Evergreen Christmas Tree Guide: What is the best?

Decorated outdoor Christmas tree lit up.

When shopping for a Christmas tree at your local lot or tree farm, you’ll likely encounter many different types of evergreen Christmas trees. Picking out a perfect tree isn't easy. A tree's scent, color, strength of branches, shape, height and needle retention all matter. Depending on where you live will determine what type of trees … Continue reading Evergreen Christmas Tree Guide: What is the best?

Holiday Holly Tree Berry-Best Practices

Nelly Stevens Holly Berries on the tree

Walking the fields to find the perfect live Christmas tree has become a tradition for many families. Not only is the tree an important part of the holidays, but garland, misteltoe and wreaths as well. The bright red berries of the Holly trees look stunning against the green backdrop of leaves and needles in our … Continue reading Holiday Holly Tree Berry-Best Practices

Evergreen Tree Watering and Fertilization

Little Boy Watering Plants

In our last blog, we talked about soil types affecting the availability and uptake of plant nutrients.  Sandy soils , which drain quickly, may not have sufficient N, P and K due to leaching, as the water rapidly leaves a sand area. Over the years rains can remove a lot of nutrients from a porous area to the garden. Regular watering is needed to establish new trees and may move materials away also, from sandy planting mix. If you could see a cross section of the soil draining, the water you are applying moves rapidly out of the sand in a more pointed, dagger like profile.

Evergreen Tree Fertilization

Evergreen Privacy Screening

  Early spring is the time to fertilize the evergreen trees of your privacy screen. Visiting our clients sites over the last 3 years, we see most Living Fence evergreens need fertilization. The past few rainy years has most likely leached most of the nitrogen from our garden soils. One year we even had 70 … Continue reading Evergreen Tree Fertilization

Still Time to Plant Before the End of the Year!

Living Fence installation by Pryor's Nursery

Fall is a great time for planting. As temperatures cool, transplanting is less stressful on plants as they slowly become dormant with less new growth,

Home of the Original Nellie Stevens Holly

Sun or shade Nellies do well.

   Early this spring a client asked me to plant our Nellie Stevens Holly trees to form a privacy screen at his place in Oxford, Maryland. Wow!! Oxford  Maryland, home of the original Nellie Stevens Holly, is where ~ 100 years ago, gardener Nellie R. Stevens experimented with holly cross breeding and cultivated a new variety which … Continue reading Home of the Original Nellie Stevens Holly

Organic Soil Amendments

Organic Mulch delivery to the farm

At our evergreen tree farm, we experimented with different soil types and potting mixtures over 20 years ago for organic soil amendments. Leafgro, which is manufactured by the state of Maryland, proved to be an excellent addition to the planting medium. Made of leaves and grass clippings collected from the surrounding cities, it is professionally … Continue reading Organic Soil Amendments

Time to Water Your Living Fence

Watering Can watering plants

It is very IMPORTANT that you FREQUENTLY check the soil moisture content at the base of each evergreen tree.

Holly Berry Time

honeybee-on-the-male-winterberry flowers

The late spring is the time every year when the Nellie Stevens holly creates new berries. The hollies are cross pollinated by the bees. Hollies that have pollinated flowers  will develop small green berries that will grow and become  red in the fall.

Increase Nellie Stevens Holly Growth and Beauty

Nellie Stevens Holly leaf scorch and new growth.

This time of year is when the Nellie Stevens Holly casts off any damaged leaves from last year, those are the yellow leaves you see falling to the ground.