This is the first installment of multiple reports from the week-long educational trip some of our team members took in the summer of 2022. Landed, arrived, rested. We arrived in London on Friday June 30th on a red eye flight from Dulles, dumped our bags, caught a breakfast, and went to the Chelsea Physics Garden located next to the Thames. It was a smaller garden...
Flash back to fall of 2021--our Fine Gardening Team Leader, Patrick, writes about a company field trip to North Carolina's best public gardens. Temperatures have cooled, and fall color has begun to grace the trees throughout Albemarle County. Autumn is a time marked by change, its calm transitions contrasting with the vibrancy of spring and summer. Perched on the...
All of the public gardens that we visited on our first company trip since 2019 to North Carolina took advantage of xeriscaping* and/or water conservation in one way or another. After the terribly dry summer that we’ve had this year, I was relieved to see such lush and varied solutions to some of the challenges our climate is throwing at us. Mary Duke Biddle Rose...
Never Stop Learning Another season of gardening has come and gone, and despite a global pandemic, it was a great year! Fortunately, gardeners including us at J.W. Townsend could continue working outside while maintaining a safe distance from our peers and wearing masks. We have always considered ourselves to be lucky to work in a daily horticultural paradise, but the...
Dear Clients, Family, and Friends, Happy Spring! This month, while the weather is warming, our gardens are awakening, and our teams are excitedly gearing up for spring, we are also keeping our eye on the bigger picture. We have now, more than ever, turned our attention to helping each other and the greater Charlottesville community. During these tough times, I...
Recently in central Virginia we experienced incredibly high winds and rain followed by downed trees, damaged property and lack of electrical power. The storm caused widespread wreckage to limbs, branches and even entire trees. Which brings us to the question: Is there such a thing as a storm tolerant/resistant tree? When dealing with powerful winds, virtually no...