End of the Erica Era

November 12th, 2019

   For 30 years, Erica Shaffer was Highland Gardens, that small-but-homey neighborhood garden center along South 18^th St. in Lower Allen Twp.

   She was the face and voice of the business who answered bug and fertilizer questions, yakked about plants with loyal customers who were more like botanical brethren, and spoke to every garden club in the area.

   She’s the one who drew up those unique, hand-written plant signs that were sometimes blunt and sometimes funny but always filled with hands-on advice that only down-and-dirty gardeners come to know.

   And when it was time to order plants for the garden center? Erica was like a kid in charge of the candy store, filling every corner of Highland’s five acres with cutting-edge and delicious selections that box-store staff never even heard of.

   In case you didn’t hear, Erica resigned a few weeks ago.

   She’s not sick or anything, but Highland Gardens is in the process of an ownership change, and Erica didn’t quite see eye-to-eye on where things were headed.

   So she left her “natural habitat” late last month… for now planning to do private landscape designs, consulting, and personal gardening services. (If you’re interested in staying in touch, Erica has a new Facebook page, and she’ll be doing gardening services through Mother Nature Landscape and Lady Bug EarthCare.)

   She’s also a Reiki master with her own Wildly Crafted Woman website and will be offering sessions at The Wellness Collective across from the Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill.

   Come spring, she plans to work several days a week at Black Landscape Center in Upper Allen Twp., where she’ll be making bows, decorating wreaths, and selling her “Gourmet Greens” cuttings this Christmas season.

   Erica carved out quite a reputation among local gardeners.

   Avid gardeners all seem to know her, and when they mention a special plant in their garden, they say they “got it from Erica,” not “got it at Highland Gardens.”

   Erica started at Highland a few years after getting a degree in landscape and nursery technology from Williamsport Area Community College. The next spring, Monica Gembusia started working there, and the two have been, as Erica says, like “tomatoes and basil” ever since. Monica tends to the annuals and herbs.

   I first ran into Erica (then Erica Beadle) when I was a budding Patriot-News garden columnist. Back then, I leaned heavily on experts to answer my many questions. Every time I had one for Erica, she knew the answer off the top of her head.

  There aren’t many people left in the garden-center trade with Erica’s depth of knowledge.

   I could always count on her, too, for insightful and snappy quotes for my annual articles on upcoming gardening trends and best new plants of the coming year.

   I think it’s Erica’s absolute love of plants that fueled the work she’s done. That shined through in a Q&A I did with her for the Patriot-News’ At Home magazine a few years ago. I’ve pasted it below, in case you never saw it.

   In the meantime, Erica passed along this message to the gardening friends she’s made over the years.

   “With a heavy heart, I have resigned from Highland Gardens,” she said. “It has been an absolute honor and pleasure for me to serve our gardeners and gardens for the last 30 years. May your flowers bloom abundantly, your tomatoes ripen perfectly, and your trees age gracefully.”

   As for Highland Gardens, owner Larry Sorensen is in the process of selling the business that his father, Len, founded in the 1950s to Robert Kadas, who’s worked at Highland Gardens for nine years, including the last six as nursery foreman.

   For more on the pending sale, check out the article I wrote earlier this month for the Patriot-News and PennLive.com.

   Here’s the Q&A on Erica and her home garden that I wrote for At Home. It was headlined:

“Flower Playground: The Lawn Doesn’t Stand a Chance Around this Plant Geek”

   You’d think Erica Shaffer would have her fill of plants by the end of a workday at Highland Gardens. But you’d be wrong.

   When this admitted “plant geek” gets home to her third-of-an-acre landscape in Adams County’s Lake Meade community, that’s when the fun begins.

   Shaffer doesn’t really work in her flowing gardens of dwarf conifers, unusual small trees, and pretty much every flower that’ll grow in central Pennsylvania.

   She considers it more like playing.

   We caught up with Shaffer for a look at how she gardens, why plants make her “geek out,” and what advice she has for rookie flower gardeners.

   Q: You’ve got uncommon plants packed in everywhere. How would you describe your gardening style?

   A: Impulsive. And I think somewhat daring. I don’t worry if something doesn’t work. If it doesn’t grow, I get another plant.

   When I bought this house, one thing I made myself do — and I’m glad I did — is create the initial bed lines and decide where the trees would go and what size trees were going to be appropriate. Then I ran amok. Through the years I expanded the bed lines and killed more and more grass.

   Q: How do you decide what to try?

   A: The advantage and disadvantage of working at Highland Gardens is that you see all the good stuff before anybody else sees all the good stuff. That’s when the plant geek kicks in and goes, “Oh, I gotta have this! It’s sooooo cool.”

   Right now there’s this dark-leafed Styrax (snowbell tree) that’s been sitting with my name on it ever since it came off the truck from Oregon. Where it’s going to go, I don’t know.

