Originally published in Village News Sept. 3, 1998
By Laura Davimes
It is the end of another hot summer’s day – about 7 p.m., and one of Chester’s working citizens is calling it a day. For Bert Shoosmith work started about 8:00 a.m. with paperwork and other office duties. Following the 9 a.m. Arrival of his small staff, Bert moves outdoors, watering the large containers in the field, moving on to check for new growth on some recently re-potted camellias, and pruning dozens of azaleas. Shoosmith will continue to work with the crew throughout the day, stopping only to check phone messages and have a quick sandwich. Just a typical working day for the owner of a small nursery. But not so typical, really, considering that this year Albert J. Shoosmith celebrated his 91st birthday.
If you pull into the gravel drive at Shoosmith Hillside Gardens in September and wind up the path, you cannot help but take note of a landscape that looks as if Nature placed it there herself. But come back in the spring and you’ll be surprised and uplifted by a brilliant palette of pinks, lavenders, corals, and reds. If azaleas were a social species, you’d swear they must have picked this place to host their yearly garden party. And if you spoke with some of Bert’s regular customers, they would surely tell you that an annual spring visit to Shoosmith Hillside Gardens has become a gardening tradition. But azaleas are probably just the most common of the items that Bert is propagating on his Chester farm. Those who take the time to walk through the entire nursery will discover varieties of flowering shrubs and trees that are hard to find elsewhere: selected English hollies, Enkianthus, and leatherwood trees to name a few. And there is a museum of plants in the landscape, including 12-foot high azaleas and rhododendrons, very nature samples of stewartia and camellia, and even a 30-foot-tall Shoosmith juniper.
Bert got his start selling small potted ivies to customers who came to visit his father, Fred Shoosmith, owner of Southside Nurseries. Bert’s grandfather, also a farmer, came by boat from England. He began buying and improving old farms for resale, first a farm in Pennsylvania, then Jamestown, Manakin-Sabot, Chester, and Amelia. So began a long tradition of living for the love of owning and working the land. This passion and innate talent for growing things out of the soil would be handed down from generation to generation.
Bert attended Chester Agricultural High School, then studied architectural engineering at VPI’s Richmond extension. Later he attended classes in landscaping engineering at Harvard University. But all the while he was working with his father and learning from the plants themselves. The pace was a bit tougher then, him having a home to build and a much larger nursery and staff to oversee. There were landscape designs to draft and install. There was research to complete on newly introduced hybrids, (Bert was one of the first nurserymen in the country to introduce the Janet Blair rhododendron.) And being not just a member, but often a founding member, of organizations like the Richmond Nurseryman’s Association, the Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association, the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, and the Virginia Society of Landscape Designers, meant constant meetings and travel. Always part student, part teacher, Bert traveled to England and the Iron Curtain countries to exchange ideas with other professionals in his field.
Bert was also involved with the Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s horticultural programs. VPI often sent students to his nursery for internships. Many of Bert’s former VPI students are now successful landscapers and teachers themselves. More recently, Bert has offered tours to horticulture students from John Tyler Community College. “I always enjoy sending my students and fellow Chester Garden Club members to tour Shoosmith Hillside Gardens,” says Doris Crowell, a teacher at John Tyler. “Bert knows thoroughly what he’s talking about, and you can always rely on his advice.” Informal green industry internships continue today for the few lucky students Bert takes on each spring.
A large number of corporations and property owners knows Bert’s reputation as a landscape architect and nurseryman. Some of his work can be seen in locations that are now Virginia landmarks – like Chippokes Plantation State Park and the John Rolfe Home. During a tour of duty in the early 1940s, even the Army made good use of Bert’s landscape design knowledge.
Southside Nurseries was sold in 1989. “It was a sad day for the whole metropolitan area which relied on services,” said Chester Garden Club Chairperson Crowell. Bert could have retired, but instead he began what is now Shoosmith Hillside Gardens off Osborne Road. The nursery has been successful in reaching the goals Bert defined for it: to offer a very select group of shrubs and trees that are not only attractive, but raised to be healthy and hardy specifically in the Virginia landscape. The bonus he extends to his fellow gardeners is that the perennials he offers are joyfully low-maintenance.
Marrying late in life, Bert and his wife, Betty, enjoyed much of the travel that became a necessary part of his work. Both were very active at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Later, both would be active in the congregation at Merchant’s Hope. After caring for Betty through the end of her life, Bert designed a memorial garden for her that encompasses the formerly empty ground of the church. The garden starts low at the front entrance with a grouping of Stransvasia and quietly expands in interest and beauty as it leads you to its pleasing focal point, a statue of “Eve” surrounded by fragrant Pieris, Sarcococca and boxwood. The plan finishes with a multi-colored blaze of azaleas sprinkled in the pine woods, separating the church grounds from the neighboring cemetery. The garden enhances the church grounds without ever distracting from the simple elegance of the early American architecture (c. 1657). It is the most recent example of Bert’s design work.
Visit his nursery today, and you will see green – lots of it – which is pretty surprising considering the June-August drought we’ve been under. But please, phone ahead of your visit. You won’t catch him napping, but at 91, Bert can’t be expected to keep regular customer hours. For those who do come to call, a warm smile and hearty handshake can be expected. It’s a heartfelt greeting that Bert reserves for all his fellow plant-lovers.
