After retiring from the Canadian Forces, my wife, daughter and I moved to Twillingate. Both my wife and I are avid gardeners and in short time began to make flowerbeds and a vegetable garden.
There were only two trees and a shrub on this piece of property when we bought it, a balsam fir, a red maple and an old gnarly French Lilac. The wind was so severe here in the fall and winter that we knew we would soon need more trees and shrubs for a windbreak. This windbreak proved to be the beginning of our love for growing trees. I started with Shining Willows, Theve's Poplar and White Spruce, then added Birch, Larch and Scotch pine.
It didn't look like much in the beginning; we had trees that reached for the sky at a whopping 6 inches with trunks almost as big as pencils. However, with time and constant care, those tiny trunks soon began to cast shadows.
Initially I started growing trees just to fill up my acre of land and create my windbreak. But I soon found myself growing more than I could use. This prompted me to seriously consider starting my own tree and shrub nursery. That was the beginning of Gerry's Tree and Shrub Nursery. Since 2003 we've been growing trees and shrubs from seeds and cuttings. We now grow approximately 600 to 700 trees and shrubs annually; some native, some introduced and we are continuously adding new varieties. In our nursery you'll also see tree that are not yet marketable, but because of our limited space we have to put everything together.
Our trees are sold in three gal pots and our shrubs are sold in 2 gal pots. They retail for 15 and 10 dollars respectively and include HST.
We also sell gift certificates. We normally open July 1.
| Here is a list of some of the trees we sell: |
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| American Mountain Ash | Amur Cork Tree | Austrian Pine | Big Tooth Maple |
| Black Locust | Black Walnut | Butternut | Chokecherry |
| Colorado Spruce | Eastern White Pine | European Beech | European Larch |
| European Mountain Ash | Evan's Cherry | Golden Chain Tree | Green Ash |
| Honey Locust | Horse Chestnut | Japanese Black Pine | Japanese Larch |
| Japanese Red Pine | Norway Maple | Norway Spruce | Paper Birch |
| Radiant Crabapple | Red Cedar | Red Maple | Red Oak |
| Red Pine | Sergeant's Crabapple | Scotch Pine | Siberian Pea Tree |
| Silver Maple | Striped Maple | Sugar Maple | Sycamore |
| White Ash | White Cedar | White Spruce | |
Here is a list of some of the shrubs we sell: |
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| Black Current | Black Elderberry | Bloodtwig Dogwood | Bridal Wreath Spirea |
| Burning Bush | Forsythia 'Northern Gold' | French Lilac | Gooseberry |
| High Bush Cranberry | Hydrangea 'Annebelle' | Hydrangea 'Grandiflora' | Japanese Dwarf Flowering Quince |
| Japanese Tree Lilac | Lilac 'President Grevy' | Mock Orange | Mugho Pine |
| Ninebark 'Dart's Gold' | Ninebark 'Diablo' | Potentilla 'Abbotswood' | Potentilla 'Goldfinger' |
| Purple Sandcherry | Saskatoon | Silverleaf Dogwood | Snowball Bush |
| Spirea 'Goldflame' | Virginia Creeper | Weigelia 'Bristol Ruby' | Weigelia 'Java Red' |
| Weigelia Minuet | |||
