Native Plant Acquisitions: LINPI 2015 Plant Sale

Saturday, June 13 was the last open day in 2015 for the Long Island Native Plant Initiative (LINPI) Plant Sale. I picked up another 13 species to add to my list, which has already grown this Spring to over 200 species of plants native to eastern North America. We'll see how many of them survive my, um "gardening."

As with all the plants available through LINPI, all are local ecotypes propagated by NYC Parks' Greenbelt Native Plant Center from wild populations on Long Island and Staten Island. It so happens all these species are also native to New York City.

Apocynaceae

(or Asclepiadaceae, depending on taxonomy)

Asclepias tuberosa, butterfly weed
I bought a 6-pack of these from the LINPI Plant sale two years ago. They are blooming now. I bought a flat (6 x 6-packs = 36 plants) this time. I want to have larger groups of them in several sunny areas to see where they thrive.

Asteraceae

Eupatorium hyssopifolium, hyssop-leaved throughwort, hyssop-leaved boneset

Eupatorium perfoliatum, common boneset, boneset thoroughwort
This species is only found in wetlands (Wetland indicator status OBL/"obligate"), so I'm planting this in and around the garage, for runoff, and planters, where it will benefit from overflow from watering.

Eupatorium serotinum, late-flowering thoroughwort
This was listed incorrectly as Eutrochium serotinum on LINPI's web site. This is the odd one out for nativity, which is challenged by some, e.g.: NEWFS.

Solidago nemoralis, gray goldenrod
One of the shade-tolerant goldenrods, I bought a flat of these to plant them all around the house as an experiment to see where/how they fare from sun to shade.

Solidago speciosa, showy goldenrod

Ericaeae

Vaccinum macrocarpon, cranberry

This is one of the species available on-site at the plant sale that wasn't listed on LINPI's web site. I already have two of these, one in each bog planter. I bought a 6-pack as an intentional duplicate. I planted 4 in the two bog planters I have. I need to fill in these planters so the squirrels won't keep digging them out. As an experiment, I planted the other two nearby, alongside the garage, where they'll get runoff from the roof and gutter downspout.

Fabaceae

Chamaecrista fasciculata, prairie senna, partridge pea, partridge sensitive-pea
Lespedeza hirta
Lespedeza virginica

Malvaceae

Hibiscus moscheutos, swamp rosemallow
Another obligate wetland species, I planted this by the side of the garage to benefit from runoff from the roof, and to server as a backdrop for this mixed shrub-perennial bed.

Poaceae

Panicum virgatum, switchgrass
Sorghastrum nutans, indian grass
Tridens flavus, purple top

Rosaceae

Rosa carolina, Carolina rose

Rubiaceae

Cephalanthus occidentalis, buttonbush

Related Content

Other blog posts about my native plant garden

Links

Long Island Native Plant Initiative (LINPI) Plant Sale

Place, Purpose, Plants: Urban Gardening with Native Plants

At last night's meeting of the Long Island Botanical Society, I spoke about my experiences gardening with native plants in an urban setting. These slides accompanied my talk.

Related Content

All my blog posts about My Garden

Other Native Plants blog posts, resources, and references

My insect photography on Flickr

Links

Long Island Botanical Society

NYC Wildflower Week

Bennington, J Bret, 2003. New Observations on the Glacial Geomorphology of Long Island from a digital elevation model (DEM) (PDF). Long Island Geologists Conference, Stony Brook, New York, April 2003.

Hempstead Plains, Long Island's Remnant Prairie

Updated 2013-09-05: CORRECTION - The white-flowering plant is Eupatorium hyssopifolium, Hyssop-leaf Throughwort, not E. perfoliatum, Common Boneset, as I misidentified it.

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At a glance - say, highway speed - this may appear to be yet another old-field meadow, biding its time before it transitions into shrubland and eventually forest. This is Hempstead Plains, one of several mature grasslands on Long Island, and the only true prairie east of the Appalachian Mountains.


Hempstead Plains on the grounds of Nassau Community College in East Garden City, Nassau County, NY. The white-flowering plants are Eupatorium hyssopifolium, Hyssop-leaf Throughwort.

On Sunday, August 25, I joined three other native plant lovers for a whirlwind tour of Hempstead Plains. We had only an hour; I could have spent several hours there. For me, this was a pilgrimage. I spent most of my childhood on Long Island.

Winter Storm Watch

A Winter Storm Watch is in effect for Brooklyn and the south shore of Long Island for tomorrow, with the possibility of 6 or more inches of snow:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON [New York] HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY MORNING THROUGH FRIDAY EVENING.

SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD THE REGION FRIDAY MORNING...AND COULD BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES IN THE AFTERNOON. THE SNOW MAY MIX WITH SLEET AND RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON...ESPECIALLY ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE OF LONG ISLAND. THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 OR MORE INCHES.

Gardening Annoyances: "Virtual" Nurseries

Nurseries: Include your postal mailing address on every page of your Web site. At the worst, provide the link to a "Contact Us" page that has this information on every page of your Web site.

I value local sources of plants for several reasons:

• Reduced shipping costs: It costs less to ship something to me from New England than California or Oregon, so it costs less for me to get a plant from local sources. Fuel and transportation costs will continue to increase, so this will become increasingly important.
  
• Greater viability: It takes less time to ship something locally than across country, so the plants I receive from local sources are in better condition.
  
• Suitability: Plants propagated and grown out locally are more likely to already be accustomed to my climate.
  
• Selections: Small, local nurseries are more likely to have small quantities of specialty plants unavailable elsewhere.
  
• Economics: It's more sustainable economically and culturally to support local business when and where I can.
  

Finding out where you are located should not become a treasure hunt. Case in point: Perennial Express, located (I eventually discovered) on Long Island.

Their home page contains no contact information. There's also no obvious link to such information, such as the usual ""Contact Us" or equivalent. It now becomes a "treasure hunt": keep clicking on every available link until you happen to stumble across one that looks like it might lead you to the information you want.

Neither of the links at the bottom of the page - Terms & Conditions, and Shipping Information - provide any information.

Their Catalog page (referred to elsewhere on their site as their "Online Store" - two different ideas, in my mind) tantalizingly, teasingly, provides a "Contact Us" link. However, that link leads to an online form which you can fill out to send a site-generated email. Again, no information about where they might be located.

In fact, nowhere on this site is there any information about how to contact them or where they might be located. Not even the state or area of the country is given anywhere. The only way to find out where they are is to leave their site.

Turns out they have a wholesale operation called The Plantage. There is one link to that buried at the end of their home page. Again, however, there is no obvious link to their contact information, even on their wholesale site.

There are five "fake" links across the top of the home page: Home, Sales, Information, Links, Gardening. "Fake" because they don't link to anything. They're just anchors for drop-down menus of links which only appear when you move your mouse over them.

Through this kind of "out of frustration I wave my mouse around the screen just to see what happens" exploration, I eventually discovered that there is a "Contact Us" link hidden beneath the "Information" anchor. There I found just what I was looking for: mailing addresses, with zip codes and everything.

For anyone who cares at this point, they're located in Mattituck and Cutchogue in far Eastern Long Island, near Orient Point, about 85 miles from where I live. That qualifies as a local source for me. But based on my frustrating experience trying to figure that out, I'm not going turn to them unless and until they can straighten our their retail end of things.