Ashby Market this weekend, no more Fitchburg market, and new plants available!

Hello, native plant friends – and especially those newcomers who joined at the Fitchburg Market! I’ve just got a few announcements for you today.

Next market: Ashby

We will be at the Ashby Farmers’ Market this weekend: Sunday, July 28, from 9am to noon, on the Ashby Common (1 South Rd), Ashby, MA.

We plan to have a sampling of most everything on our availability list. Please email lise@redtrilliumgardens.com to reserve specific plants for pickup at this market.

For this event in particular, we also plan to have a selection of non-native garden plants. We still have waaaaay too many peppers, tomatoes, and herbs available, and it’s the end of the planting season, so we are heavily discounting these. Perennial non-natives will be $2 each or 3 for $5, and annual non-natives will be $1 each or $5 for 6. For a full list of garden plants we have available, see our availability list.

Speaking of availability…

New species available

We have recently added a few new species:

Goat’s Rue (Tephrosia virginiana). This is a small-ish plant (12-18" high), native to NH, MA, CT, and RI, with unique, candy-colored flowers. It’s also in the legume family – which means it will fix nitrogen and improve your soil!

Common ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius). This is a first year seedling of a small tree, so take note that it can get quite large – but also that it will take a few years to get to that size. This is a great time to buy, as it will only increase in price as it gets larger!

American black nightshade (Solanum ptycanthum… or americanum or a million other species epithets, because botanists are continually flummoxed by the black nightshade complex). This is an annual, so I’m selling 1-3 seedlings (depending on size) in a pint pot for $4. Depending on who you ask, the berries are either deadly orrrrr deliciously edible. I personally wouldn’t risk it, but nonetheless it has tremendous value to wildlife, especially fruit-loving birds like ruffed grouse, wild turkey, and gray catbird.

Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum). This is a tall plant (3-6’) of streamsides, ditches, and wet meadows, sporting white flowers in mid-late summer. It has deeply furrowed leaves that are perforated by the stem (hence the species epithet “perfoliatum”), lending architectural interest to the garden. It is a favorite of pollinators, and is the larval host for a number of butterflies and moths, including the boneset borer moth.

We soon hope to have wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) generally available, but we have a reservation/pre-order that we need to fulfill first.

Withdrawing from Fitchburg Farmers’ Market

Alas, I’ve decided that I’ll no longer be attending the Fitchburg Farmers’ Market. I’m grateful to you folks who signed up at our first market 🙏, but the fact of the matter it wasn’t nearly as profitable as I expected, especially given the amount of time and labor I put into every market. I just think there’s an audience misalignment there – my decorative outdoor plants vs. a large population of folks who live in apartments.

That said, I still plan to be available in nearby Leominster and Ashby, as well as the fleamarket in Lunenburg. You can always arrange pick up at my home, as well! More details about upcoming markets and ways to buy on our Buy Plants page.

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Featured image: Black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) caterpillars on my dill plants. These caterpillars eat anything in the carrot family (Apiaceae), but despite the native choices in my yard, this is what they prefer!

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