Love driving past the Ledgecrest sign and their hand-painted countdown to spring. Gets me excited every year. I've visited a lot of the nurseries around Willimantic (Ladd's, Mackey's, etc.), but Ledgecrest seems to me to be the most homegrown operation. They grow the vast majority of their own plants. And the staff, who can sometimes be a little aloof (in the way that people who work with plants all their life tend to be), really know their shit.
But really the proof is in the pudding. We've planted several of their perennials and they have all been *CRAZY* hardy. We're sometimes not so good about watering, and of late we've had some terrible winters. But the perennials we've gotten from them have all been troopers.
My one complaint, and I don't know if Ledgecrest can be faulted for this, is that we had some pretty bad wilt in all the cucumber plants we got from them. The other fruit and veg -- tomato, eggplant, watermelon, herbs -- were bad-ass producers and kept on churning out late into the fall. Great prices, locally grown... can't beat it.
For a different experience it's fun to drive out to Holdridge in Ledyard. They're an absolutely massive, independent nursery that has been around forever and have a much bigger selection (although they charge a lot more for their plants and you're not buying as locally as you would be with Ledgecrest). They also don't grown as much of their stock, but I guess you need to import to maintain such a big selection. read more
