Gossler Farms Nursery

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Hellebore Open House
February 21-22; February 28; March 1

2024-2025 Retail Catalog

Welcome to our 2024-25 catalog!
As always we are excited to get the new version with our new and old selections out to you the customer. As always, our year has had postive and negative events. We did face one of our bigger challenges for the farm and nursery this past winter. However, it did not stop Roger from doing his very best to find test and select new plants for you all to fall in love with. We hope you enjoy the catalog as we still feel it’s important for us to produce a paper catalog. We hope you all enjoy it.

Let’s start with the bad part of the year: because of where we sit in the Mckenzie River Valley, we have escaped the previous ice storms that have hit surrounding areas in the past. The most ice we can remember is about a 1⁄4″ to 3/8″. Well this January with the climate playing a crazier and crazier role in all of our lives, the ice picked us. We were hit with almost 2″ of ice over 2 days!!!! The damage to the display garden and orchard was massive. The cleanup from such devastation was impressive. Pierce and I were running chainsaws full time for 4-5 weeks. We were dropping trees in the garden that were 2 feet on the stump. The burn pile from just the garden was the size of two large houses. The orchard was heavily impacted as we lost 430 trees to the ground. It will take those trees 5 years to get back into decent production. This winter I will be doing severe pruning because the trees that didn’t get cut to the ground also need to be cut back. Sadly, the trees that were not broken became very weak and are going to take 2 years of heavy pruning to recover. Most of the younger trees faired far better and will be fine. When it happened EVERYTHING went to the ground: there was barely a power pole or power line that was not either broken of leaning. We spent a week with no power. There were many people in our area that were out 2 weeks or more. Most of the native trees were stripped back to being just posts with all the limbs stripped off. You are going to see the damage in our area for years to come. One of the things I will always remember is the sound in the middle of the night. It was not individual crashes–it was a solid roar of everything breaking with the sky lighting up with exploding power lines and transformers. So after going through all the states of grief and loss, we came to the obvious conclusion: “you can’t undo it, so may as well get busy fixing it.” We were very lucky that the shade houses and the greenhouses handled the weight of the ice and protected all the plants inside them. All of the houses and structures also sustained no damage. Other people in our area had trees fall onto and through their homes. Although the garden and orchard were severely impacted, humans, pets, and structures were safe. The effects of this storm will be with us for years to come.

I have made statements in the catalog in the past about climate change. I think anyone at this point who doesn’t believe there is a real problem is really kidding themselves. 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record for the last 100,000 years. Don’t forget the record it breaks will have been 2023 followed closely by 2022. Anyone see a pattern developing here? Please support solutions to the problem. Most of us can’t make a big difference, but every little bit helps. I am hoping to convert the house we built for Pierce and Mia over to solar in the next couple years. If that is successful, I will try to continue onto the rest of the houses and farm.

As for the nursery, we will have the biggest selection of magnolias we have ever had this year. So please explore the new and older varieties and learn how spectacular they can be in your garden. We are also adding a large number of new Hamamelis/witch hazels to the catalog. There are some really exciting new ones, but don’t forget the old ones. The Hamamelis, we feel, are one of the most underused plants in many gardens, especially in the northern climates. The Helleboures we are offering are the selections of Ernie and Marietta O’Byrne. Hands down, these are the best colors and flowers in the world. We should have a record number this year after running short last year.

Now for the folksy update on our little group
Roger has another one of his guided tours scheduled for this January for the Los Angeles and southern California area. He is also scheduling more little regional trips, allowing him to catch up with old friends and to make many new ones as well.

Pierce was able to work for us after the ice storm hit, and he has been a tremendous help with the massive clean-up as well as handling the majority of the shipping. He continues to work on completing his degree in Biology and will begin the hunt for a new job this fall. Pierce has been together with his girlfriend Mia for over three years now, and we love having her around. They lived with us this past year while we were building their house, although we loved having their company, everyone was ready for them to transition to their own home.

Dawn bought a new show horse this year. She is like a little kid with her new favorite Christmas present. The new horse is named Wizard, and so far he is preforming way beyond her expectations. The reality of her showing life is you have a horse who is in the prime window for quite a few years but then there comes a time like any athlete when you need to retire. Cooper was her showing companion for many years, and he is now enjoying his retirement here on the place for the rest of his days. So now it’s Wizard’s job to travel the country and do his job, so he someday can earn his own retirement.

I have had a crazy year with the ice storm and the orchard. I have also been working on Pierce and Mia’s house here on the place. I just got back from Alaska and returned with lots of salmon and halibut. This year’s trip was a little different because it was a goal for our friend Chuck, who is normally up there for the full summer, to go. We were able to help make that happen 8 weeks after a bone marrow transplant he had undergone for cancer treatment. It was important to be able to make it work for him this year. I am positive he will be back to spending the entire summer up there again next year.

We hope all of you have had a great year and that you are ready to start thinking of what you can do to improve your garden. Please call if you have any questions–we are always happy to discuss your individual situation and see what plants might be best for you.

Now for the thank-yous for those who help make this whole place work. First is Wayne: he has been our rock for many years and is hinting that he may want to retire, and we just tell him no! He is a great friend and coworker, and we love having him around. During the ice we got help from our friend Jim Donovan in the orchard along with a couple high school boys who really helped out, Luke and Matthew Newell. Ken and Amy Woxell also chipped in time logging the garden. It was truly a team effort. Finally, Lisa Sebright and Diana Learner: Lisa does the inventory and lays the catalog out for us, and Diana does the final proofing.

We hope everyone has a great year and we look forward to hearing from you all soon.

A note on shipping costs: Over the last few years, the cost of shipping has gone up to the point where, on certain orders, we are losing money on the transaction. Because of this, we are having to place a surcharge on our larger material. We regret having to do this, but we don’t have a choice if we hope to continue shipping these larger plants. We are choosing this option so our local customers will not be penalized for the higher shipping rates. Most of the time, you will receive larger plants from us than you would from similar nurseries; and we have always taken great pride in that. However, because of this, our boxes are large and this means we are paying for the size as much as the weight with UPS. What we have decided is to assess a $20 surcharge on plants requiring the larger boxes we use for shipping. We apologize for this change, however we see it as the only way to continue to offer larger material to you the consumer. Thanks for your continued support and understanding.