By LYN DESMARAIS
BRANDON—Blue Seal, just south of Brandon village on Route 7, caters to our local farming community. In spring, you’ll see baby chicks and seed potatoes. They sell bird, cat, dog, chicken, goat, sheep, exotics, and horse feeds and shavings. They sell Carhartt farm clothing and boots. They have an array of equipment for all types of gardening.
Audrey LaFountaine has been working at Blue Seal for 8 years and is in charge of the plants. She grew up on a dairy farm in Bristol.
“We always had huge vegetable gardens,” says Audrey. “We never bought vegetables. My parents even grew enough potatoes for us to eat and for seed the next year. I’ve always taken care of plants, flowers and vegetables.”
“When I first got here, Blue Seal had a really small plant section on the north side of our building. We’ve grown and grown this area of our business. We moved across the parking lot last year. It takes us 7 hours per day to water all of these plants. We buy our plants from Vermont and other New England sources for the best success rate.”
“We are adding more and more native plants to our selection because they are part of the food web that supports insects, birds, bats, other mammals—our wildlife. These plants will be the least stressed when they’re planted, as we know that they grow well here. I am trying to build our native plant collection because I think it’s a sustainable and responsible thing to do and we have a lot of interest from our customers, so I’m meeting customer need. But I’m also guiding customers to add these wonderful plants to their gardens. Native plants even help minimize flooding and filter out pollutants. Aren’t they amazing?”
“We get our first plant shipments in mid-April. We order perennials and trees based on best sellers, the August before. We order tons of fuchsia and hanging baskets to make sure that we have a lot in stock for Mother’s Day. May and June are our busiest months for plant sales. That has shifted. It used to be autumn. We caution everyone that until the threat of a killing frost passes in spring you must cover even the perennials that you buy here. We all experienced the killing frost we had in May. We covered and double covered our plants here and we were lucky; we lost only a few plants.”
“I do enjoy the flowers but I’m partial to gardens and we’ve added a lot to our vegetable starts this year, peppers, carrots, deep purple kale and radishes. I don’t have a garden of my own right now. I have all this to take care of. I would encourage all customers to ask for help if they don’t see something they came for. I can interpret descriptions, at least I try to,” Audrey said with a laugh. “We have put up signs everywhere that say, ‘need help? please ask,’ and we mean it.”
When asked about an easy garden to grow of annual flowers, Audrey suggested snapdragons, marigolds and marguerite daisies. For shady areas, she suggests a sea of begonias. They have so many colors. “We had an incredible blue begonia, but we sold out of it. We used to have more shrubs but now people want color in their garden, so we have expanded the annuals and perennials sections.” They also have expanded their hanging-basket selection to include many other colors and interesting plants. They still have a good selection left.
“My favorite perennials change from year to year, but I do love lilies,” continued Audrey. “This year we’ve got great dianthus, roses, and creeping phlox. We have large coleus with very different, beautiful leaves. My favorite annuals are the pink salvia and scaevola. They’re tough and pretty.”
Audrey says that the garden section is the “social event of the season.”
“People stop and talk and visit. Often, they haven’t seen each other in ages. It’s marvelous. Another thing I absolutely love about work is that I love seeing families picking out plants together. I love it when customers share their stories with me and pictures of their garden. They get so enthusiastic. I just love working here. The staff is terrific, everyone chips in to help, and we’re always talking about new things we want to try. We are incredibly lucky to have such an amazing staff.”
