American nursery that also provides the limits of tolerance of each plant.
Walters Gardens: An excellent American perennial nursery that gives exceptionally detailed and realistic information on plants.
Homestead Farms Nursery: I saw it when browsing for hostas, and found it very informative. It also offers exhaustive information on daylilies, paeonies, clematises, Siberian irises and cold hardy ferns (by the way Hungarian garden shops regularly offer ferns that do not survive our cold winters?).
Plant Delights Nursery: Another American nursery with a very good selection of plants and excellent descriptions.
Annie's Annuals & Perennials: Detailed and precise descriptions of more than 2500 plants with good images.
Cotswold Garden Flowers: A British nursery specialized in rare perennials and small shrubs. Its encyclopedia gives very useful descriptions of about ten thousand plants.
Staudenkulture Stade: A German perennial nursery that offers more than 3000 plants. It has a very useful composite search function. A search for “dry, half shadowy forest border” for example had a result of 122 plants.
Helenium - Phlox: On Heleniums there are a few reliable and nice photos, but about Phlox hardly any. This page, however, has many of them. They are so beautiful that it is worth to check even if you do not actually want to buy Phlox. (But after checking it you will surely want.)
Hortensis: A small German nursery selling mostly rare and unusual perennials. I have never purchased from them, but I have learned a lot from their catalog.
Staudengalerie Olaf Grabner: A nursery specialized in wild flowers and difficult sites (dry shadow, dry sand). Their catalog was of a great help to me.
hostas:
Mickfield Hostas: This is one of the most informative pages I have found on hostas.
Q & Z Nursey: The width of a fully developed hosta can be even two and half meters. Obviously, if a nursery keeps quiet about these sizes, can sell more plants. This is what nurseries usually do. This page, however, belongs to those few that correctly report the actual size of each hosta.
Bridgewood Gardens: Exceptionally beautiful photos, more than one about each plant.
Hosta Patch: With realistic sizes and beautiful photos.
Homestead Farms Nursey: Apart from the height and width of hostas it also indicates the size of the leafs. With beautiful images.
DirectSourceHostas: This page does not give as exact descriptions as the previous ones, but it adds many useful personal commentaries to its beautiful images.
Hostas & ZO: A Belgian hosta nursery with the description of very rare sortment in its catalog.
daylilies:
When buying daylilies at our climate, one has to take in account that our hardiness zone (Z5) is only good for the dormand sortments, while evergreen and semi-evergreen ones require at least Z6.
Daylily World: The page of the American daylily breeder David Kirchhoff. I guess here you can see the most beautiful daylilies of the world. It is a must to see. One would not believe that such a beauty even exists.
Iris en Provence: The nursery of a French breeder in Provence with beautiful plants and informative pages.
Tagliliengarten Baumgarten: I found it rather expensive, but it has beautiful images.
Eurocallis: Expensive too, but similarly beautiful images.
Hemerocallis-web: A German nursery of hostas and daylilies with a nice catalog.
bamboos, grasses & rock plants:
Fragesia - Der Gartenbambus: A German page on bamboos, composed with a true German thoroughness. It also indicates whether the given bamboo is spreading as well as the degree of their cold hardiness. As most bamboos aggressively spread and are not cold hardy, therefore in Z5 – and unfortunately the most part of Hungary, in spite of any contrasting opinion, belongs to this zone – is good to know these data before buying bamboos, in order one could avoid any unpleasant surprise.
Bluestem Nursery: Another favorite of mine. A beautiful Canadian page on the grasses usable even in cold climate field grown plants.
The Alpine and Grass Nursery: A British nursery. I have no personal experience with them, but their catalog is overwhelmingly rich and informative. I regularly use it as a database.
Jeepers Creepers: A very good page on ground-covering plants that even includes the limits of tolerance of each plant.
