818-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 24, 1999 Plants Fantastic: Exotics, And Only Exotics, ANDY ANDREWS Lancaster Fanning Staff BIRDSBORO (Berks Co.) In Livezey, who was looking at a this greenhouse, the “oohs” and dwarf burrows plant hanging in a “abbs’* were palpable. subtropical greenhouse, accom “lt’s like a different world,” said panied more than two dozen other Barbara Livezey, Tulpehocken Berks County teachers last week Junior High School health and on one of several tours of retail physical education teacher. “You florists and nurseries as part of the B ® rbara u y* 2 «y. Julpehocken Junior High School teach er, inspects the stridently interwoven, long strands of the ™ommon’*of 2" Ch ofthemo* common of the exotic cacti. One orchid Mutschler is particularly proud of is the Dra cuia Orchid from Ecuador. Mutschler said the orchid grows in the entrance to caves in the western South American country. Imbue Birdsboro Greenhouse almost have to ask someone to remind you of where you’re at" Mutschler’s Florist and Rare Plants not only has an extensive greenhouse filled with tropical plants, but also a sprawling outside compliment of winter-hardy cacti and a good complement of ponds—2B in all, managed by employee Jeff Jackson. Bob Mutschler instructs the tour group at the largest pond, measuring 15 feet by 30 feet and is three feet deep, constructed six years ago. county’s popular Ag In The Class room Seminar. This time, the teachers witnessed the beauty and wonder of the thousands of exotic plants at Mutschler’s Florist and Rare Plants on Perkiomen Avenue near Birdsboro. Some members of the tour group branched off, winding their way through the greenhouse a place that seemed literally tom out of the rain forests of Brazil, filled with more than 25 varieties of orchids, exotic cacti, plants from Africa, Ecuador, and varieties of species unseen and largely unheard of in a “typical” Pennsyl vania nursery. “We avoid the ‘common’ as much as we can, and we find it works for us very, very well," said Bob Mutschler, who has operated the four-acre nursery with his wife, Elsie, for 11 years. Teachers on the tour would repeat, almost like a canon, that for years they drove by the exotic greenhouse, not knowing it even existed just offßt. 422 a few miles east of the Rt 176 interchange. Nursery sales are 90 percent retail and 10 percent wholesale at Mutschler’s. The nursery supplies all fresh-market plants and flowers and some silk. The nursery deco rates for weddings one day a week and performs landscape work on a small basis, perhaps 2-3 per year. Mutschler said they recently completed an entirely “desert” landscape for a local resident Another one “was totally oriental in design,” he said. “It was really exotic. “We don’t accept the 'normal' types of jobs,” he said. Mutschler has taught for more than three decades at the Western Center for Technology Studies and has taught plant properties at Penn State and orchidology at the Uni versity of Florida. The nursery not only has an extensive greenhouse filled with tropical plants. It also has, sprawl ing in varous places in the outside display area, winter-hardy cacti and a good complement of ponds 28 in all, managed by employee Jeff Jackson. One pond measures IS feet by 30 feet and is three feet deep, con structed six years ago. Outside, near a small storage the Wilson School district, area greenhouse, towering bam- looked over the bamboo, boo sprouts from an area used dur- _ **l’d like to have bamboo grow ing classes conducted regularly by mg my place,” Collet said, the nursery. Gary Coller, Reading Outside, the grounds arc cov- High School teacher and a director (Turn to Pag* B 19) itside, near a small storage area greenhouse, towering bamboo sprouts from an area used during classes con ducted regularly by the nursery. Gary Coller, Reading High School teacher and a director of the Wilson School district, looks over the bamboo.
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