Ed & Debbie Shinn's Garden

Ed & Debbie Shinn's Garden The Ed & Debbie Shinn garden is a private garden situated on just over two acres. Many of the plants are rare and only a hand-full exist in the United States. p.

GARDEN OF DEBBIE and ED SHINN

The garden is situated on approximately two acres. Ed and Debbie have been gardening on this lot for some thirty years and the garden has evolved into an often visited site by maple, conifer and rare plant collectors. Ed is a former Vice President of the North American Branch of the Maple Society and former Vice President of American Conifer Society North East Reg

ion

The garden features one of the largest private maple collections on the Eastern Seaboard with over 700 varieties, the garden also has an extensive conifer collection with over 400 varieties and hundreds of other varieties of trees and shrubs including a collection of unusual Beech. In at least one case, the garden has the oldest known plant in the world. Acer palmatum ‘Orion’ was thought to be lost to the trade but has been in the garden since 1992. All other A. Orions in the world have their origin with this plant. Many plants have been sent to the garden from major arboreta and specialist nurseries for trials in the NJ area. The garden has extensive bluestone paths to facilitate touring the property and most of the plants have engraved botanical signs. There are many features in the garden including a bog garden, a rock garden, planters, troughs, greenhouse and hundreds of plants in pots.

Some shots of the garden in late Aug.
08/26/2026

Some shots of the garden in late Aug.

Some of Debs flowers that keep the garden beautiful through the year.
08/26/2026

Some of Debs flowers that keep the garden beautiful through the year.

A morning visitor.
08/26/2026

A morning visitor.

Margie's sunset in Manasquan. Miss you Margie.
08/26/2026

Margie's sunset in Manasquan. Miss you Margie.

Garden Treasures Nursery Visit 21 Aug 2026As a plant collector with around 40 years’ collecting, it is often difficult t...
08/24/2026

Garden Treasures Nursery Visit 21 Aug 2026
As a plant collector with around 40 years’ collecting, it is often difficult to find new must-have plants to add to the garden. Shinn Arboretum has over 18,000 plants and on a typical nursery visit I may find two or three things to add. Our visit lasted around eight hours, and we came home with 55 new additions, and there were hundreds of others that were calling my name, and it was late August, not the peak time for plant shopping.
Pat McCracken and his staff were outstanding with their knowledge of plants and recommendations for my garden. I can hardly wait until I can plan a spring visit.

Warning Long Post Sunday Aug 02 was a day to edit one of the garden beds. Being a gardener and plant collector comes wit...
08/03/2026

Warning Long Post
Sunday Aug 02 was a day to edit one of the garden beds. Being a gardener and plant collector comes with some definite challenges. Often, we work with plants that there is little information available on, and we rely on information from similar species and cultivars to build our designs. This island bed was planted in 2015 in our arboretum in zone 7 b at the New Jersey coast and was mostly made up of plants from my friends Dennis Dodge and Fred Hooks with additional maples from my friend Brian Sherman added in 2018. The picture a1 shows the garden in 2015 looking like a bunch of sticks. Picture a2 shows the bed in 2021 and a3 is from 2022. Picture a4 and a5 are from 2025 and picture a6 is from today, 03 Aug 2026.
Two plants were removed with my chainsaw transplanter and taken to the dumps. One was Ginkgo biloba Rainbow; it had a small amount of variegation when first installed but none in the last four years. The second was Picea Abies Lemonade. This was a very nice plant when first installed but in the last few years it decided it wanted to get very large.
The most interesting part for me was the three Japanese maple brooms. They are made up of three broom cultivars all discovered by Bob McCaffery and provided to me by Brian Sherman and all planted in 2018 as one gallon plants. Photo a8 is A. p. Father Watters standing about 12 feet tall and about around 6 feet wide in about a 35 gallon container. Photo a9 is A. p. St Juan Diego standing about 18 inches tall and 12 inches wide planted in a 5 gallon pot. Photo b1 is A. p. Sister Jackie standing about 12 feet tall but only about 4 feet wide because it was cramped and is now in a 25 gallon container. These three maples were all approximately the same size when planted in 2018. Now I need to figure out what to do with these beauties.

Donald Bonica, from Toms River Avian Care visited Shinn Arboretum today to release three Screech Owls in the arboretum....
07/23/2026

Donald Bonica, from Toms River Avian Care visited Shinn Arboretum today to release three Screech Owls in the arboretum. The Toms River Avian Care facility is one of only a handful of certified wildlife rehabilitators in the State of New Jersey, and does a great service to injured birds in our area. Raptors help control populations of pest species such as mice, rats, and insects, which is part of having a healthy wildlife habitat for all.
We’re hoping they like their new digs.

Some days no matter how good your intentions are, life throws you a curve ball. Rather than a swing and a miss, I figure...
06/30/2026

Some days no matter how good your intentions are, life throws you a curve ball. Rather than a swing and a miss, I figured a trip to Hall’s Garden Center was a much better idea and boy was I correct. I went to get one little maple and four of its friends needed to keep it company. Hall’s is an amazing place for plants and one of my favorite stops.

A fabulous day at Longwood yesterday. The whisper bench was working well.
06/25/2026

A fabulous day at Longwood yesterday. The whisper bench was working well.

Acer platanoides 'Paldiski' looking very happy this morning after almost an inch of rain. Irrigation helps but there is ...
06/15/2026

Acer platanoides 'Paldiski' looking very happy this morning after almost an inch of rain. Irrigation helps but there is nothing like a good rain. I just love the leaf on this one.

Address

3214 Allaire Road
Allenwood, NJ
07719

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ed & Debbie Shinn's Garden posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category