Green Roof Plants: A page of an American company producing green roofs. It includes the description of several very resistant plants that tolerate both shining sun and dryness on the one hand, and half shadow and humidity on the other. It also reports their cold hardiness which is very important because for example the real zone of the Sedums are often quite different from popular ideas on them.
bulbs & tubers (lehet, hogy a tuber nem kell):
Dahliaworld: The data of more than fifty thousand dahlias and several dahlia nurseries.
The National Dahlia Collection: They have a large dahlia database with beautiful images.
Deutsche Dahlien- , Fuchsien und Gladiolen- Gesellschaft: The reliable description of more than 1200 dahlia with photos. Good search function and links to dahlia nurseries.
Brent and Becky's Bulb: An American nursery giving thorough and reliable information on their plants.
ON GARDENS:
The National Trust: The most beautiful buildings, parks and gardens of Great Britain.
Gardenvisit: Garden history, schools of gardening, garden tours and more than 2000 gardens all over the world.
Great British Gardens: Short overviews on the gardens of Great Britain, with the links of the gardens’ homepage if available. One can also search for the works of some more renowned garden designers.
The Beth Chatto Gardens: The portal of Beth Chatto’s garden. Unfortunately it is rather a commercial page and it does not really convey how fantastically beautiful the garden of Andrew and Beth Chatto is. Nevertheless it is worth to visit. The books you can order here give a much better presentation of the garden, and you also find much useful information on their plants. In my opinion Beth is one of the greatest gardeners of all times.
I think that at this moment it is Hortus Carmeli where you can find the most photos on the garden of Beth Chatto.
Sissinghurst Garden: This was the first famous English garden I got to know (by the way from a very good book, Tony Lord: Gardening at Sissinghurst. Frances Lincoln Limited, London 1995). Not everybody can be a British aristocrat, but this garden has a sort of a generosity that can make even the smallest garden look monumental.
The Great Dixter House and Gardens: Another world famous British aristocrat’s garden. The emphasis is again on generosity.
Bressingham Gardens: The page of one of the most beautiful British gardens.
Privétuin van Anja et Piet Oudolf: In my opinion Piet Oudolf is amongst contemporary garden designers like Rembrandt was among the painters contemporary with him. This page of a Dutch nursery presents the most images of the garden of Anja and Piet Oudolf.
The Battery Gardens: One of the most recent works of Piet Oudolf.
Timbers Press: Piet Oudolf: This is the shop that sells the most of Piet Oudolf’s books.
The Claude Monet Foundation at Giverny: When I started to compose our garden, I always compared each part completed with the paintings of Monet to check whether it was done successfully. Not much later I found a book that revealed that Monet in turn composed his pictures by painting his own garden (Vivian Russel: Monet’s Garden. Frances Lincoln Limited, London 1995).
Foerster Stauden: Karl Foerster was one of the greatest German gardeners of the twentieth century. This is the page of his still active nursery with some information on him as well.
Ein Garten in Norddeutschland: This was one of the first pages on gardening I saw on the net. From time to time I come back to check it and I still find it beautiful.
Moosey's Country Garden: The beautiful, rich and interesting page of Moosey from New Zealand on her – beautiful, rich and interesting – garden and on everything that is garden.
ON NURSERIES:
Check the information on gardening as well, because many nurseries are presented there!
Praskac: The West-European nursery that lays closest to us. It offers a full scale of plants. It is among the few nurseries that have an official license to sell the roses of David Austin, and with right, because their English roses are excellent. They have an extremely good web catalog in German. They do not only include the height and width of plants, but also their demand of light, soil and watering, and all this quite reliably. They also report correctly the blooming period of flowers – in contrast to the publications of Hungarian nurseries, they do not want to make you believe that all flowers bloom throughout all season.
rose nurseries:
David Austin Roses: In my opinion the most beautiful roses of the world. They look as marvelous as historical roses, but in contrast to them they are remontant. They have fantastic colors, some of them smells wonderfully, and some are extremely sturdy. In my experience, however, we in Central Europe should better import his roses from more nearby regions, Germany or Austria, because they are stronger and develop better at us.
