Wells Nursery: An Eight-Decade Science Project
That Wells Nursery has deep roots in Mount Vernon and Skagit County is no surprise.
The surprise is how those roots have been created and nurtured.
Harold Wells—whose parents ran a nursery in Seattle—opened the nursery in Mount Vernon in 1937 with his wife Nina and brother Earl. “Grampa propagated and grew trees for retail sale, and my uncle Earl ran the landscaping business, which planted many large projects in Skagit County,” says Wendy Hall Ragusa, one of today’s owners.
After Wendy’s father Neil Hall joined the business in 1964, the family found its niche: propagating unique conifers that are showpieces in home gardens or large public and private landscapes.
“My dad called himself the discoverer of unique plants,” says Wendy, “and that reputation still persists.”
Initially the family grew trees for the Pacific Northwest landscapers and nurseries. As demand for its specimens increased, the nursery asked horticultural brokers to connect it to markets in the mountain states, the Midwest and the Northeast. That was exciting for the family, “and a wee bit nerve wracking,” recalls Wendy, “but I have fond memories of nursery salesmen who became dear family friends over the decades.”
Producing new tree specimens is basically a science project with many steps, says Wendy’s husband Roger Ragusa, Wells Nursery general manager. Step one is looking for forms.
“If you look at 500 trees, you’ll find a few that are really nice,” he explains. “Or you might notice what we call a ‘witches’ broom’—a nice-looking but irregular formation on a particular tree. You think, ‘there’s a market for that.’”
To develop trees with the best form, color and growth pattern, Neil Hall took cuttings from the nicest specimens and grafted them onto other conifers. Not every experiment succeeded.
“The plants were like my dad’s pets. It was hard for him to let go of some that maybe didn’t perform saleswise but were beautiful,” says Wendy. Fortunately, about 50 of his gorgeous, deer- and disease-resistant “pets” are the backbone of Wells Nursery today.
Roger Ragusa in front of a Hinoki King Cypress
One is the ‘Hinoki King’ cypress, which grows to about 20 feet and is lovely planted on its own or contrasted with other conifers or broadleaf shrubs, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. For colder climates, the Black Hills ‘Wellspire’ spruce is a popular choice. It dominates the landscape at its full height of 45 to 60 feet, and resists wind, salt, and low temperatures.
Once established, a new tree variety will maintain its clonal characteristics. When a market has been identified, new grafts need to be planted every year.
Growing trees takes patience. Annual Skagit crops like Brussel sprouts and potatoes can be harvested once a year. Daffodil bulbs mature for two years before they can be sold. Nurturing trees to market size takes much longer, says Roger. “I’ve got five to six years into the product before I get my money out.”
An experienced crew, some who have been with Wells for 30 years, handles the farm’s workflow.
In December 2024, the propagation crew is cutting notches in understock trees and attaching grafts from “scion” wood from the new cultivar. A spruce graft goes on spruce understock, a pine graft goes on pine understock, and so on. Grafts are brushed with protein paint and surrounded by rubber bands that hold the wood together until the vascular tissue called “cambion” heals into one tree.
Grafting scion wood onto understock
These grafted trees begin their lives in 4” pots in greenhouses at the retail nursery, graduating to one-gallon containers in about a year. At about two years old, they are “lined out” by the field crew at the Wells farm in the Riverbend area. Each row of trees has about 54 plants, which are not moved again until they are dug up for sale.
Growing trees in the ground, not just ever-larger containers, sets Wells apart from nurseries that sell containers trees and shrubs. “You can’t get quality, balance and thickness in a tree in container production,” explains Roger. “We ship trees up to 14 feet tall. They’ve got to be grown in the ground.”
Each June, Wells staff inventories the trees to determine which can be harvested and which need another year or two to mature. What Roger calls “odds and ends” are dug up and sold at 50% off in the annual Wells Farm sale, where many locals get their shrubs and trees.
Trees ready for sale are dug up during fall and winter for both fall and spring orders. All but the very largest specimens are dug by hand, their root balls wrapped in treated burlap. They travel on refrigerated trucks to gardens and large commercial or municipal landscapes around the U.S. Recently, some larger Wells conifers went to a contractor landscaping new Mormon temples in the Salt Lake City area.
“We are propagating a luxury item, beautiful niche material that is recognized as quality nursery stock,” says Wendy.
Picea 'Gowdy' Oriental Spruce 'lined out' to grow another four years
There are pressures, of course. Inadvertently, the Wells/Hall/Ragusa family has found itself farming on the urban-rural border. Their original seven-acre Blodgett Road property shrank to two acres when I-5 came through Mount Vernon in the 1960s. That means one- and two-year old seedlings grow up next to semi-trucks and SUVs pounding down the freeway.
Their Riverbend farmland, in the county just west of the Mount Vernon city limits and zoned Agricultural-Natural Resources Land, once abutted potato fields. But the city rezoned those fields to permit big-box stores. Now Walmart is their neighbor. Several hundred acres of prime Skagit farmland are gone forever, but Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland works to prevent further development, and a 2024 survey by the Skagit County Planning Commission found that farmland preservation is a top priority for residents.
Farming is challenging whether or not a city is right next door. The ever-present horsetail weeds must be battled every year. When heavy rain or high hydraulic pressure from the Skagit River triggers groundwater flooding, the trunks of trees standing in water can be discolored. “We have to wait a year for the trees to clear with new growth,” says Roger.
Wells from Walmart
Grafted trees growing next to I5
The pressure to produce is constant. “Many second and third generation family members don’t necessarily want to bust their fanny in the business, so they sell,” he says. “As tree farms and nurseries close down, that puts more pressure on people like us who are still in the industry.”
The second and third generations of the Wells family are not selling. Neil’s widow Susan Hall is the company’s principal, Wendy and her sister are finance officers, and son-in-law Roger is general manager. Generation number four is learning the ropes of the landscape business in the Seattle area and is interested in eventually joining Wells.
The whole family is engaged in the civic life of Skagit County and proud of their nursery legacy. When Wells Nursery celebrated its 85th anniversary with an open house in 2022, “lots of people came and talked about the plants they had purchased, and our successes and our failures,” remembers Wendy.
“We have been through lots of ups and downs in 87 years, but thanks to our climate, water and soil resources, we have a great recipe for producing beautiful nursery stock.”
Story by Anne Basye: info@skagitonians.org