Get your garden off to a great start with heirloom herbs, vegetables, annuals and perennials from the greenhouse at Gore Place in Waltham.

These are rare, hard-to-find varieties that will greatly enhance any border or decorative garden. Many find the heirloom tomatoes to be far superior in taste and texture to any you'll find in the markets today.

Two kinds of plants can be called “heirloom” — those coming down to us, unmodified, from the past 200 years and those carefully "back-bred" to possess known characteristics of earlier ancestors. The results are often a more flavorful vegetable or unique flower. Heirloom plants enjoy a growing popularity here in New England.

Gore Place is located at 52 Gore Street, just off Route 20 (Main Street) near the Waltham/Watertown line. By public transportation: Take the Red Line to Central Square. Take the 70 or 70A bus toward Waltham. Gore Street is 1-1/4 miles West of Watertown Square. For more information call : (781) 894-2798 or visit the museum’s website at: www.goreplace.org.

Nicotiana mutabilis