nursery

nursery in horticulture, an establishment or area for the propagation, breeding, and early cultivation of plants. In North America the term nursery originally specified a place where hardy woody plants, especially fruit trees, were started; but as the market for and interest in new varieties of garden plants increased, nurseries broadened their province to include the cultivation and development of all types of plants, including tropical varieties and annuals, and their sale either as seedlings ready for planting or as seeds. Until the advent of artificial irrigation and the use of vast greenhouses to control temperature, nurseries depended on natural conditions for success—as did the bulb nurseries of Holland, which were long famous for flowers and ornamental plants.

The modern nursery, staffed by horticulture experts and equipped with facilities for both experimental and mass production, supplies home gardeners, flower and fruit growers, farmers, and foresters with seeds and seedlings of specified qualities. Under nursery conditions varieties of plants have been bred that have greater yields and are hardier, longer blooming, and more disease resistant than those grown in the ordinary farm or garden, where controlled selection and hybridization is usually impractical (see plant breeding ). Grafting and budding are also commonly used by nurseries to produce superior plants, and some plants are now propagated from cells grown in a sterile medium.

Nurseries, name given during the Restoration period to training schools for young actors, the best known being that set up by Killigrew in Hatton Garden in about 1662. This moved in 1668 to the Vere Street Theatre, where it flourished until 1671, when Davenant's widow opened a new Nursery in the Barbican. This was still in use in 1682, as it is referred to in Dryden's poem MacFlecknoe, published in that year. A third Nursery is known to have opened briefly on Bun Hill, in Finsbury Fields, some time during 1671, and Nursery companies occasionally performed in borrowed playhouses. Little is known of their work, although they must have provided at least a minimal training for young players.