Native Plant Nursery in Beaufort

Naturescapes, Beaufort is a compact little town. Just across the bridge, out on Coosaw Island is a place that feels like old school coastal living. When I visit Naturescapes Beaufort, I feel like I’m going back to the 80’s, finding little nurseries hidden behind people’s houses, overflowing with cool plants, passion, and a bit of chaos.

  Daniel makes his living gardening and taking cool plants to people’s gardens.  He also has a web site and ships. But here you can buy unique plants there in all sizes from quarts to 10-gallon trees.  It’s one of the few places you can get a toothache tree.  And unlike some ‘native’ plants nurseries that bring in truckloads of plants from south Florida, Danny can tell you exactly where in South Carolina he collected his plants.  In fact, Danny can tell so much,  that I have to steer the conversation or be ready to laugh and learn. Recently, I heard him recant a hilarious story of trying to help some poor fisherman who’d been bitten by a little shark and was bleeding a bit. Danny tried to help, crunching up some Spanish moss and then chewing up the leaves of the tooth-ache tree to stop the bleeding.  “They both have antihemorrhagic agents in them you know,” Danny told the poor fisherman,  trying to teach that old guy something about botany.  

Here are a few of the cool plants I brought home….

Packera tomentosa

Phlox pilosa