Peter Beales Roses: The other world famous British rose nursery alongside with Austin’s. They sell more than 1300 classical roses, and have a quite fantastic offer concerning wild roses and historical roses. The page has a very good advanced search function that also includes the roses’ demand of light and soil, an information otherwise hard to obtain. (Nevertheless, take with caution the periods of blooming reported by them.) Their roses curiously tolerate better the change of climate between Britain and Hungary than those of Austin.
Rosen von Schultheis: The doyen of German rose nurseries with a large offer and good quality. It sells a lot of English roses, and also a number of such specialties like the Canadian and Estonian hybrids which are surely cold hardy at us.
paeony, hortensia, clematis:
Staudengärtnerei Gräfin von Zeppelin: They are mostly specialized in iris, daylily and paeony, and are especially good in this latter. Our winters are usually too cold to the Chinese paeonies on sale in our nurseries, but they usually offer certainly cold hardy sorments, and send beautiful plants.
Miely's Pfingstrosengarten: An Austrian nursery specialized in paeony, with a huge offer. We received very good plants from them.
I have never bought hydrangea from any special hydrangea nursery. Two types of the common hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) with white globe flower, the Grandiflora and Annabella are often on sale in any garden shops. The problem is that they usually do not know which sortment they are just selling, and the Grandiflora is twice as large in our garden than the Annabella. In Budapest, in the New Garden chain sometimes very interesting and good sortments are on sale, but you only must buy there if you exactly know what you’re buying, because otherwise you can make a gross mistake. The Praskac has a not too large but well selected offer, and their plants are nice and strong.
Westphal Clematiskulturen: I am just going to buy from them, but their catalog is overwhelming anyway.
perennial nurseries:
Staudengärtnerei Gaissmayer: I have browsed through a large number of perennial nurseries until I found them. They have a sensitively selected offer, and I have good experiences with the quality of the plants sent by them.
Friesland Staudengarten: An incredibly large company, at this moment they offer 25945 plants in their catalog. They have so good search function that it can be also used as a database. However, it turned out only after sending my order that at least half of the plants that were indicated as being on stock were in fact not available at the moment. Their shipping fee is also higher than usual. But at least we received very good quality plants from them.
Rühlemann's: A German nursery offering 1400 medical plants and spices. A friend of mine often buys from them and is satisfied with them.
Vasteplant: A Belgian perennial nursery. I have very mixed experiences with them. They have a fantastic offer and the plants they sent were beautiful. BUT: They counted an irrealistically high shipping fee. They required payment in advance, and then only sent two thirds of the plants ordered, saying they were not at stock. (In every other place they check the stock after receiving the order, and send the invoice only on what they have on stock indeed.) They did not reply to our reclamations. What will be with the money paid in vain to them? After several months they replied that if we send them our invoice number then they will send the money back. (We originally paid by bank transfer, thus they always had our invoice number.) Thanks to God, this was the only case when a Western nursery made an unfair advantage of the fact that their clients are not Western people.
Kwekerij Joosten: The nursery of Freddy and Marianne Joosten in the Netherlands. They offer more than 1500 daylilies and irises. They have a good catalog with beautiful and realistic images, and they send very good quality plants.
Dolce Daylily Farm: A daylily nursery in the Czech Republic. The photos do not always do justice to the beauty of their plants, but if you click on the name of the plants you receive exact descriptions. Due to the Hungarian customs and post service, their first package arrived after two weeks – and all the plants survived.
Hostakert: I can say the best of them. You might be terrified by the fact that it is in the Eastern Hungarian city of Nyíregyháza, and that they are a bit more expensive than usual at us. But you should not. They guarantee an absolutely professional Western quality, for a price much lower than there. They have a huge offer, selected with a great knowledge (almost a thousand breeds of hostas, including a lot of very special ones). I received beautiful, strong plants, including some that were so large that I could immediately divide them. The plants were carried to us by my friends, and they praised for a long time how fantastically kind and friendly they were with them. At first I was afraid to order by post from them, but the plants carried by my friends were so skillfully packaged that then I risked it. It was worth. Immediately the next day following my order I received an extra copy of a hosta (a much larger plant than usual, as we agreed by phone) that is only on sale at two more places in all Europe. I planted it on a difficult place (this is why I needed an extra copy) and it developed beautifully throughout the summer. I trust that after three or four years it will be really two meters large, with two meters high flower stems.
