SEQUIM — New Dungeness Nursery is celebrating its 10th anniversary, but as father and son Doug and Stew Cockburn tell it, the decade is just one marker in a much longer history of the family’s professional relationship with plants.
Located at 4911 Sequim Dungeness Way, the 2-acre nursery hosts 15,000 individual plants in January with 22,000 by the middle of the summer and is “the largest on the Peninsula,” said the Cockburns (pronounced Coburn). The nursery, which open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., fills the needs of home gardeners, builders, landscapers and local tribes, organizations and municipalities.
A garden store carries necessities and consignments from local artists and craftsmen.
Stew described a joyful life of working with family surrounded by employees who are experts in various aspects of plant knowledge, all of them participating in and giving back to the community.
Both father and son love the landscaping business and still do commissions, but Stew said that, for the last five years, the New Dungeness Nursery has been their main focus.
“We carry all sorts of plants,” Stew said. “Everything from Acer (large maples) to zebra plants (tropical indoor plants). That is to say, in our 2 acres, we have plants for everyone. We specialize most in evergreen shrubs, like rhododendrons, that give you the structure of year-round foliage with the reward of lovely flowers, like clockwork, every spring.”
Rhodies are Doug’s favorite plant, and there are never fewer than 50 varieties of them to choose from. He is an adept cultivator of the plant.
“I’m a conifer guy,” Stew said. “I love needles. I love cones.”
Stew is a third-generation nurseryman who learned landscape drafting at his father’s desk as a child. He and his brother grew up in the neighborhood near where the Dungeness River meets the sea, participating in Doug’s business — Landscapes by Cockburn — which served the Olympic Peninsula on projects big and small.
They said they see their work coming to fruition all over town in individual yards and beyond, like at the Port Angeles and Port Townsend waterfronts.
Doug grew up learning the nursery business from his father Wayne at their nursery in Marysville and has lived and worked on the Peninsula for 50 years. He married Debbie Dryke in 1989. His father and uncles built the couple a house from a Sears kit quite close to the land which became the nursery.
Debbie is currently head of potting.
“Like anyone that works for us,” Stew said, “she has the brawn for the largest of trees but also the gentle touch for our delicate little babies.”
Debbie said the Peninsula is a paradise, and at the nursery, the red flowers are her favorite.
Stew’s daughter, Margaret — named after a favorite aunt who died — is the fourth generation growing up in a plant nursery. Stew and the little girl’s mother, Alison Hansen, were teenage sweethearts. Each do their part to grow the business.
Hansen is the bookkeeper. She learned from Doug how to live-propagate.
“Unlike Stew,” she said, “my experience with this industry starts and ends with the last 10 years spent at the nursery.
“I wasn’t brought up around plants like Stew was, and when I started here, it was initially just helping his dad with what was a summer job — mostly back-of-house tasks like weeding and re-potting. Through the years, my role has changed to what it is now, which is mostly office work, except for buying our annuals and perennials.”
Stew said Hansen, his fiancee, has a great work ethic.
“She is another example of the kind of boss that won’t ask you to do something she hasn’t, as she has held every role in our business and never complained.”
“It’s been an amazing thing to watch the nursery grow into what it is now over the last 10 years,” Hansen said.
Employee expertise
Besides the family, there are five full-time employees and four who are part-time.
“We are always hiring more,” Stew said.
“Each of these employees brings a wealth of knowledge and training to the nursery and are available for spot consultations to help gardeners choose the right plant for their place and personality,” Stew said.
Stew said he and three others at New Dungeness Nursery have completed the Certified Professional Horticulturist program from the Washington State Nursery and Landscape Association. Another four are currently in training for it.
“Employees have degrees in biology, environmental science and have published works on tropical plants, respectively,” he said. “We are so lucky that such awesome folks like to come play in the garden with us.”
The nursery’s longest-tenured employee, Kathy Saffold, came to the nursery after her former place of employment, McComb’s Nursery, closed. She’s the head of labeling and signs — “the reason you can find stuff here, which is a big job,” Stew said. “We were lucky to get her.”
“I really love helping people find a plant that they’re happy with … They can take it home and really enjoy it,” she said.
Lori Brown spoke about her passion for pollinators as she trimmed roses.
“I’m a biologist by training, so I’m trying to educate people about pollinator gardens and using a lot more native plants,” she said.
She added that she is deeply concerned about the reduced number of pollinators she has seen in her lifetime and is involved with a program that attempts to create “a continuous piece of habitat” across individual yards and gardens for pollinators, “the same as putting bridges over highways, so that the wildlife can get across the highway without being slaughtered. It’s all about trying to connect.”
Jameson Goff, the newest employee, is a soil expert whom Stew said they were lucky to hire.
Goff said he went to Western Washington University for environmental science, “but I just took every soil class I could.”
Stew’s friend, Steve Hall, Jr., who also grew up in the neighborhood, is foreman, and his wife, Jayde Carmean, is the receiving manager.
Five years ago, “we just had a cigar box and an Excel file,” Stew said with a laugh. “She’s literally helped us create a receiving protocol.
“We have a certified mechanic who keeps things running and also does the long-haul trips to Oregon for larger plant material. We have a really eclectic mix of personality and focuses, but at our core, we all go home and garden on our days off.”
The goal at the nursery, Stew said, is to meet people “where they’re at,” help guide them to the right plants for their situation and gardening philosophy, share knowledge and increase ecological awareness.
To that end, they offer instructional videos on their website, newdungenessnursery.com, and free classes at the nursery in addition to the advice that is offered when requested by customers.
The next round of classes will kick off in May, Stew said, “as we discuss water-wise plant choices and planning a low-impact garden. Our class series will continue with another native plant talk as well as a “food growers check-in,” helping make sure your edible garden is on track in early summer.”
Past and future
The family’s professional relationship with plants goes farther back than Doug’s father’s nursery in Marysville or his mother’s family’s farm in the same town.
Doug said his grandfather’s family came out on a train from South Dakota during the dust bowl of the 1930s, when they were hay farmers. Before that, he said, like many, the Cockburns were immigrants — from Scotland via Canada.
Stew credited the hard work his extended family has modeled for each other through the years as well as the multitude of people who contributed to making the New Dungeness Nursery a success.
His gratitude list is long, from his friends who helped build the new greenhouses to his teachers in Sequim schools to the tribes, families like the Blakes, Knapps and Nashes, Steve Johnson of Lazy J Tree Farm, the gardening clubs, Habitat for Humanity, veterans organizations and many more.
“I’m honored and privileged to be part of the Sequim community,” Stew said.
Catch him at the nursery to learn more.
“My father and I love to talk,” he said with a smile.
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Emily Matthiessen is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. She can be reached by email at emily.matthiessen@sequimgazette.com.
