Small Nursery Feature – Night Song Native Plant Nursery

I like to occasionally profile small nurseries that sell native plants. This week is a relatively new one—it was started in 2014—and it has been steadily increasing its selection of plants. Night Song Native Plant Nursery is located in Canton, GA in a fairly rural area with lots of room to grow.

Katy Ross started the nursery after returning to Georgia from Arizona where she was inspired by their native plant ordinances. She previously worked for other nurseries, and always planned to have her own one day. A love of being outdoors and a childhood of listening to the night songs of cicadas, tree frogs, owls, and other creatures were her inspirations. Reading Doug Tallamy’s book solidified that it would be a native plant nursery. Habitat is more than what we see when we look at plants for beauty alone; without native plants, we might not have the critters that make magical night songs.

Night Song is actually my closest native nursery and I have enjoyed visiting it in Canton since the beginning. It has really grown a lot as they added more types of plants and more growing space. I like that it is both a production and a retail nursery. In browsing what is for sale, you walk past what is sprouting from seed.  Under a large canopy, you might see people potting up plants to the next size.

Two of the sun and shade hoop houses

Pots with natives help display them

I also enjoy stopping by the large pollinator garden next to the growing area. A collection of sun-loving plants bloom there throughout the seasons, showing customers what to expect of these plants and giving ideas on how to combine them. Butterflies, bees, and other pollinators are there in abundance. Katy feels that pollinator plants are their specialty. She enjoys growing plants from seed—some of it as local as her own garden—and using organic practices to stock unique and healthy plants for North Georgia gardens. They carry species plants and some cultivars, helping both gardeners and folks involved in restoration find the plants they seek. This year, one of the things I got was some seed-grown sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) for the front bed that I updated at my house.

One view of the pollinator garden 

Seasonal stars pop up in the pollinator garden

Today the nursery carries a variety of perennials, ferns, shrubs, trees, and vines. They enjoy stocking native edible plants and might be one of the few places you can find mulberry (Morus rubra), black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), and paw paw (Asimina triloba). Last year I teamed up with Katy on a talk about native edibles and the plants she brought to sell flew out the door.

In addition to selling plants, Katy and the nursery staff help to provide educational opportunities. Katy gives local talks, they’ve implemented seasonal programs like Bee Happy Hour (one is coming up next week), nature camp, plus spring and fall festivals to get people closer to nature. One year they had a paw paw festival and served tastings (they have a natural paw paw grove on the property). Get on their mailing list and follow them on Facebook to keep up with what’s going on at the nursery.

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