   Q: For a lot of people in the plant industry, when they’re done work, the last thing they want to do is think about plants. That’s not the case with you?

   A: I don’t have that. And I don’t know why I don’t have that. I just love plants.

   I’ll be going 90 mph to answer a phone call at Highland Gardens, and I’ll go blasting by some perennial and just totally stop. I guess it’s my personality.

   I don’t know how people can be in this industry, though, and not love plants. When other people call it “product,” it makes my head want to explode. It’s like, can you make it any less romantic? They’re not product, they’re plants.

   Q: You’ve never had enough?

   A: No. I’ll come in that front door and go right out the back door. My garden is my safe place. It’s where I want to be, even though I do it all day long.

   When I get to this garden, I get to be in it all by myself.

   Q: I can imagine a lot of people would see your gardens and think, “Wow, this looks like a lot of work!” Is it?

   A: I think not. My husband says, “You tell people it’s not a lot of work, but I see you out there.”

   I guess it’s how you define work. I’m sure I spend countless hours out there, but I’m out there because I want to be. I get time alone. I get time up close and personal with my plants. It’s not work. It’s playing. I love it.

   Q: What got you into plants in the first place?

   A: I wanted to be a graphic artist. So I applied to (Williamsport Area Community College), and they sent me a letter back saying, “The program is full. Is there anything else that interests you?”

   I opened the catalog randomly and saw “landscape and nursery technology.” Right away, I said, “This is what I want to do.”

   I grew up around vegetable gardens and woods, but I had no appreciation for or focus on gardens until then.

   Q: How did the plant geekism happen?

   A: You know, I credit my instructor from college, Rich Weilminster. He has this enthusiasm about it. He would geek out when he saw a new plant. I was very much mentored by him.

   Q: Has the way you garden changed over the years?

   A: I used to be more methodical about what needed to be done. But that lack of freedom was also holding me back from having as much fun.

   Now I’m much more free. I let the garden do what it does. I’m much less controlling. I like it dynamic.

   I like it doing whatever it does. I like that it’s encroaching now, that it’s so full that you have to duck under things and that when you walk through, things kind of brush across your arms.

   I wouldn’t have done that at the beginning. I wanted the perfect lawn, crisp bed lines, and the beds more defined than they are now.

   Q: You’re not out there looking to get every last weed as soon as it pops up?

   A: I read in a blog somewhere that if you have weeds, you don’t have enough plants.

   Weeds are opportunists. If there’s an open space, then that’s where the weeds are going to go.

   When you have more plants, there’s more competition. So it totally justifies being able to go out and buy a bunch of coneflowers, some of the new coreopsis, some more Russian sage…

   Q: What’s the most important gardening lesson you’ve learned over the years?

   A: If something dies, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It’s information. Why did it die? Did you overwater it? Was it in too much shade?

   When you look at it that way, it takes a lot of burden off your ability to grow your green thumb. Just try.

   Q: Any advice for new gardeners?

   A: Pay attention to your soil. Understand what kind of gardener you are. And make sure you’re asking for plants that do what you want them to do.

   It’s awareness. What do you want? What have you got?

   Q: Do you have a favorite plant or two?

   A: It’s like the older gardener from North Carolina who was asked that in a magazine… she said, “Whichever plant I’m standing in front of.”

   That’s me, too. Absolutely. When the Oriental lilies are in bloom, I’ll smell that fragrance and say, “Oh, I love you!” Then I’ll see some crazy, awesome daylily flowering for the first time the next day, and then I love that.

   Q: What flowers would you recommend to someone just getting started?

   A: Coneflowers are interesting in many ways. They’re good for cut flowers, for attracting butterflies and finches.

   Coreopsis are always good. They’re long blooming.

   Gauras are awesome.

   Daylilies – how can you go wrong?

   Japanese irises I love.

   Then in shade, hostas. It’s a go-to plant, but that’s why hosta is so popular.

   Then there are ferns, especially the painted ferns and ghost ferns. And epimediums, hellebores…

   Q: You’re starting to name pretty much everything…

   A: Exactly! I’m not done…

   Q: Any flowers you don’t like?

   A: Hmmm. Gooseneck loosestrife. I dig the flower and I like the shape of it, but I don’t like that it’s an ambusher.

   You put it in, and 3 years later it’s 12 feet across, and you’re wondering what happened to all the goodies.

   I’m sure there are a few others. It’s not that I hate them. I just question their garden-worthiness.

   If you’re getting started and someone asks you if you want something, it’s a good idea to wonder, “Why do they have extra?”

   Q: Any goals for your garden from here on out?

   A: To pack in so many plants that I have no lawn.

   It’s not that I hate grass, because I don’t. It’s that I can have more plants.