Plant Sale FAQs

“Native” plants: Strictly speaking, a native plant is one that has been part of one of our local ecosystems and has co-evolved with native wildlife for thousands of years, and we generally refer to plants that were growing here prior to colonization by Europeans. In our sale, we also stretch a little bit to include regional native species — that is, allowing for a little south or east of our county, or native to a higher elevation, but still well adapted to our lowland Salish Sea region. Almost all the plants found in this category will also be “waterwise,” with the exception of those noted for bogs and ponds, which definitely need year-round moisture!

“Waterwise” plants: Those plants categorized as “waterwise” have many of the benefits of native species, but are not indigenous to our region, and they are particularly called out as beneficial to local water resources: they are drought-tolerant, so don’t require supplemental irrigation once established; they don’t require supplemental chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, so they don’t harm local waterways and groundwater aquifers; and they can be planted as part of a diverse, multi-layered landscape that slows down stormwater and prevents runoff. This category includes the cultivars of native plants, such as the dwarf form of the Tall Oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium ‘Compacta’). We don’t consider cultivars to be strictly indigenous, though sometimes there are naturally occurring hybrids found in nature.

Our filters will help you narrow your search depending on the type of plant you’re seeking and, in some cases, its sun/shade tolerance.

Each filter dropdown menu uses “OR” logic — choosing both Full Sun and Part Sun means the selection of plants you see will be suited to either full sun or part sun. If you have values selected in two or more filter dropdown menus, “AND” logic applies between them — choosing Full Sun and Part Sun as well as Pink and Purple means the selection of plants you see will be suited to either full sun or part sun AND must be pink OR purple. Both light requirements show up, and both colors, but each plant must satisfy one of the values in each dropdown.
Most woody plants will be in the “trees/shrubs” category, but some very low-growing woody plants may also be in “subshrubs.” Also in the “subshrubs” category will be semi-woody perennial herbs, such as Teucrium (germander) and Hyssopus (true hyssops).
Although the ornamental grasses are also “perennials,” we give them their own category, along with grass-like plants such as rushes, sedges, bulrushes, and even lilies that look like grasses. You’ll have to read their cultural requirements carefully to be sure you are siting them appropriately.
“Vines and ferns” have their own place in the landscape, so we’ve made it easy to find those.
Rain gardens are a popular tool to take charge of your drainage and to be part of the solution to our polluted stormwater problem. The plants at the bottom (Zone 1) must be both drought tolerant and tolerant of some standing water in winter; thus, we call out these plants specifically.
If you have a bog, pond or a year-round saturated area, you might find interesting native species in the “pond/bog” category. (These are some of the few plants offered that are decidedly not drought tolerant.)
If you want to segregate those plants most resilient to deer, great for pollinators/beneficial insects, or evergreen, you can segregate just for those features across all types of plants using the “Other Qualities” filter.

You will have chosen a timeslot at checkout, and early in the week before the pickup weekend you’ll receive a reminder email with instructions and directions to our West Olympia nursery.

If you don’t have this email by that Wednesday evening, and it’s not in a spam folder, please reach out to us at info@nativeplantsalvage.org!

Our plants come from a variety of sources:

Our number-one source is the hard work and years of dedicated love and nurturing provided by our volunteers and staff! We coordinate with local developers to seek permission to rescue some plants before the bulldozers arrive. We also do a lot of propagation of plants, both from seeds and cuttings. All of these “home-grown” sources take years of labor and materials to bring native plants from source to your shopping cart! For instance, one small huckleberry may be in our care for 3-5 years before it’s ready for our customers.
Further development of bareroot stock, plugs, and bulbs. We also seek out interesting native and regionally native species available from wholesale specialty nurseries throughout our region. Buying these plant parts in bulk allows us to bring consistent plant material to our customers, and test out its hardiness for our local conditions (some of these regional native species end up failing for us, so we know not to share them).
Regional wholesale nurseries. We have relationships with Thurston County nurseries as well as large suppliers from northern Washington to southern Oregon. We track new varieties, hard-to-find specialty plants, and tried-and-true native and water-wise species that thrive in our local conditions. When we find plants we think our customers will like, or that we want to trial first in local sustainable landscaping projects, we do our best to bring them to our nursery, and ultimately to you. We work with nurseries that do not use neonicotinoid pesticides, and we do our best to buy stock that has been grown organically — mirroring the practices of our own nursery.
Donations. We accept a limited number of donations from divisions from reliable sources (mostly our own volunteers or local non-profit organizations known to use organic practices and maintain weed-free sites). We then nurture those new plants, bulbs, or cuttings until they are ready for their new life making habitat and protecting water resources out in our local community!

Yes, we’ll have a pot donation day a little while after each of our sales.

Otherwise, we will accept pots, though we need to connect with the donor in advance to plan to meet them at our nursery (which is not open to the public) and to share what pots we can actually use (if you have others not from our sale). Please select “plant pot donations” in our contact form here, and someone will get back to you about a date and time to meet at our holding beds.

Dropping pots off when picking up plants from the sale can also work if you give us some advanced notice.

