Heads up, everybody! Good news! For the first time ever, we will have Washington State native plants available for sale at our Farm Stand as part of our U-pick pumpkin season.

Though planting is most present in most minds in the spring, fall is actually a great time for native species planting and we are excited to be able to offer resources for people who are looking to incorporate natives into landscapes and gardens.

There are tons of reasons why this is a good idea: Natives are well-adapted to our climate and have relatively low needs, as far as garden plants go. They tend to not require much watering, pruning, or fertilizer once planted. They also provide critical habitat for beneficial native animals–birds, insects, and other small critters rely upon the shelter, pollen, and food that native plants offer. And of course, many natives provide stunning flowers, foliage or winter color for your garden.

In our pacific northwest climate, fall is the BEST time to transplant plants. The usually mild falls and winters that we experience here provide an environment that is very low stress for plants. Since there is less sunlight, plants aren’t photosynthesizing at the high rates that they do in the summer. This, coupled with the high humidity and ample soil moisture, creates conditions in which the plants aren’t working especially hard to replace water lost from their leaves, so they can kind of “settle in” to their new homes during this slow time. The plants also have all winter and early spring to grow roots out into their new planting site, well before the more active growing season in spring and summer.  This sets them up nicely to be able to access enough soil water later on when the rains end and they begin photosynthesizing and growing up above the soil.

We will be offering about 20 species at the farm stand, from edible berries and small flowering plants to ferns and small shrubs. Click here to see a list of all of the plants we will have on sale, as well as fall planting instructions.

Our Farm Stand is open Thursdays-Sundays in the month of October from 10-5. Read more about Oxtober at Oxbow here.