My fall plant sale shopping list

Dear friends, the plant sales have started. It’s been three years since I moved to the Northeast and discovered this is a thing, and I still can’t get over it. As you know, I first gardened in Northern California and then again in South Florida, both places where the idea of a garden season with a beginning and end is simply non-existent. So the thought of season-end clearance sales? Mind-blowing. But the facts are these: fall is the best time to get plants into the ground; remaining plants will largely be put on sale; they will also be scarce/picked-over and possibly not in peak shape. Which is totally fine! I believe in acquiring what good stuff I can find in August and keeping it in its nursery pots until maybe early Sept (weather depending) rather than waiting to see what’s still available then. So it’s time to start the hunt.

This past winter, I made a series of posts containing plant wish lists organized by type — basically native plants I wanted to be purposeful about incorporating into my garden. Those posts worked out (so far) to keystone plants, grasses, broad-leaf evergreens, shrubs/small trees, weeds and wildflowers, ferns and early bloomers, and they’re full of all kinds of great recommendations for you and me both. Going back through them now, I’m kind of amazed how many of them I actually managed to get my hands on and put in the ground this year! But there are a handful of others I’m still wanting and will consider adding this fall if I can find them on sale. Same goes for a couple other things I’ve added to my mental wish list in the meantime. And then there are the plants I have in the ground and am loving and wanting more of.

So here’s what I’m looking for a deal on—

WISH LIST STILL WANTED
• White heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides)
• Large-flowered bellwort aka great merrybells (Uvularia grandiflora) - or Perfoliate bellwort/smooth merrybells (Uvularia perfoliata), which I saw on Saturday and think I might prefer
• Smooth blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium) - I believe I now have a spot for this

ADDITIONS TO WATCH FOR
• Robin’s plaintain (Erigeron pulchellus) - heath aster alternative
• Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) - not on the prev lists only because I keep thinking it will seed itself here from neighbors’ gardens!

FAVES I WANT MORE OF
• Marginal woodfern (Dryopteris marginalis)
• Sessile-leaf bellwort (Uvularia sessifolia)
• Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
• Bowman’s root (Gillenia trifoliata)
• White yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• Upland boneset (Eupatorium sessifolium)
• Clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)
• Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), bottlebrush grass (Elymus hystrix) despite the wildlife battles I’m having, and/or little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

There remains on my list the elusive wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia) and/or rue anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides), and the hepatica and toothwort I have found and planted and will definitely be adding to. But being spring ephemerals, those won’t be findable until early next spring when the nurseries reopen from their long winter’s naps.

Do you have fall planting plans? Tell me all about it—