So, you still have a little spring fever? Have a hankering for something special – out of the ordinary? Maybe you saw a cool plant you were unfamiliar with at a garden on one of our regional garden tours, or in a magazine. Sometimes, one of our outstanding local independent nurseries will do the trick and assuage your hankering: a stolen moment, between hectic errands, spent wandering around a quiet nursery looking at plant tags will often lead to new discoveries. Photo: Black Widow (or Mourning Widow) Geranium phaeum.
Beyond garden tours, spring is also the time of year when independent growers with specialty collections will bring their treasures to regional farmers markets, or better yet, will hang a little sign outside their yard that reads: Open Garden and Nursery Stock Sale This Weekend – Rain or Shine. Some people’s hearts race at the thought of a tag sale and the treasures it could hold, mine races at the thought of a grower’s garden open day and plant sale. Photo: An inviting entrance to Spring Fever features a generous gate covered in blooming wisteria.
I first made the acquaintance of David Walther while I looked over his specialty perennials at the Saturday Chico Farmer’s Market. It was a chocolate-color-splotched geranium leaf that caught my eye – I do love a true geranium – and when the plantsman told me its name was Black Widow geranium, well, you know how it went from there. I had to have it. I gave him the last of the $ in my pocket and juggled the pot between my canvas bags of lettuce, eggs and fresh artichokes. “I am having open days at my nursery garden the next three weekends,” he said, sort of off-hand, as I left. He didn’t have to tell me twice. Photo: David Walther outside of one of his nursery hoop-houses.
David is co-owner with his wife Cathy of Spring Fever Nursery in Yankee Hill, (north end of Lake Oroville from Oroville) specializing in hardy, unique and unusual perennial plants. David is a plant-guy from way back (Willows high school ag classes) who worked the landscaping and nursery trade for 20 years before starting his own small and very happy operation on the property he and his wife moved to in the mid 1990s. The approximately 3 acres of garden and nursery are laid out on a sloping pine and manzanita scrub hillside at 2300 feet in elevation. “We get 2 – 3 snows each winter and the nursery pots freeze solid, we get 100 degree + heat in the summer and with the nursery stock set out on the black nursery fabric, they easily hit 115 degrees. If a plant is hardy on my site, it will thrive in your Chico, Red Bluff or Redding garden,” he asserts with the confidence of someone who has tried. Photo: Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) was in bloom in David’s woodland garden the day I visited.
“I got tired of working in the industry and not being able to get a hold of plants I read about in books or heard mentioned in horticulture talks. And so I started to propagate my own plants – from seeds, from cuttings, from starts. I visit other specialty growers wherever I go. His collections include wonderful woodland plants native to North America and Asia, including quite an array of carnivorous plants, as well as great dry-land plants from Australia and South America. Photo: Hardy, terrestrial orchids such as this Calanthe discolor are one of the many plant groups David loves to collect.
Walking the grounds of David and Cathy’s gardens (they each have some territory that is theirs along), you walk through most of the plants he grows in action – displayed well in settings they prefer – damp shade, dry shade, hot rocky slopes, etc. Because I generally need to have plants that can take the searing sun of my Central Valley garden, I was really taken by the unusual woodland plants at Spring Fever: terrestrial orchids, arums, trilliums and solomon’s seal, Ledebouria cooperi, a diminutive woodland bulbous perennial from South Africa. Photo: The beginning of one of the dry-land borders, featuring many interesting heat loving perennials and shrubs from Australia, New Zealand and Africa.
I asked David what plants he currently finds irresistible – his reply: “Any plant I don’t have and even better are those I have never heard of.” Sounds like just the medicine for my spring fever. I am now the proud owner of the Ledebouria cooperi (I had never heard of it before). Photo: The main Rock Garden is an expansive sloping hillside will unadulterated sun and sharp drainage. A perfect proving ground for Central Valley garden plants.
Spring Fever has a stand at the Saturday Chico Farmers Market, and the Tuesday Paradise Farmers Market. Some of their plant selections can be found at local independent nurseries, such as Magnolia Gift and Garden in Chico. Spring Fever Nursery and Gardens hosts one or two sets of Open Days throughout the year and is also open by appointment. Email: Springfever@cncnet.com; Phone: 530-534-1556. Photo: The electric purple of this Australian Mint Bush (Prostenthera) greeted visitors to Spring Fever at it’s late April Open Days.
In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based educational outreach program of the Gateway Science Museum – Exploring the Natural History of the North State, based in Chico, California. In a North State Garden celebrates the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region. The program is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell – all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In A North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio KCHO/KFPR radio, Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are also available.
