# Shout-Out to a Master Gardener



## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

When i started laying out my railroad (we are now in the cinder-clocks and flagstone stage) i thought i was too late to get the great miniature trees and flowering shrubs that other folks had because the supplier, Don Herzog, had retired and closed the nursery he and his wife Becky had been running for 40 years. I was so sad, because i have had a lifetime's worth of bad luck with mail-order plants for my regular garden, and felt doomed to repeat that sort of frustration. 

Well, to my amazement and surprise, Don Herzog showed up at my place with Daniel Smith (an insane-genius trestle-builder) and saw my plight. A couple days later they came back with Eric Moes, a train electrician, and then -- wonder of wonders -- Don took my husband and i out to his place to see his amazing new layout in progress (an entire world, really) and his "closed" miniature nursery, which, it turns out, is still "open by appointment only" -- with "only" 5,000 miniature trees in it. Right. 

We found out that he had some fantastic mini-azaleas. I am loosely modelling a hybrid between the ET&NWC, which was noted for the azaleas blooming on the Tennessee and North Carolina mountains, and a host of defunct local-to-me Northern California lines like the Petaluma and Santa Rosa RR, the Northwestern Pacific RR, the Sonoma Magnesite RR, and so forth which ran through famously lovely California azalea and rhododendron areas as well. Also, my layout is under a redwood tree, so azaleas will fit right in. 

ANYWAY, Don found me some amazing azaleas, miniatures and micro-minis, with tiny, tiny leaves. And he has just enough miniature Alberta Spruce (true miniatures, not the ones from Lowe's you have to keep pruning or they grow to ten feet tall) to sell a few to me. He is such a kind man -- a Master Mason, a Master Gardener, and a Real Mensch. I cannot thank him enough. 

So it looks like my little Bachmann Annies will be able to (in the words of the old song) "climb the flowery mountains" (well, maybe a 1% grade) and we shall see something lovely when we get to Pardee Point. 

I am so grateful to Don, i just had to share.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Gld to know that Don is still around and active in the hobby. I still have most of the plantings I got from him in 1998. I haven't seen him in years.


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

I am not going to rewrite what i wrote to start this thread, but it sure seems to have disappeared, leaving only Todd's reply to me. I had written a glowing account of my first meetings with miniature garden nurseryman Don Herzog. No idea why the post is gone.


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## catherine yronwode (Oct 9, 2013)

Hey, my post came back! That was weird! Actually, i know there has been some maintenance work going on here at the forum, and i shall chalk up the anomalous appearances and disappearance and reappearances of posts to something mundane like that, rather than to that rumoured and terrifyingly spooky paranormal activity in ... The Haunted Tunnel.


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