Wondering how to find plants for your DIY garden design project? This video shares creative tips for finding where to shop for plants, beyond your retail garden center or ordering online. It can be challenging to find all the plants you need for a landscaping project. However, there are many creative ways to find specialty nurseries, small, secret nurseries, plant sales, pop-up plant sales, and more. The tips shared go in order from less adventurous to more adventurous or involved.
None of these tips are perfect solutions, but I hope they help you come up with creative new strategies (or find cool new places) for sourcing plants for your upcoming project.
Please comment below if you have any questions that I can help you with. I am SO grateful for all of your kindness and support! I am reading comments and planning future video topics based on your questions.
Here are some ways you can get involved and learn more:
🪴 FREE MINI COURSE: How to choose the perfect plant (and put it in the right place): https://www.gardenprojectacademy.com/free-mini-course-choose-the-perfect-plant/
🪴 Interested in an online course that helps you design your own landscape? Join the waitlist, here, to hear when it first comes out! https://www.gardenprojectacademy.com/design-your-own-garden-course-waitlist/
🪴 Follow my newsletter, here, for free gardening resources and updates on new courses: https://www.gardenprojectacademy.com/newsletter/
And if you’re new here, hello! 🌱 My name is Eve Hanlin, I’m a horticulturist and landscape designer from the Pacific Northwest corner of the USA. I’ve offered in-person landscape design services for years and now I am taking landscape design online by offering digital courses and resources for do-it-yourselfers. This is my new business: Garden Project Academy.
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11 Comments
Do you have any other tips for sourcing plants? How have you sourced plants for your projects? Reply here and share your experiences to help others 🪴
Local markets are great because most of the plants are ones they’ve propagated from plants in their own garden, therefore they will most likely grow without too much struggle in your area.
See if your local city council gives away indigenous species at certain events or from their own nursery.
Check if your local landcare/reforestation/indigenous species charity or group sell excess from their nursery as part of their fundraising. In Australia, contact your local landcare group, they are amazing and ours sells $3.50 tubestock 😍
Pull over and say hi to the person you see doing their own garden makeover or whatever and ask if there’s anything they are getting rid of. They will probably like having less to load up and take to the dump.
If you’re trying to attract pollinators or birds… contact the relevant community groups and ask if they know where to get plants to support those animals. We just picked up a bunch of local plants from our Bee Club open day! 🐝
Eve, as someeone who has been in the nursery/plant industry for 40 years and a designer for over 30 years in Southern California I want to commend you for the breadth and depth of your knowledge. Your way of imparting hints and tips in all your videos is understandable and interesting. Kudos and thanks! 💚
The other day, I visited a botanical garden in Corona del Mar – CA, and it was selling some young plants and flowers. Although there was not much variety, it was great to see the existing mature plants in the garden and have the ability to purchase their young ones. Recently subscribed to the channel and learned a ton. Thank you.
Do you think there's any possibility of a video covering moss? I've been seeing moss lawns, lately, and I'm wondering what you would consider the pros and cons of growing moss.
Join plant/genus specific FB groups to find sources. They will lead you to specialty nurseries with both good product and knowledge. Sadly, I have been having a difficult time finding one plant this year so have to divide what I have. Beware of big box nurseries in terms of quality and disease.
I have a wish list and I’m always looking for sources. There are some that are readily available in Europe but I guess the popularity isn’t as great here so I end up trying to just source seeds. So frustrating though. I live in a smaller city that has only a couple of actual nurseries. There are Facebook groups that buy in groups from wholesalers. Thanks
Love your videos 🙂
I don't know how common this is in other states, but in NH has a state run nursery that you can get native or well adapted trees from in bulk, and pretty inexpensively. We used them to get about 25 evergreens to plant as a dustbreak along our neighbors driveway, since they are a construction company, and that's where they park all the big dump trucks
Such a great channel! Very inspiring and lots of useful tips. I am really hoping you will soon make more detailed videos with names and properties of plants. Even though I live in Australia, still may find some helpful advices. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for sharing all this very useful info 🙂