ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Though spring has not yet sprung, an annual plant sale is here to get your gardens booming just in time to bloom.
The Plants for Everyone plant sale will be held from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, March 1 at Smith Mill Works, 80 Cowan Cove Road.
Plants for Everyone specializes in edible, ornamental and native bare root plants. There are no pots to be found among the fruit trees, wildflowers and hops that partners and co-owners Emma Fillingham and Lucas Blass have for sale.
“Everything’s perennial, so that’s one thing,” Fillingham said.
“Yep, everything’s perennial. We don’t do any annual stuff,” Blass agreed. “I think you can basically boil it down to, like, we do a lot of edibles. Like, nuts and fruit trees. We do berry bushes. Emma’s been getting really into herbal medicine, so we’re doing more medicinal stuff. This year, we have hops, which is kind of cool, kind of edible and medicinal, I guess. Or, you know, drinkable and medicinal. And then some ornamental stuff.”
Plants for Everyone stands apart from local vegetation vendors like Lowes or Walmart, even outside of the eclectic selection of flora Fillingham and Blass have for sale. For one thing, keeping their plants bare root makes for healthier crops than the chains, but leaves a smaller window for sale.
“Everything’s always bare root. That’s the the big thing of why we do it this time of year and why we don’t do multiple sales a year,” Fillingham explained.
“Because the plants are all dormant. They actually got dug up, they washed all the dirt off the roots and then you can ship them and them fairly roughly until they kind of break dormancy and start putting out buds and leaves,” Blass elaborated. “That’s when they’re more delicate. But right now, they’re still sleeping.”
Without pots or plastic, the plants are also much easier to ship. Where a potted plant sale would feature heavier loads and fewer crops, Plants for Everyone is able to bring a tremendous number of plants to their event through the tight packing bare root allows for.
“You can see how tight they pack them in,” Blass said over a truckload of bare root plants. “There’s hundreds of trees in there.”
As tightly as the bare roots are packed, the Plants for Everyone community is even tighter.
Blass and Fillingham were former customers of the sale before purchasing the business nearly four years ago. They see other familiar customers every year.
“We recognize a lot of the same names every year. I would say there’s a solid, like, 200 to 300,” Fillingham estimated. “I would say half our customers are repeat customers.”
In fact, some Plants for Everyone customers were so loyal they no longer have space for more plants in their garden.
“If anything, the reason people stop coming is ‘cause they don’t need plants anymore. They’re like, my orchard’s full, I’ve run out of room,” Fillingham laughed.
“We’ve lost a couple of good ones this year,” Blass bemoaned.
As the couple prepared for the first round of Plants for Everyone, a two day presale of orders placed on their website, Blass mused about what makes their event special.
“Part of what’s cool about Plants for Everyone is it’s cheap enough where you can, like, fail some experiments and do it again next year,” Blass said.
Blass and Fillingham want to seed in Plants for Everyone the values that matter to them: cheap plants, locally sourced and healthily grown.
“I mean, it’s important to us. We’re gardeners, so we’re always trying out these experiments ourselves,” Blass smiled.
For more information, visit www.plantsforeveryone.com.