Virginia Living Museum to hold spring native plant sale April 19 and 26-27
Choose from an incredible array of beautiful and unusual native plants for a variety of garden sites, from wet ponds to dry rock gardens, at the Virginia Living Museum’s annual spring native plant sale April 19 and 26-27.
The museum’s horticulture staff holds this annual sale as a fund-raiser, but the real goal is to introduce the gardening public to the incredible variety of native plants that will do well in the landscape, and to educate them about those that are better left in the wild.
“Species native to the mid-Atlantic perform better, give as good a show as exotics, do not harm the environment, and provide food and shelter to wildlife,” says museum Horticulture Curator Bruce Peachee.
To learn more about the VLM visit them on MB!
There are plants suitable to a variety of garden sites and gardening styles. Several will tolerate heat and drought, while others are suitable for wet or shady conditions. Information about the color, size, blooming period and site preference of the various plants will be available for buyers to take home, and expert wildflower gardeners will be on hand to answer questions and help with selections.
The sale will feature several early spring bloomers, including Marsh Marigold, Caltha palustris, whose flowers resemble large buttercups, Spring Beauty, Claytonia virginica, and Spicebush, Lindera benzoin, whose leaves provide food for the larva of the spicebush swallowtail butterfly. Pickerelweed, Pontedaria cordata, is beneficial to butterflies, frogs and waterfowl, while Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera semperviren, is beneficial to hummingbirds and songbirds. Coral Honeysuckle is also drought tolerant and deer resistant.
The museum offers only nursery or garden propagated natives, many of which are not yet available in the commercial nursery trade.
Sale hours are Saturdays, April 19 and 26 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, April 27 from noon to 4 p.m. The sale is held rain or shine. Admission to the sale is free.
The museum is located at 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News (I-64, exit 258-A). For additional information, call the museum’s horticulture staff at 757-595-1900 or visit the web site at thevlm.org
VLM-plantsale-410
The Virginia Living Museum’s knowledgeable horticulture staff and volunteers will be available to answer questions during the museum’s annual spring native plant sale April 19 and 26-27.
VLM-springsale
A wide variety of native trees, shrubs and perennials will be available at the Virginia Living Museum annual spring plant sale April 19 and 26-27.
.png)
