Native Plant Sale

We have run our Native Plant Sale since 2015, and are proud of its growth. Powered by demand from our community and the hard work of our staff and volunteers, it has become one of the largest sales of its kind in New England. Traditionally, in a "normal" year, we offer a pre-ordering option for members and a public one-day sale open to all. This allows us to bring to market well over 100 species of native plants, ranging from small trees and shrubs, to perennials, grasses and ferns. In spring 2020, because of COVID-19, we re-tooled the sale to be advance order only with socially distant plant pick-ups, and we were delighted to be able to sell more than 4,000 plants—as many as we sold in 2019—but solely through the pre-order option.

More Changes for 2021

Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic has posed tremendous challenges for us and is having an impact on our sale again in 2021. Nursery availability is even more limited than it has been previously, as the pandemic has accelerated demand for plants and much greater interest in gardening and the value of our home landscapes! In addition, we are a small nonprofit with a paid staff of only two people, and working remotely for well over a year has made our operations difficult. Our pre-order process requires a tremendous amount of time and effort from our staff and a core group of volunteers, making it hard to sustain, let alone to scale up and meet the current demand. Hence, we are re-tooling again this year. Please bear with us as we adapt to all of these circumstances. We sincerely hope for a "new normal" in 2022— to be able to return to our traditional pre-order option for members and a lively general sale day open to the public. Meanwhile...

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    Join us for a live sale (instead of by pre-order) open to members at the Advocate/Family level and above. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, pre-registration will be required for specified time slots within this three day period to allow for appropriate social distancing. Members will be e-mailed details in early May to register for this event.

    When:

    June 9 - 11 | All day

    Where:

    Waltham Field Station, 240 Beaver Street, Waltham

  • A New Format

    Our experiment with this new format reflects the reality of the ongoing pandemic, while bringing back the benefits of live interaction with our volunteers who can help with species selection. It also reflects our desire to offer as wide a species selection as possible to all eligible members.

    All members at the Advocate/ Family level and above are invited to attend, and will be required to pre-register in advance for a specific time block between Wednesday, June 9 and Friday, June 11. Although we unfortunately are not able to take advance orders this year, there will be no minimum purchase required— and we are structuring the plant inventory to even out availability within the three day period so that all who attend will have a good opportunity to select from a wide variety of species and to make purchases. We even hope this will create a significantly less stressful shopping experience than we had at past in-person sales, when several hundred people came through the sale within the first 90 minutes!
     
    Detailed information will be sent to all members during the week of May 10. Thank you for your patience while we work to put together the very best sale we can. We hope to see you—in-person—in June!