An Update to Plant Sales in Stores

 

This post is a follow up to last week’s blog entitled “Native Plants for Sale in Regular Stores.” After I wrote that post, I decided to write an email to Home Depot’s southern division about stocking native plants. They followed up with an email invitation to discuss, and I spoke this week to one of their Live Goods employees for this area. It was a nice conversation, and he told me about how they have tried to incorporate more native plants (including signage), particularly in Florida and Louisiana but the efforts have not been productive.

Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) is great for home designs

The one new-to-me aspect that he wanted to mention was their online sales, a concept that that was unfamiliar to me for buying plants from stores like that. I know about online plant sales for special things that could be packed into a box; 20 years ago we did this for hard-to-find plants (I ordered some toothwort that way). 

He said that they have many more plants available online (than in-store) and the plants are shipped directly from the grower. I used the search bar to try a variety of searches like “oak tree,” “itea shrub,” and others. There are indeed native plants to be found (although your zip code may vary), but sometimes the search results also include non-native plants unrelated to what I put, so check carefully. For example, I searched for “red buckeye shrub” and got lots of shrubs with ‘red’ in the name but not the plant I wanted.

Vague searches are not very productive. I searched for ‘native shrubs’ and got back one native and all the rest were not (despite knowing from earlier searches that native shrubs are there). I think it would be helpful if they had a ‘native’ indicator for the grower to check (and I submitted that as feedback online).

Growers selected for online sales have to support shipping to the customer; he encouraged us to find more native growers that they could use. Most of the time, the grower is listed, but sometimes you have to look more closely at the details. For the first redbud (Cercis) listed here, I had to go into the “Product Details” tab to get the botanical name. Note: not all plants have the botanical name listed in the Product Details but may have it in “Specifications” tab instead.

So now there is another option for people who can’t get to a native plant nursery. I will repeat what I said last week: Please know that I absolutely recommend that you first shop at dedicated native plant nurseries. Those dedicated native plant nurseries offer a reliable and dedicated selection of native plants year-round, many grown without pesticides, and are run by families who are devoted to the cause of native ecosystems. Besides, I would much rather look at a plant before I buy it.