My Trip to the 2025 Signature Experience

All of the wonderful attendees, speakers, and staff!

WOW is all I can say coming out of the 2025 Signature Experience at Creekside Nursery in Dallas, NC just a few weeks ago. Over 70 gardeners from across the country (and even Canada!) came together for two special days of learning, conversation, and pure enjoyment of the spectacular gardens that the Simpsons and their staff have worked so hard to create.

Jenny and Jerry Simpson of Creekside Nursery in Dallas, NC

A few years ago, I discovered Jenny's YouTube channel "Gardening with Creekside" during postpartum. Gardening, even for a few minutes, felt like a much-needed deep breath while navigating motherhood for the first time, and Jenny's knowledge, humor, and southern charm was something I looked forward to watching each afternoon (if I could get my baby to nap). Fast forward a few years, I was diagnosed with a host of medical issues that left me stuck in bed for months feeling weak and extremely fatigued. When I say Jenny's videos were a lifeline, I truly mean it. I couldn't do much at all, but I could watch her videos and soak in the information like a sponge. These days, I'm much stronger and off to the races with Petalhouse, so the opportunity to attend this event was a true full circle, shall I even say spiritual moment?

Here are some of my favorite highlights from the sessions:

1) In other industries, if something goes wrong, we always blame the product, yet in gardening, we often blame ourselves. The truth is, someone likely sold you an inferior plant. That's where Proven Winners steps in. There's a reason why they're not called proven losers, wink wink, and that's why I use them in all of my client projects! The company weeds out inferior seedlings and conducts intense production trials, stretching the capacity of plants, so that they work for us. Less than 1-2% of plants make it through this process.

2) It takes 18 months to 15 years to bring a plant to market.

3) Espoma is the largest producer of retail organic fertilizer yet they are 100% off the grid, producing their own electricity completely powered by the sun. Incredible!

4) There was no Miracle Gro in the Garden of Eden. Organic gardening supports pollinators, pets, and people.

5) If the pollinators die, they're taking us with them. Pollinator gardens for everyone!!

6) Bio-tone (my favorite product on the planet) changes everything about the survivability of the plant. You can expect bigger roots for increased water uptake, better drought tolerance, better blooms, disease resistance, and faster plant growth. But don't put in on the top of the soil! It needs to go in the hole to support the roots.

7) A spade jabs the soil but the Power Planter auger (which I use in your flower beds) slices it. We don't jab potatoes, right? The auger also aerates the soil, which is beneficial for soil structure.

8) Baptisia can last up to 80 years! I had no idea. If you want to attempt transplanting, Marshall from Proven Winners (their 2nd employee ever) told me to do so when the plant is in full dormancy in November...and to dig very wide and very deep around the plant.

9) Alas, as a gardener, you have to be willing to experiment and yes, kill some plants.

10) Give yourself grace in gardening just as you give yourself grace in life. No matter where life leads you, the garden will always be there, and you can always come back to it.