New Hampshire's Best Kept Secret?
StateForest Nursery
Now Taking Orders
This spring about a thousand New Hampshire landowners will slice the
newly-defrosted ground to create thousands of welcoming holes for tree
and shrub seedlings bought from the State Forest Nursery.
Howie Lewis, nursery forester, calls his nearly 40-acre nursery one
of New Hampshire’s best- kept secrets. Lewis says the nursery produces
a unique product. “We provide something nobody else does – tree
and shrub seedlings native to New Hampshire, with seeds picked from specimens
grown right here in the state. When you buy from the state forest nursery,
you know the plant is suited to grow here.”
In operation in Boscawen since 1910, the nursery grows more than 50 species
of trees and shrubs for reforestation, Christmas trees, and wildlife,
and sells them at affordable prices. Seedlings, sold on a “first
come-first served basis” include conifers, such as white, red and
Scotch pine, Norway, blue, red, and white spruce, concolor, balsam, fraser
and douglas fir, and hemlock.
The nursery offers many other species, including arrow-wood, crabapple, fragrant sumac, grapes, highbush cranberry, dogwood, rose, nannyberry, beach plum, elderberry, winterberry holly, bayberry, hazelnut, red oak, cedar, sugar maple and white ash. Special “packages,” each containing an assortment of 25 shrubs and/or trees, include a Christmas tree sampler and special wildlife-and-songbird, wetlands, native species, and winter survival packages.
Besides being one of his best sellers, balsam fir is Lewis’ personal favorite. “I’ve worked with this species the most. I follow seedlings from the parents in the seed orchard through to watching them grow in the seedbed.” Balsam fir is a customer favorite because it has that classic evergreen smell. Seedlings sell out, so nursery staff suggest you order early.
Ordering starts in January and ends March 30. “When you are in the nursery business, spring starts a different time each year,” says Lewis, “So we ship to a county pickup point in late April or early May, whenever the seedlings can be lifted from the ground.” Customers receive a card in the mail announcing the pick up dates. “We work throughout the year getting ready for the spring shipment and hope we have many new customers this year.”
Lewis is enthusiastic about his trees and shrubs and hopes “New Hampshire’s best kept secret” is known by all.
By Karen Bennett, UNH Cooperative Extension Forest Resources Specialist
More information:
- To receive a catalog, contact the N.H. State Nursery, N.H. Division of Forests and Lands, P.O. Box 1856, Concord, NH 03302-1856, or call 603-271-3456.
- View the State Nursery catalog and order online.
- Planting and Care of Tree Seedlings
- Establishing the Christmas Tree Plantation
