Please join us for our first Insider Tour of the year on Saturday, March 20th, as Wade Roitsch, former Manager of Yucca Do Nursery, leads a tour of The John Fairey Garden to discuss the impact of the recent severe winter storm and strategies for plant care.

There will be two tours, one at 10 am and one at 1 pm. Tours will last approximately two hours. Tickets are $25 and limited to 20 people for each tour. Tickets are available here.

Wade Roitsch Bio

Wade Roitsch grew up on his family’s cattle ranch east of Austin and earned a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science, Beef Cattle Production from Texas A&M University in the fall of 1990. After graduating and then taking additional courses in ornamental horticulture, Wade went back to the family ranch and enjoyed gardening vegetables and ornamentals and working part time at a retail garden center in Elgin, TX, to increase his knowledge of ornamentals.

Wade began placing mail-order orders with Yucca Do Nursery around 1995, and in the summer of 1997 he made his first pick up at the nursery. Over several succeeding shopping appointments, Carl Schoenfeld, the owner of Yucca Do, saw Wade’s enthusiasm for plants and invited him to be part of a collecting trip to Mexico in October of 1997. In November of 1997 Wade resigned from the garden center in Elgin and began working as plant propagator at Yucca Do, working in the nursery as propagator and gardener for a number of years. Wade was part of ten collection trips to Mexico and he and Carl also made a number of trips to Brazil, Argentina and several other places through the years. 

When Carl Schoenfeld decided to leave Texas for Argentina, he named Wade as Nursery Manager. Wade managed Yucca Do in Hempstead until 2008 when he completed the move of the nursery to Giddings TX, so he could be closer to his elderly parents. He operated Yucca Do there until 2018. In 2018 Carl and Wade closed the nursery, one of the most highly respected nurseries in Texas.

Since then, Wade has managed his family ranch and has continued to generously volunteer his time and expertise at the garden, most notably leading Open Day tours and sharing his knowledge with plant collectors in the nursery.