The story of Holly and Bill…and then Ed
In 1981, two gardeners with a passion for plants, left the Berkeley Horticultural Center in California and travelled clear across the country looking for a change.
Holly Weir and Bill Pollard visited friends in Vermont and wound up buying an old hobby farm in Bristol located on a tongue of land between the curves of the New Haven River and planted firmly along the stone ledges at the base of South Mountain.
They put a stake in the ground and christened Rocky Dale Gardens, named after the small mill town that once was here.
The soil they inherited was six feet deep and sitting on top of Bristol’s famous gravel bed, (a glacial moraine). They quickly set out to build the nursery and develop the grounds and in no time, attracted the attention of astute gardeners throughout New England.
This wasn’t going to be any old nursery. Heathers, alpines and woodland plants, tropical annuals for overwintering and unusual conifers, trees and shrubs were the plants they dabbled in.
The gardens were a living expression of their enthusiasm and knowledge of plants and a great laboratory for testing cold hardiness. Many plants not considered hardy, thrived in the microclimates found at Rocky Dale.
After 20 years…
of pioneering a new vision for horticulture and garden design, Holly and Bill decided to go their separate ways and put the nursery, with its gardens, homestead and barn up for sale. And then they waited. They waited for the right person to come along…
…And that person was me
My studies at the University of Vermont had prepared me for a career in horticulture but I bounced around for a while before giving in to my green thumb. Four years after Rocky Dale Gardens had been started in Vermont, (1985) I formed my gardening business in Minneapolis where I was living and named it Phillips Garden, after the neighborhood I lived in.
The move from landscape designer to plant geek is not such a stretch.
I’ve been working with plants and landscape design ever since. But my interest in gardening started at a very young age. Working beside my mother in our tiny patch of yard filled with roses, forsythia, azaleas, and daffodils sparked a light that never went out . Since her father was also a great gardener on a tiny plot in New York, I have to say it is truly “in the genes”.
I returned to Vermont in 2004 to own and operate this small nursery. I was familiar with many plants through my work, but a whole new world opened up as I was introduced to a host of new and unusual plants, new (and sometimes unusual) friends, and garden enthusiasts throughout the region.
Amy Rose-White, long time manager and plant geek who “came with the place”, was instrumental in my education and in teaching me how to run a nursery. She now enjoys a milder climate and a lot more plants in the balmy temps of North Carolina.
My vision for the gardens at Rocky Dale is one of refinement and renovation, an editing process to reflect a new perspective on nature and design. The garden continues to be a great laboratory, with new things discovered each day.
From the stone ledges covered with moss and our native Christmas Fern to the extraordinary collection of Beech trees that Holly and Bill planted, every day unfurls with a new way of seeing.
-Ed Burke, Owner, Rocky Dale Gardens
ln celebration of 40 years, here are some photos from the beginning