Évelőpark: We have bought from them for more than ten years. They have an average stock, but they always have some interesting sortments as well. In 2007 for example they sold some really fantastic daylilies. They are a wholesaler nursery who sell in small quantities only in the shop at their center in the countryside. Nevertheless, as their prices are usually half or less than what you spend in a garden shop, you’d better collect a voluminous order and ask them whether you can buy that quantity.
Szigeti & Társa Kertészet: They have an average offer, but they are in Budapest and have good prices. They are wholesalers, too. When I went to their nursery, I was able to buy in a smaller quantity as well, but you have to agree with them in advance what they are willing to do for you at the moment.
Hegede Kertészet: I can only tell the best of them. They were cooperative and flexible, we received very beautiful plants from them with a short shipping time. On the internet they are wholesalers, they only sell small quantities in the shop in their center. Nevertheless, as their prices are usually half or less than what you spend in a garden shop, you’d better collect a voluminous order and ask them whether you can buy that quantity.
Zsohár Kertészet: I have also known them for more than ten years. At that time they had a good offer, but since then they have moved rather to the average. One thing, however, has not changed: that each time when I enter in connection with them, somehow they always come off well at my disadvantage. The last time – as I still have not learned from my previous experiences – I have ordered a larger quantity of plants from them, including twenty-some special ferns (two euros per piece plus VAT plus shipping etc.) When you receive a lorry of plants you do not have the time to individually check all the plants. Nevertheless I should have done so, because among the ferns they sent there were only two of that special breed, otherwise they grafted off their idle inventories of much less valuable ferns to us.
Beretvás Kertészet: I was looking for one kind of ground-covering plant, I wanted to buy a large quantity of it, and also some two dozens of other plants. As they are more than sixty kilometers from Budapest, I called them by phone to know whether they have that given plant. Yes, they have. I can calmly go. I went. They did not have it. They shrugged their shoulders, they were not really touched by the fact that we drove more than a hundred kilometers in vain. They behaved if they did me a favor by serving me for two dozens of plants. I also took some special perennials to them as a gift. They put them under the striking sunshine and left them there as long as we were there.
Nursery of Pál Mocsáry: Since we have our garden, I have bought the most from him. His nursery is a true joy for me. He is passionately interested in plants and loves them. Accordingly, he has the best offer of perennials in all Hungary. He grows a lot of plants that one could buy only from the West – for ten times more. He has no homepage, but he has a printed catalog. He is also a wholesaler only. (e-mail: mocsaryp@freestart.hu or mocsaryp@t-online.hu)
Etnoflora: The herbs nursery of Zoltán Zatykó. I hope he will also sell wildflowers again. Ten years ago, when one could not find wildflowers in any nursery, he gave us the first real woodland plants. He had some stems of woodroof and pulmonaria that he generously shared with us. Since then we have become a great power of pulmonaria, while the emphasis of his nursery has shifted on medical and spice plants. As he also belongs to those few who live not only from, but also for the plants, he always has a very exciting offer. The last time I found at him an apricot-colored, cold hardy Agastache that I had searched in vain throughout all the net, but in all Europe it was only sold in a German nursery, for ten times more than at him. He has no homepage either, but you can contact him by e-mail: etnoflora@chello.hu
bulbs & tubers:
Gärtnerei Wagschal: A German dahlia nursery with some cannas and daylilies as well. They have a fabulous offer.
Köstritzer Dahlien: They have a large offer, and send very good quality plants.
Tulipánvilág: They have an interesting offer of bulbs and tuber crops.
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