Many of our seeds germinated exceptionally well this year, and as a result we have very good supplies of summer favorites, including:
- Penstemon heterophyllus and Penstemon heterophyllus var. purdyi, among the few blue flowers in bloom at this time
- Eriogonum nudum, a really tough competitor that thrives on heat, dry conditions, and crummy soil, and still produces delicate puffs of white flowers on bare stems (hence the name nudum), which attract a number of butterflies, bees, wasps, and spiders
- Epilobium canum, whose plentiful red trumpets will attract hummingbirds from now until October
Because we were closed all this spring, we have some spring plants that normally would be sold out by now. And for those of you who need a little more milkweed to see those last monarch caterpillars through, we still have some. Visit our nursery website to check plant availability or place an order.
Native Gardening Talks This Fall and Winter
We expect to do our usual series of cool-season talks on various plants and plant groups, but we will probably have to change the method we use to present them. Please check our nursery website or Facebook to be notified when the schedule of talks is posted.
Ongoing Nursery Improvement Projects
We have made a lot of progress on our soil storage/volunteer area rebuild. We now have lockers for clean pot storage, a new roof over our heads, and a new volunteer shed in progress. We have sited the new clean soil storage bin (actually a heavy-duty pond liner) and should be using it soon.
We also continue to work on the website. Our main focus is getting the nursery inventory joined to the online plant data so we can print table locations (specific plant locations in the nursery) on orders to save time assembling them for curbside pickup. We are finding that this sales method takes more volunteer time, but it keeps both our volunteers and customers safe, and we welcome your orders. So far our sales have been on the low end of prior summers’ volume, but not bad, all things considered. Sales should improve as people realize we are open again. We are also working on other material for the website to make it more useful to our customers.
— Lesley Hunt, Native Here Nursery Committee Chair
August 2020
