Friends Landing, Juel’s Unique Nursery

August, 2025

Today, I drove from Friends Landing campground to Juel’s Unique Nursery, maybe 15 minutes away. I had driven past the sign a few times in my travels in this area over the past few years. But it wasn’t a “fancy” sign and it was a few miles away from the nearest small town, so I didn’t think much about it. But a friend of mine said “it’s wonderful, go there!” So I did. And wow, it’s wonderful! 🙂

The road leading into the property from that sign above was TIGHT, one lane dirt road most of the way. But one just drives slowly on those sorts of roads, yes? Ah, but then when I arrived at the nursery, it seemed like the whole world opened up right in front of me. It was gorgeous … and I could already smell all manner of healthy, lovely smells.

I parked the big white truck over to the left. Mine was the only vehicle there … it pays to visit places like this on a weekday. And then I walked in through the open front gate.

Below … right inside the gate … rows and rows and rows of small potted plants. Seemed to me there wasn’t any kind of potted plant that was NOT there. All were well cared for. All were priced well below the usual commercial price. Trust me, these were not the only rows of potted plants, the rows went on around that building, and off to the right, thousands of plants.

Juel herself came out of the house behind where I was standing, the home where she lives, and chatted with me for a bit. She has been operating this nursery (and the horse stable business, and open horse land) for several decades. She said she was thinking about slowing down soon. I’m 77. I don’t remember what she said her age was but it was more than 77. She looked pretty darned healthy to me. And yet … there may come a time. She does have two or three employees who help with the place. This place is MANY acres in size. These photos don’t begin to show you how large the place is, how many greenhouses she had, how many acres of fruit trees she had, and all manner of different evergreen trees, etc … all so well cared for, all for sale.

She chatted with me for a few minutes then said “help yourself, just wander around if you’d like. If you need any help, just come to the house.” So that’s exactly what I did … I just wandered around and poked my head into the buildings and greenhouses. Oh it was luscious.

Seemed like if there was a type of plant she/they were growing there, then there wasn’t just a few of them but dozens of them! Small plants, shrubs, trees, fruit, flowers, vegetables, sedums, ferns, grasses, you name it.

There was one long, HUGE box/bed of ripe watermelons. You could buy the watermelons or you could buy the whole plant.

Indoors … gosh, there was everything. In the photo below on the left were several varieties of tomatoes.

In another greenhouse … onions (oh they smelled marvelous!!) … and other types of melons.

Outside again, I found this apple tree (below). Several of these apple trees were there, several varieties, and the smell of ripe, fresh apples was divine.

 

Around another corner, in another acre of land, I found this plum tree below. I have a couple of friends who think this is a prune tree … nope. Prunes are actually dried plums. The tree that grows the fruit is a plum tree which produces plums. 🙂

Here’s a little close-up of a couple of branches of the ripe plums. Boy was I there at the right time of year! I could smell the plums. Some folks think you can’t eat plums, that they are sour. They are not sour when they are ripe, they are so sweet and delicious.

I’ll tell you a story that proves that ripe plums are lovely and undeniably edible. I had a horse, Charlie (doesn’t everyone have a Charlie horse?). This was decades ago when I was a girl of about 12 years old (I then had Charlie for about 11 years after that). He and I were friends. I would often go to the pasture where my parents paid to keep him, and then ride him the 4 or 5 blocks on the super quiet country road, from the pasture, and then to my home (the one my parents owned). He and I would meander around, sometimes I rode him, sometimes I walked and he followed me. One of our neighbors had built a small pen for him behind our house so I could do other things there at home and not worry about Charlie getting loose and wandering off. But one day, while he was inside that pen, Charlie’s butt itched. I was in another part of the yard, but saw him leaning his butt back against the short wall of the enclosure, rubbing his butt side to side to side to side, scratching that itch with his whole weight backed up against the wall boards, when suddenly the wall boards of the pen collapsed behind him, bang! And down Charlie sat, on his butt, bang! I went over to him immediately thinking he might walk away, but he just sat there and nickered at me when I walked up. As he sat there he rubbed his head against me and nickered some more. Eventually he stood up, and then I tied a line from his halter to a tree. And I scratched his butt for him. 🙂

But, the story about the plums, gosh I lost track there for a bit didn’t I? 🙂 Ok, the plums. In late summer, at just the right time of year, when plums are ripe, I would ride Charlie to the house and then, later in the day, we’d go back to the pasture, as we did other times of the year too. Right at the last corner along that small country road, on the way back to the pasture, was a plum tree. And in late summer, Charlie knew right where that tree was! He could smell the fruit. And he knew where it was. We would come around that corner and his head would lift up and to the right, and he would sniff through the branches of that tree until he found just the right one, the most perfectly ripe plum of them all, and he would curl back his lips and open his mouth and so amazingly delicately, he would pick just that ONE plum. Then he would continue on his way, with me on his back with reins in my hands tho I hardly ever had to guide him, towards the pasture … and he would chew on that plum and the juices would run out of his mouth and he would nod and nod and nod his head with joy and, believe it or not, truly truly, he would spit out the pit!

So that’s my plum story … Charlie taught me that ripe plums are delicious.

Rest assured, I did stop by the house where the plum tree was and asked the owners if it was ok that Charlie picked one plum every day. They loved it, and I often saw them watching him do that. Gosh, what a great memory. I haven’t thought of that for many, many years … not until I discovered that plum tree in Juel’s Unique Nursery on this camping trip. What a treasure.

Ok, that’s enough reminiscing! 🙂 Let’s finish our visit to Juel’s. There is one more thing I’d like to show you. But it might be embarrassing. Take a look at the photo below. It’s just some greenery that was along the path heading out of the nursery. You might notice some light yellow creature on a leaf near the top of the photo, pretty much in the center, right at the top. Well, it isn’t just one creature … it’s two! So hide your eyes, and I’ll zoom in and show you the close-up. 🙂

Here’s the closeup below. Hmmm, frankly, I couldn’t tell who was doing what to whom. But I suspect “things” were happening.

What a great visit to a really wonderful local, country nursery run by a very knowledgable woman. As mentioned, she talked about slowing down and maybe closing the business in the near future. So if you’ve a mind to go there for a visit, best go soon, and maybe check to make sure she’s still open for business before you go. The nursery is about two miles up East Satsop Road, north of the VERY small town of Satsop which is right on highway 12, west of Olympia, WA.

Website for Juel’s nursery … http://juelsuniquenursery.com/home.

On the drive away from the nursery, I stopped and took the photo below with the big white truck in the photo. Oh, almost forgot, she raises bees too … and sells the honey.

My gosh, another perfect day in a perfect world.

Hi Charlie, wanta go find some plums?