Kent Kilpatrick Rolling Seed Beds

Apalachee Nursery has been growing since 1979. We specialize in propagating and growing plants native to the Eastern United States. Since we are located in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, we only have a limited amount of nursery production land available, due to the upland nature of most of the farm as well as the fact that a large part of the remaining land is in the flood plain. Since we are limited in space, we concentrate on field growing shrub liners rather than trees. This gives us an opportunity to service wholesale growers who might prefer a broad selection of bed grown and/or container grown native shrubs available at one nursery. However, we also have a limited number of finished B&B and container plants available.

We are located in a region that has one of the greatest diversity of plant species in the world. This diversity is due in large part to our high rainfall, rich soils and the combination of warm days and cool nights during the growing season. These factors also give our crops most favorable growing conditions. Our plant material is nursery propagated from seeds, cuttings or divisions. All bareroot liners are grown on raised beds in enriched soil conditions amended with pine bark, manures and/or peat moss. Apalachee Nursery is located in Zone 6 of the Southern Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of 1600'.

We try to grow the best cultivars available to each plant species. We not only have those species that are easier to grow; those plants in general that can handle the wetter, tighter soil conditions; but we also try to grow the species that are more of a challenge. These include mainly plants that are members of the ericaceous (heath) plant family, in particular, the native azaleas, which we grow in quantities, mainly from seed. Some would say that the heath's are the aristocrats of all plant families, since there are so many truly beautiful and ornamental plants within its membership. Most of the species and/or cultivars that we produce are hardy to zone 5, but several newer plants that are native to zone 7, 8, or even 9 could very well have the potential to move into the colder zones. Please feel free to come by and visit with us. Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,                                     
 
Keith Kilpatrick