It's easy to miss Stonebridge Farm Nursery in Economy, Beaver County. It's a little place a short jog off the Red Belt.

Owners Jan and Jeff Lopes may not have huge greenhouses and lots of fancy equipment, but if you're looking for new and interesting plants or some interesting hand-carved stone accents for the garden, Stonebridge is well worth a stop.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Stonebridge Farm Nursery owner Jan Lopes cuts snapdragons in the nursery's cutting garden, where visitors can pick their own for bouquets. Click photo for larger image.

With just three greenhouses and two cold frames, Mrs. Lopes manages to grow things that will make even the most jaded gardener take notice.

"My focus is perennials, annuals and herbs," says Mrs. Lopes, a small tanned woman who often wears a large-brimmed hat.

She grows about 95 percent of her plants from seed, selecting things from catalogs like Thompson & Morgan and Parks that interest her.

"That's just what I've always done. I try to get unusual things that maybe you can't find everywhere. I do probably 200 kinds of annuals."

She also has a small selection of shrubs along with the stone work made by her husband. She does not sell trees.

This year, the nursery is offering another reason to make the 25-minute trip down Route 65 from Pittsburgh. A large cutting garden is filled with flowers, ready for visitors to pick their own bouquets. A very short list of what can be had includes:

Agastache, Amaranthus, carnations, dahlias, Gomphrena, larkspur, Monarda, salvia, several varieties of snapdragons, statice, zinnias and verbena. Perennials for bouquets include Shasta daisies, Russian sage, Penstemon, phlox and Campanula.

"I did a cutting garden the first couple of years I was in business," she says. "But nobody was here to cut.

"This past winter I was in Florida, and they are doing [cutting gardens] again down there. So I thought the time had come to re-do it."

Flowers cost 50 cents per stem with the exception of Gladiolus and dahlias, which cost $1 each. Calla lilies, which cost $5 or more per stem at a florist, will also be offered for $3. After 10 stems, a discount of 5 cents will be offered on the 50-cent stems. Customers can bring their own vases or buy ones there ranging in price from $3 to $12.

"I have a few gathering baskets, and we have clippers," Mrs. Lopes says.

On occasion, weather permitting, there will be ready-picked bouquets available, or Mrs. Lopes will make one up for you if you call in advance.

Today, she'll have flower arranger/master gardener Chris Holt at the nursery for a workshop on "How to Assemble a European Bouquet." Class members can wander through the flower beds and create an arrangement as they go. The class begins at 10 a.m. and costs $18, which includes the flowers and a vase. Registration is limited to 15. Other workshops by Ms. Holt are planned for Aug. 13 and Sept. 16.

Mrs. Lopes, who in a former life was an accountant, made the jump to the nursery business in 1995.

"We were thinking what we could do with the farm, and it just seemed like a natural progression. He was buying plants for his job, and I was buying them for my garden, so I figured I had at least one customer, him!"

Her husband, who worked for a cable company, decided to go into the landscape business in 1986 after the company was sold.

She says buying the farm, with an 1860s farmhouse, has defined where they have ended up in life.

"We bought the house in 1981, not so much for the house, but for the yard. Jeff worked with wood, so having all those trees was appealing to him, and I just wandered around the yard. I was blown away by the landscape.

"The roof leaked, but [one of the first things we did was] build a pond. We've grown up here."

These days, Mr. Lopes is busy with his landscape business.

"I work by myself," he says, "I lean toward anything that involves water or stone. I do ponds."

In the winter, he turns his talents to carving stone into troughs and other ornamental shapes that can be used as containers or turned into free-standing water features, fountains or sculpture.

"I'm sort of a closet sculptor," he says. "I really enjoy doing that sort of thing."

His creations are priced individually, he says, because some are more unusual than others. He also will do work on commission.

Mr. Lopes hopes soon to place his troughs within the gardens on the property to demonstrate to customers how to use them.

"If people see them planted, it creates the inspiration, and they can run with it from there."

If they use a couple of his wife's plants in the mix, so much the better.

Stonebridge Farm Nursery is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday and July 4. Phone is 724-266-7312.