Ashby Market this Sunday, new plants available, and milkweed news!

By Lise Fracalossi

Hello native plant friends! I hope the recent humidity is treating you well. The Leominster Farmers’ Market was a rousing success, and it was lovely meeting you new subscribers there. I hope to see you at our future markets.

Next Markets

Our next market will be the Ashby Farmers’ Market, tomorrow (Sunday), August 11, 2024 from 9am to noon, on the Ashby Town Common, 1 South Rd, Ashby, MA.

After that, the next market will also be the Ashby Market, on Sunday, August 22nd, 2024.

Now available

The plant availability list has been updated! We’re now offering wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica), and Kalm’s St. John’s Wort.

Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we are unable to bring every species of plant to the market, so we will only be bringing a selection. Here’s some of what we expect to have available:

  • Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
  • Flax-leaved stiff aster (Ionactis linariifolia) - another new one!
  • Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis)
  • Kalm’s St. John’s Wort (Hypericum kalmianum)
  • Northern beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus)
  • Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica)
  • Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)

I also plan to have the last of my non-natives with me for sale at a heavily discounted price!

And others, as of yet undetermined! (I should really go pick out my plants for tomorrow, like, now). As always, email me at lise@redtrilliumgardens.com if you have any requests for what I bring to the markets.

Now unavailable

After the last few markets and some home sales, we have sold out of some plants, such as red columbine and virgin’s bower clematis. Some of these we hope to have back in stock soon (like the red columbine); others we expect we won’t have for the rest of the season. I’ll have a better accounting of that later.

Another mixed blessing is that monarch and milkweed tussock moth caterpillars have absolutely devoured our milkweeds. (If you were at the Leominster market last weekend, you may have seen the monarch caterpillars who hitched a ride in! We named them Frank and Myrtle. We didn’t even charge extra for them! 🤣)

Ultimately this means we have almost no milkweeds in a state I’m comfortable selling – just a few whorled milkweed. I am hoping these will bounce back by fall so that we will have them available to plant for next year.

But this is how it’s intended to be, right? This is why we plant native. Nature is working as intended!

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Featured image: Monarch caterpillar on milkweed. Taken August 1, 2024, in Lunenburg, MA by Lise Fracalossi