What's new in 2025
More butterfly hosts, more low-lying plants, more edibles, new species, shipping.
Lots of process improvements and changes this year:
Pick-up starts in Mid May. Shipping deliveries starts in Mid May or June.
Plant selection will include
New butterfly host plants: Golden Alexander - larval host for the Black Swallowtail butterfly. Also Pearly Everlasting and Pussy Toes which are hosts for American Lady and Painted Lady butterflies. Gaura is a host plant to the humming bird moth which I have seen in the area.
New edible plants: native strawberry and Aronia berry.
New low-lying plants: Geranium maculatum, Columbine and Red Trillium (assuming we get any germination)
I will be testing out shipping. Shipping will lower the plastic footprint of our plants and possibly the carbon footprint since you won't have to drive anywhere. Your time is also valuable and this will save you time. You are still more than welcome to pick the plant up here and save on shipping, however. Shipping will be of mature 7" plugs, wrapped in plastic film. Shipping will probably start in June because the plants need to be mature.
Changes to my process this year are: added moisture to my cold stratification to try and get better germination rates, timing and staggering sowing to minimize the amount of time under grow lights. I will use 7" re-usable plug trays to mature the plants instead of standard pots. All sales, even at the farmer's market will be of plugs wrapped in plastic film in order to lower the plastic footprint by doing away with plastic pots. Also, for Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) I will only use sterile soil to try and avoid wilt-rot.
Full list of plants this year below. I will slowly add them to the website, so they may not all be visible when you read this:
Geranium maculatum, Columbine Red, Trillium, Silver Leaf Mountain Mint, Blazing Star, Blue Flag Iris, Wild Strawberry, Joe Pyeweed, New England Aster, Aromatic Aaster, Pearly Everlasting, Prairie Smoke, Smooth Penstemon, Purple Passion Flower, Anise Hyssop, Coneflower, Golden Alexander, Boneset, Meadow Phlox, Showy Goldenrod, Wild Bergamot, White Wood Aster, Butterfly Weed, Common Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, Blackeyed Susan, Blanket Flower, Woodland Sunflower, Dwarf Sunflower, Aronia bush, Guara, coreopsis, Spotted beebalm, Pussytoes, Rough leaf dogwood Winged sumac Staghorn sumac.