Opening Day Sale! Plus more news from the nursery

By Lise Fracalossi

Happy vernal equinox, native plant friends! From here on out, it’s all downhill (uphill?) until spring and summer – and I couldn’t be happier about that.

… I’m less than happy about the fact that my well basically needs to be replaced, though. Currently I have no drinkable water, and on Monday an excavator will probably tear through some of my native plantings 😢

But enough about me!

Opening Day Sale!

We’re having our opening day sale/open house this year on Sunday, May 4th, 2025, from 10am - 4pm, at our backyard nursery in Lunenburg, MA. Like our end-of-season open house, you’ll need to email lise@redtrilliumgardens.com to get the address, so I know you’re not an internet weirdo 🤣

What will we have for sale? Well, it’s still up in the air! Most of the winter-sown plants will not be ready yet, but this year I was actually big-brained and started some seeds inside. Of course, nothing is certain until the day-of, but here are some species that are looking like they’ll be ready in time:

… and maybe more!

In case our cupboards are bare of native plants at that time, we’ll also have a fun (free!) activity you can do. We’ll have pre-conditioned milkweed seeds available, along with pots and potting mix, so you can plant some milkweed seeds and take them home with you!

If you want to let me know you’re coming, you can RSVP to the Facebook invitation.

Markets!

We have some news about which markets we’ll be at this year! Note that all of these are tentative to a greater or lesser degree.

First of all, I now have vendor liability insurance, which broadens the number of markets I can attend. It also allows me exposure to larger and more established markets than I was able to attend last year.

For example: we have applied for a biweekly spot at the Groton Farmers’ Market (Fridays in Groton MA from 3-7pm, July-October). No guarantees that we’ll get in, though – this is the first “competitive” market I’ve applied to.

We have also signed up for a number of Grow Native Massachusetts’ pop-up markets. The ones in italics are (more) tentative – either we’re on the fence about attending (mostly due to distance), or details are still being worked out. I also don’t know street addresses yet for most of these.

  • Fitchburg Celebrates Earth Day. Tuesday, April 22 from 2pm-5pm in Fitchburg MA. This was actually the first market we ever attended! The event seems like it is being scaled back from last year, with it being held inside town hall instead of outside at Riverfront Park. That said, if it’s as cold and windy as it was last year, I might not mind that!
  • Newburyport Green Expo. Newburyport, MA, Sunday, May 18 from 1-4pm
  • Davis Square Farmers Market, Somerville, MA, Sunday, May 21, 1-4pm
  • West Roxbury Evening Garden Club @ West Roxbury Library Book Sale. West Roxbury, MA, Saturday, June 7, 10am-2pm
  • Newton Farmers’ Market. Newton, MA, Tues June 17, 1:30pm-6pm. This was our best market last year, so we definitely plan to be there again!
  • Brookline Farmers Market. Brookline, MA, Thurs, Sep 4, 1:30-6pm
  • Lexington Farmers Market. Lexington, MA, Tuesday, Sep 9th?, 2pm-6pm. This was another positive market for us last year, but the precise date is still up in the air.

We are also (re)considering the following markets closer to home:

  • Lunenburg Artisan Market. Sundays at Montuori Fleamarket on Mass Ave. I’ve been wanting to get involved with this one, so I’ll probably at least try it out!
  • Lunenburg Farmers’ Market. It’s actually coming back this year – much scaled down from 2023, though. I’m actually not sure if they are still looking for vendors, though, so this one is very tentative at the moment.
  • Leominster Farmers’ Market. This one was my most profitable local market last year… but that wasn’t that profitable at all! In the interest of focusing my energy where it is best utilized, I may or may not do this one.

Again, if you are interested in attending any of these markets, please let me know, as it will help me to make up my mind.

New pages!

The following pages have been updated recently:

We’ve also added some new native plant Info Sheets, eg: Castilleja coccinea (Indian paintbrush)

New social!

We have joined Bluesky – a new, Twitter-like social media. So far we’re really liking it – it has more of a sense of community than many social media, and most importantly, IT ACTUALLY SHOWS US STUFF IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

I participated in a real neat hashtag, too: #20DayPlantChallenge. (I kind of did it wrong; it was supposed to be a photo without explanation. Oops). Check out the first of these, where I talk about – of course – red trilliums.

Featured image: the white flowers of Sanguinaria canadensis (bloodroot) in bloom at Garden in the Woods, Framingham, MA, April 2024. Photo by me (Lise Fracalossi).