Owners of Cady’s Falls Nursery say they’ve run out of steam

Don and Lela grew up hundreds of miles apart — Lela in Michigan and Don in New York — but when they met and fell in love, the couple moved in together, and eventually made their way to the West Coast.

Don and Lela Avery started propagating plants on the Big Sur Coast in California in the 1970s.

“It was sort of a back-to-the-land thing,” Don said.

And when they moved to Vermont in 1979, with a pickup truck full of tools and their two children, the couple continued that work.

Tucked away on a dead-end road in Morrisville sat a 150-year-old farmhouse in which the Averys saw much potential. At first, they didn’t know what they wanted to do with the property, but the 1980s brought a building boom to Stowe, and people wanted lots of gardens.

“We hit it right on the nose for perennials,” Don said.

So, the Averys turned their rotting porch into a greenhouse, and built a few cold frames so they could sell vegetable starts and flower seedlings at the local farmers’ markets.

“As the years went by, there was more and more interest in plants,” and the Averys switched to the nursery model, Don said. But they didn’t want to just be another commercial nursery.

“Northern Vermont is isolated from greater horticultural world. To go to the closest arboretum, it was a four-hour drive to Boston,” Don said.

The Averys were in luck, though, because Greg Williams, owner of Kate Brook Nursery in Wolcott, was willing to help. He became the Averys’ mentor in the conifer world, and Cady’s Falls Nursery shifted from vegetables to only conifers and perennials, expanding their gardens around their old farmhouse and several barns.

Lela and Don start most of their stock from seeds and cuttings in a small greenhouse that hangs off the side of the main barn.

Propagating their own plants, the Averys found that they could control the quality, and they decided to grow varieties that people couldn’t buy wholesale.

They found those that were rare or difficult to grow — such as trilliums and lady’s slippers — and began to experiment.

“We found our niche,” Don said. “We began selling local, and now we sell all over New England. The further people come, the more plant geek they are.”

One attraction of Cady’s Falls is buying plants from the people who know them.

“This is our life. We grow these plants. People can go into the gardens and see them in mature form,” Don said.

Over nearly four decades, the Averys have seen a lot of plants die, but they’ve also seen many thrive.

“It isn’t like we just did this and succeeded. We grew with our customers,” Don said.

Now, they are throwing in the towel. Both in their 70s, Don and Lela have run out of steam.

“We’ve come to a point where we can financially do it, and we don’t need to work that hard anymore,” Don said.

The nursery will be open Fridays and Saturdays in May and June, with its final day set for July 1. After that the gardens will remain open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays through the end of the season.

“It’s crazy to have these beautiful gardens with nobody viewing them. It would be like directing a play that nobody will see,” Don said.

“The gardens won’t be idle,” said Lela. “They’ve been our life.”

Toward the middle of June, the Averys will begin reducing their prices on overstocked plants, and they’ll have an “everything goes sale” on the last Friday and Saturday.

“We will be free to pursue our horticultural, botanical and artistic interests unencumbered by the cash register and the telephone. In years to come, we will be reopening occasionally to offer lady slippers, species peonies, trilliums, conifers and other rarities. The gardens will remain open to the public on a regular basis with the addition of a prominent donation box at the entrance. We are also entertaining the idea of offering gardening workshops,” the Averys said. Plant offerings and details of future events can be found at cadysfallsnursery.com.