We spent 13 years building an abundant fruit forest, annual veggie beds, perennial medicinal herbs, and a healthy mixed hardwood-coniferous forest and now we've sold our property to the next stewards so that we can begin a new homesteading project in Vermont closer to our best friends and their kids.
Don't worry - we plan to keep this website up and running so that our customers can reference what we've written about our plants!
We'll let you know once we re-start a farm in Vermont!
Rugosa rose is a suckering shrub native to asia. It has large and beautiful blooms and the largest rose hips of any rose we know. The rose hips are high in vitamin C and can be eaten fresh or... more->
This variety of rock rose has narrow, resinous leaves and stunning, crinkly pink flowers with four central maroon spots. more->
Pacific waxmyrtle is an evergeen shrub/small tree native to the west coast of North America. It can grow 5-30 feet tall and has sticky leaves and a waxy wrinkled purple berry. It is a great... more->
'Blue Bird' has bright blue flowers, and is a bit smaller and less vigorous than other varieties. more->
'Golden' currant is larger than the european currants that we grow. It is vigorous and can grow in a variety of soil types and habitats, up to 9 feet tall. It has beautiful clusters of yellow... more->
Waldo is a purple gooseberry originally brought to us by Rick Valley, a wise local Permaculture landscaper. It was the result of hybridizations from Dr. George Waldo. It has sweet purple fruits... more->
Because the fruits on 'Illinois Everbearing' ripen over a period of a few months, not all at once, its is nice to have a shorter plants for harvesting them often. The fruit is dark purple and has... more->
Cramp bark is a deciduous shrub that can grow over 10 feet tall. It has showy white flower clusters and bright red-orange berries that birds love. The bark is used medicinally to reduce smooth... more->
Tired of thorns ripping through your clothes and poking through your gloves as you harvest sweet blackberries in summer? This cultivar released from the University of Arkansas yields large, sweet... more->
'Desert King' is a very good choice for the Northwest. It is early to ripen, productive, and has excellent flavor. Sweet and delicious fruits with green skin and pink pulp ripen in late July or... more->
'Blackdown' produces large, jet-black berries that are juicy and flavorful with a distinctive musky taste. They are excellent in jams, jellies and juice. The plant is vigorous and has upright... more->
Chaste tree, also known as vitex, is a beautiful deciduous shrub that has spikes of flowers in late summer here in Oregon. It can grow up to ten feet tall but can be kept shorter with annual... more->
Red currants produce bright red clusters of fruit which are are striking in the garden and they enhance any dish to which they are added. Red currant fruit is high in vitamin C and potassium and... more->
Also known as Carolina allspice, this fragrant deciduous shrub, native to the Southeastern U.S., grows 3 to 8 feet tall and up to ten feet wide. Essentail oil is distilled from the flowers, and... more->
'Minaj Smyriou' has excellent European black currant flavorand can be eaten fresh or used to make jam and juice.
European black currants have a very distinct musky flavor which is prized by... more->
'Red Heart' has a white bloom with a red center and grows very vigorously in our climate. I've seen shrubs over 6 feet tall. more->
'Cascade' is easy to grow and a consistent producer here in the Wilamette Valley. Provides large crops of delicious red fruit. It is very winter hardy.
Red currants produce bright red... more->
One of the most popular upright rosemary varieties, Tuscan Blue has a blue-green hint to its foliage, and blue-purple flowers.
The Latin name Rosmarinus refers to the dew (ros) of the sea (... more->
French thyme has very small, pointy leaves. It is the most drought tolerant and has the most spicy flavor of the thyme varieties we grow. more->
The dried leaf of white sage is well known for its aroma and is excellent for smudging.
Not native to our area, it does best grown in a pot with half sand half potting soil, or planted in... more->
This variety of culinary sage bears extra large pink flowers on taller stalks than the common seed-grown sage. Although some ornamental sages have been bred so that they are no longer flavorful,... more->
This is a lemon thyme that is variegated with slivery grey-green foliage. It makes a very nice contract interplanted with lemon variegated thyme. more->
A favorite gooseberry here at Fern Hill, 'Jahn's Prairie' produces hearty yields of large dessert quality red-pink fruit in midsummer. This shrub grows more upright than some gooseberry varietes.... more->
'Hinnomaki Gold' also known as 'Hinnomaki Yellow" is a very hardy variety, and bushes produce a heavy crop of medium sized, greenish yellow fruits. Some say this variety has a delicious aromatic... more->
An Oregon native wildflower with gray green foliage and pretty dried pearly white flowers, pearly everlasting is an easy plant for a native garden. At the height of summer, plants grow up to 3... more->
A fig that performs very well in the Northwest with cooler summers, Negronne is also generally more compact. It can grow over 15 feet but is happy to be pruned for ease of harvest. These figs... more->
Compact oregano has a great flavor! Low growing and spreading, it makes a great ground cover underneath taller herbs. Flowers are bright pink and usually bloom in mid summer. We have found this... more->
Unlike some milkweed species, swamp milkweed is a clumping perennial and does not spread by rhizomes. It has deep pink flower clusters on a two to three foot stalk. It is a host plant for monarch... more->
A hardy perennial in the mint family with delicious and fragrant blue flowers. This herb has been used as a tasty flavoring, expectorant, and antitussive in Europe and the Mediterranean for... more->
This hardy deciduous shrub is easy to grow in our climate. Deer tolerant and drought tolerant, it blooms for a very long time through spring into fall. We have two varieties- one that blooms... more->
Lingonberry is a low growing evergreen shrub/groundcover with delicious tart red berries, Very popular in cooking and food preservation in Scandinavia, where they are wild harvested and cultivated... more->
A great addition to any perennial garden, anise hyssop is a beautiful summer blooming perennial with edible leaves and flowers. The leaves, when steeped fresh or dried, make a refreshing minty... more->
A wonderfully fragrant native shrub, western spicebush is an open, deciduous shrub that tolerates part shade and is deer resistant. Burgunday flowers bloom late spring to early summer and smell... more->
Black twinberry, native to Oregon, is an excellent hummingbird plant. This deciduous shrub can grow up to 6 feet tall and 10 feet wide. It can grow in sun or part shade. Flowers are bright... more->
Rugosa rose is a suckering shrub native to Asia. It has large and beautiful blooms and the largest rose hips of any rose we know. The rose hips are high in vitamin C and can be eaten fresh or... more->
This is one of our favorite spring-producing plants. A biennial, Angelica shoots out of dormancy in winter and grows quickly to its full height, up to six or seven feet. In the parsley family,... more->
Native throughout most of the northern hemisphere, alpine strawberry is that amazingly sweet wild strawberry you remember from childhood. Small fruits pack superb flavor. Plants are vigorous in... more->
This aromatic and savory variety of oregano is native to the Middle East where it grows in abundance on the rocky hillsides. It's leaves are covered in fine grey hairs that help it conserve water... more->
Oregon stonecrop has glossy green leaves that look like little elephant toes. I think it has the best-tasting leaves of any native Sedum. more->
A gorgeous wildflower native to western North America, showy milkweed is a host plant for monarch butterflies. Pink and white fragrant flower clusters bloom on two or three foot stalks in mid-... more->
This sturdy herbaceous perennial bears giant leaves, stems up to 6 feet tall, and bright yellow flowers several inches across. Bees and other insects are always buzzing around to sip the nectar... more->
White currants are the sweetest of the European currants and White Imperial has great flavor. Almost all currant lovers that we talk to choose white currants for sweet flavor. These shrubs are... more->