Generally, we accept 4" pots, quarts, and ideally 2-gallon and up, though we will accept 1-gallon if they are hard-sided pots (preferring hard-sided overall, but sometimes willing to take soft-sided #2/3 if they are in good shape).

Thank you for thinking of us!

Some of the native plants we sell may seem small in the pot, but will become mighty in the ground! Despite us providing TLC — sometimes for years as we rear plants from seeds, cuttings, or small salvage specimens — we find that many species do not flourish in the pots: they are eager to escape the bounds of their plastic prison and run free in your landscape!

Additionally, our sale times do not always correspond with the ideal time for all species to be at their best. In early May, some native perennials are just starting to peek out of the pots, so you’ll have a robust plant, it just will not be fully showing yet. Conversely, during our fall sale, native spring ephemerals like Trilliums are completely missing! You’ll have a beautiful plant in your pot, but you won’t be able to enjoy it until the following spring.

Some of the native plants we sell may seem small in the pot, but will become mighty in the ground! Despite us providing TLC — sometimes for years as we rear plants from seeds, cuttings, or small salvage specimens — we find that many species do not flourish in the pots: they are eager to escape the bounds of their plastic prison and run free in your landscape!

Additionally, our sale times do not always correspond with the ideal time for all species to be at their best. In early May, some native perennials are just starting to peek out of the pots, so you’ll have a robust plant, it just will not be fully showing yet. Conversely, during our fall sale, native spring ephemerals like Trilliums are completely missing! You’ll have a beautiful plant in your pot, but you won’t be able to enjoy it until the following spring.

We’d like to support you in your native and water-wise planting goals, so please reach out to us -- sometimes we can offer you plants we’re currently growing or propagating from salvages, or source plants for you outside of our sale seasons.

In particular, we know that Zone 1 rain garden plants are hard to find — we’ve got sources!

We take on a few projects regionally with grant support, and we can direct you to many resources on rain gardens (we’re still re-populating our website with resources after a recent move — please be patient!). We would love to help advise you for Zone 1 rain garden plants and can help coordinate procurement of those hard-to-find species if you give us some time to work with you on that.

We’re occasionally able to add more stock as the sale progresses. We sometimes hold stock back, and we can decide to release it if there is great demand, or we can sometimes order more stock of a plant during the sale. Adding yourself to the waitlist enables an automatic email that will notify you if a sold-out product is back in stock.

The short answer is as early as possible! We might be able to help source certain plants, and have a limited ability to assist with fully custom orders. See the answer for “Can I order plans outside of your spring and fall plant sale?” above!

If there’s currently a sale in progress, go ahead and check out with what you do want from the online offerings, then reach out to us by email to see if we have something specific available or can locate it for you in the region. We’d love to support you having great native and waterwise plants filling your dream landscape!

Fall Planting

Fall is an ideal time to plant all types of plants! Think about bulbs: we plant in fall to give them time to develop roots for a long healthy life. This is also true for our trees, shrubs and perennials.

Here are some basic Do’s and Don’ts when planting.

Do

Plant newly purchased plants right away if you can! The sooner you get them in the ground, the faster they can make new roots for next spring and summer, and be safe from winter freezes.
Ensure that both the new plant and the planting hole are moist.
Massage the roots to open them up so that the healthy roots make direct contact with the soil.
Dig broad holes with roughened sides and cultivate to loosen the soil to aid root penetration.
After planting, make a small dam/watering well outside the perimeter of the plant to slow and focus water, ensuring it penetrates the roots.
Apply a coarse woody mulch and ensure the trunks and/or stems are not buried.
Err on the side of planting a little above the ground level; this allows room for mulch application and ensures that as the plant settles into the soil it won’t be too deeply planted (which leads to waterlogged roots).
Stake, but only if necessary to stabilize the roots, and only for the first year.
Gently water in.
Monitor the root ball for the first few weeks to ensure it does not dry out. Even if it has rained, the moisture does not necessarily get to the root ball.

Don’t:

⊘ Do not prune top growth, except for broken or dead branches or clearly spent flower parts. Top pruning at planting encourages the plant to put energy into top growth instead of root development, and cutting off green parts of perennials before they’ve gone dormant eliminates an energy source the plant is still using.

⊘ Do not plant too deeply. Plant up to 1 inch above the planting hole, and then mulch to the edge of the roots.

⊘ Do not amend the soil directly in the hole! Use only coarse woody mulch on the top of the soil surface.

Winter Protection

If you cannot plant your newly purchased plants until spring, there are ways to protect them. Even hardy plants will not tolerate frozen roots: they must be protected from freezes, heavy winds and other winter hazards.

A few things you can do to protect your potted plants:

Place the containers in a protected location, where they’ll stay warmer and out of the wind.
Ensure that the roots do not dry out.
If a cold snap is expected, cover the containers with leaves, straw, burlap, old bedsheets or lightweight blankets.
If you have a lot of small pots (especially 4-in., quarts, and 1-gal), make a winter storage bed by using an old kiddy pool (shop used!) to arrange your pots, then be sure they are well insulated with woodchip mulch or other bulky organic matter (or burlap) that can insulate the interstitial spaces between plants. Punch a few holes in the bottom so it doesn’t hold winter rains.