Jeff Oberhaus is the owner of Vintage Hill Farm located in Franklin, Missouri. Vintage Hill, which opened in 1992, is small by nursery standards, but located in the middle of one-hundred acres it seems as large as the 1700 variety plant list.

Vintage Hill caters to collectors and doesn’t grow enormous amounts of one item. Most of what he sells is grown on the property, with the exception of nursery stock offering. He maintains a collection of unusual stock plants from all over the world that allows him to propagate as needed to meet the demand of sales. He ships plants all over the United States and supplies botanic gardens, campuses, commercial landscapers as well as the small, beginning gardeners such as myself. 90% of his business is “visit the farm” retail.

Jeff left eleven years in a successful corporate job to start Vintage Hill. When I asked him what motivated his decision to start a nursery he said this:

“I grew up with an eccentric neighbor lady who was in the Federated Garden Club of America. Besides the most incredible German Chocolate Cake she also brought our family starts of plants from all over the world. Her “arrangement of landscape” didn’t win any awards, but Naomi was a generous soul and as a five-year old boy, plants and cake became a cool past time. It was only natural when I went to college that my electives drifted into horticulture and I gravitated that direction. After graduation and the corporate job, experience is by far the greatest teacher. When your own money is invested you tend to learn very quickly. Much of what I do is very natural for me. I get interested in a plant of genus or other endeavor and I can’t rest until I’ve researched it at length.”

Jeff and I met through a mutual friend and horse trainer, Janet Harms. We both have funny stories to tell about Janet, mostly about her joy of using the lunge whip on her students rather than their horses! Yes, Jeff rides horses and breeds some pretty fantastic Holsteiners at Vintage Hill. Where do you think he gets the manure for all that fertilizer? He also has the weirdest looking cattle I’ve ever seen! They look like Muppets

“I am thrilled to help Susan with my intimate knowledge of botany and manure!”

Next week I ask Jeff about the top four or five books he would recommend for any gardener!