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Shelterwood's retail nursery is now permanently closed due to the sale of our property. However, the website continues as a resource on native plant species information. I am also available for consultation services. Please see the About Shelterwood Consultation Services page to learn how I can help answer your native plant questions!
 
At its peak, Shelterwood grew over 230 species —often species you were unlikely to find anywhere else. Nearly all species were mature plants -meaning that these plants had been growing two, three, or more years and were overwintered, outdoors, in their pots or in a small number of instances, in raised beds. Winter vernalization creates a hardier plant at planting time than those grown lushly in a greenhouse.

Benefits of Planting Mature, Over-wintered Native Plants
  • The hardiness advantage. Plugs that leave the warm, humid greenhouse can be stressed by our fickle climate that offers up wind, drought, heat or a late freeze
  • Larger plants may have better rates of survival when browsed by deer
  • Nearly all are ready-to-flower, benefiting pollinators and you much sooner
  • Self-seeding can occur in the same year as planted
  • Larger plants are less likely to be missed by the water hose
  • Less likely to be stepped on compared to small plugs during critical first few months
  • Plants sometimes come with herbivores like caterpillars and yes, delicious aphids, predators like lady beetles, spiders and lacewings, and pollinators like solitary, stem nesting bees. This helps establish the fauna your new planting aims to support!
Negatives to Planting Mature Plants
  • Plants have higher initial cost -in line with conventional nursery potted plants
  • More plastics due to larger, thicker pots
  • Where plugs are watered regularly, they may establish roots in your soil more quickly

If you are the recipient of a Lawn2Legumes grant -congratulations! Shelterwood was a favorite supplier for grant recipients. I am still available to consult (for a fee) with you to select plants for three season pollinating as well as locating species and understanding your site conditions.


Blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica, a wonderland of blue spires into autumn.


Verbena hastata, Blue Vervain -good for wet to medium soils, part shade to full sun.


On the left is Short's Aster, but did you know goldenrod is also an aster? Blue-stem Goldenrod
  
 
The name Hairy Beardtongue, Penstemon hirsutus, doesn't indicate at all how delightful this near native plant is in the garden. The blue-violet-purple-periwinkle-white flowers are like soft lanterns in the landscape. A great plant that is native just to our south and east.
 

It would be a shame to have a savanna or woodland garden without the crown-like flowers of Columbine,  Aquilegia canadensis.  The native plant has carmine red and yellow flowers and can bloom early in a warm spring and keep on going into summer if it doesn't heat up too much.


Prairie Clover, Dalea purpurea, is a fantastic plant to speckle your part shade to sun garden with magenta-pink flowers in summer.  Seen here with the minnow-like inflorescence of Blue Grama, Bouteloua gracilis.

                                                          
I don't see any pollinators on this Rose Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, do you? For those who want a less "spready" milkweed that Monarchs love, this is a great one!
 
 
Black-Eye Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, is a biennial plant -start them from seed instead of buying plants! They love areas where they can catch the sun unencumbered by other plants. Native meadows often have many of these at first, then dwindling in the second and third years due to the competition. These flowers look like they were applied with a painter's brush and bring a lot of joy, so allow it to self-seed around the edges and transplant it where you want it, or keep a clear area to seed yearly.