Nursery

At Silver Tree Nursery, we cultivate highly productive, edible, perennial plants for home-, farm- or community-scale forest gardening. We focus on species and cultivars that thrive in our bioregion and provide multiple functions in the landscape, such as habitat, pollinator support, nitrogen-fixation, mineral accumulation, weed-suppression, erosion control and, of course, food! Imagine a yard filled with beautiful, edible and medicinal flowers, shrubs, trees and vines, all working together to support your health, while increasing the ecological health of your environment.

Our nursery plants are hand-grown using organic practices and biological processes to fertilize, mulch, prune and water with the greatest care. It is important to us to provide our community with useful, healthy, non-toxic alternatives to commercially-grown nursery plants. As such, we do not use synthetic or chemical pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides or fossil fuel-based mechanization at any stage of cultivation. We buy local, organic seed and plant stock whenever possible and use a bio-char and coconut coir-based professional nursery soil mix for all our potted plants. In addition, we top off all our nursery plants with mulch inoculated with wine cap mushroom mycelium, to assist with plant health and nutrition. After planting our nursery stock in your yard, you may find delicious wine cap mushrooms emerging from your beds!

CLICK HERE for more information or to purchase our wine cap mushroom spawn.

Trees

From canopy nut trees towering above to semi-dwarf fruit trees providing delicious treats just within reach, trees are the backbone of our forest garden, providing structure, shade, nutrients, fodder, coppice, mulch, food, medicine and shelter.  Many acres of soft maple trees inhabit our farm, giving us sweet maple syrup each winter, logs for shiitake and oyster mushroom production each spring and shade, erosion control, water filtration and habitat year-round. Every day we stand in wonder at the inherent beauty and diversity of services these trees provide. It is with this inspiration in mind that we cultivate and propagate an abundance of highly productive and useful tree species particularly suited to our bioregion. Enjoy perusing the list below and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about these trees and their uses.

Shrubs

The shrub layer of the forest garden occupies an important place in assuring high productivity and fertility, maximum space efficiency, and essential habitat for birds, mammals and beneficial insects. Nestled under and around canopy and fruit and nut trees, shrubs can provide an abundance of berries, nuts and coppice materials highly useful to gardeners, farmers and our animal partners. In addition to more familiar shrubs such as blueberry, elderberry and hazelnut, explore the lesser-known but very nutritious haskap, quince or even seaberry, which not only provides a Vitamin-C rich juice, but also fixes Nitrogen in the soil, creating fertility for surrounding plants!

Herbaceous

A botanical term for any plant that dies back to the ground at the end of the growing season (or has no woody stems above ground from year to year), herbaceous plants include flowers, herbs, perennial vegetables, vines and bulbs. Here at Silver Tree Nursery, we cultivate perennial herbaceous plants that will provide beauty, food, medicine and enjoyment for many years to come.  We like to combine trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, vines and root crops into polycultures of plants that support each other in function and beneficial relationship. Each plant is carefully chosen and nurtured to maximize its useful properties and place in the larger network of interconnected partners within the forest garden. Have fun getting to know these lovely beings and don't hesitate to call or contact us with questions, ideas and inspirations you may have.