Ever wish it were cheaper and easier to get great plants for your yard?
Us, too! It's our mission to help people enjoy becoming gardeners by making gardening easier and more affordable: the biggest variety of plants at prices anyone can afford, within 5 minutes of your house wherever you live.
Our plant buyers' club will help you get the plants and mulch you want -- from the same sources the pros use -- at almost wholesale prices, without spending hours going from store to store!
How Does The Plant Club Work?
Several times a month during the spring and summer, the Plant Club will collectively make an order from a rotating list of hand-selected wholesale nurseries, providing access to pretty much every type and size of plants. Look at the photos and information on this website and if you want something, let us know. We'll order everything from the grower(s), get the plants and bring them to one of 15 local Chicagoland pickup sites or deliver to your home ($20 for any number of plants we can bring you without special equiment) by the following weekend... You choose!
In comparison to the 100%+ mark-up over wholesale typical at most area nurseries, Plant Club prices pretty much cover our costs... so you don't need to feel bad about ordering as much as you want, trying something new, giving extras to friends -- whatever makes you tick!
We've got everything you might need for your yard: annuals or perennials; small plants in flats or
mature plants in big containers; Hanging baskets or patio pots for your porch.
Long-time stand-bys, Illinois Natives, current favorites, and new introductions; plants for solving those problem areas in your yard, or helping you achieve goals for your yard.
Even deliveries of mulch, compost or dirt.
We're also always trying to find new plants we haven't had before... Here's what's new this week! Plus, we've compiled some resources to help you dream bigger: photos of inspirational landscapes, planters and hanging baskets; a plant color wheel; and a calendar of local plant events.
Getting Hy with Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas are an eternal favorite because they keep your yard looking great all summer long! Their large, showy blooms are beautiful in the garden or in a pitcher of water -- and they make enough to have it both ways! And there are many, many varieties (The Plant Club can frequently get nearly 50 kinds) to choose from.
Here is a round-up of some of the main types available:
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White, lacy, hand-sized blooms adorn this thick and lush climbing vine. The old adage "first they sleep, then they creep, then they leap" definitely applies here; it takes several years for a climbing hydrangea to get established, but once that’s taken care of, Hydrangea anomala will grow quickly and can reach up to 50 (yes, you read that right!) feet tall.
Climbing hydrangeas cling to their building of choice quite vigorously with small rootlets and like sun, but are content with a fair amount of shade.
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"Smooth" or "wild" hydrangeas tend to grow to 4-5 feet high and sport gorgeous profusions of large pompom or lacy blooms, making them a wildly popular choice for privacy plantings, borders, or focal points in the garden. These shrubs grow extremely quickly and can actually be cut back almost all the way to the ground each winter, but don’t require shaping or deadheading during the growing season.
Interestingly, these hydrangeas do not react to the pH in the soil by changing the color of their blooms like many other hydrangea varieties. Smooth hydrangeas always have greenish-white or bright white blooms that fade to a sepia-toned brown by fall and make gorgeous cut fresh or dried flowers.
Common cultivars include 'Incrediball,' 'Annabelle,' 'Invincibelle Wee White,' and 'Invincibelle Limetta.'
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Bigleaf Hydrangeas tend to grow in a rounded manner, and can grow from 3-6 feet tall, with large leaves that are serrated and sort of oval. People love these because of their summer blooms, which last a long time, and can be either “lacecap” – with flattened flower clusters, or “mophead,” with globe shaped flower heads. If you plant this hydrangea in alkaline soil, you’ll get a plant with pink flowers. If you plant it in acid soil (or add acidifier to the soil, which is easy to do – just add a few cups to the soil periodically), you’ll get blue flowers. Tip: If the flower color of newly opened flowers is either blue, purple or pink then you have a Macrophylla type. If the flower buds open a green color, then turn white, and as they age turn green or greenish brown, you have an Arborescens type.
Common cultivars include 'Endless Summer', 'Endless Summer Crush,' and 'Blushing Bride.'
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Panicled Hydrangeas tend to be larger than bigleaf or smooth hydrangea and some can grow to 15 feet tall if you don’t prune them, though there are varieties for every size, including awesome dwarfs like 'Bobo,' and 'Little Lime.' Unlike the flowers of big leaf hydrangea (above), these blooms are not round ball-shaped – but instead, are more cone shaped. The flowers have a distinctive, very different look than the round ones.
Examples of paniculata hydrangeas include 'Lime Light,' 'Quick Fire,' and 'Vanilla Strawberry.'
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Have a shady spot that's just begging for a hydrangea? Oakleaf Hydrangeas are the most shade-tolerant of the bunch. They will bloom even in partial shade, but are often grown predominantly for the interesting foliage for which they are named... oak-leaf-shaped leaves that turn a striking red and purple in fall.
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Here are the Hydrangeas which are available from the Plant Club right now.
Celebrating Pollinators & Native Plants
Every week should be Pollinator Week in our gardens, because birds, bees, butterflies, beetles, moths and flies are critical to our ecosystem. We celebrate pollinators because they make such important contributions to our ecosystem and sustainable food supply. And they are beautiful!
Native plants are key to providing a wildlife friendly garden. Native plants, shrubs, and trees provide nectar and pollen to native bees and other insects that are in severe decline. And they offer food, protection, and housing not only for insects, but also for spiders, birds, amphibians, reptiles, small and large mammals. By adding these pollinator-friendly plants to your garden, you could help create a "pollinator corridor"... a series of yards, open spaces and communities with native plants that connects different areas of habitat. This provides nutrition and homes for pollinators. A common example is milkweed, which is necessary for monarch butterflies as they migrate. Milkweed used to be found commonly along roads and open areas but has been greatly reduced or eliminated over the years.
It's still hard to find native plants. Retail nurseries are organized around selling you the very prettiest blooming things that your impulse-shopping brain can't resist, and natives aren't a very good fit for them. If you're working on a substantial native planting in your yard, you probably need more plants than they've got. In contrast, the Plant Club is a great place to get plants for your native garden. We have access to large quantities of over 100 types of Illinois Natives year round, in flats, trays, and larger pots, so you can get everything you need for your project in one place.
Check out our list of most-ordered natives and some of our very favorites:
More than Just the Background
Take Your Garden to the Next Level with Grasses
Grasses will take your garden to the next level. These plants are among our favorite items for four-season intrigue, and can take the place of other more expensive and typical evergreens in many cases.
Look in any garden design book or go to a botanic garden and you’re sure to see beautiful grasses, in a multitude of heights and colors. It doesn’t matter what season you visit – there’s always ornamental grasses, plumes of grey, taupe, green and even red and purple, setting off the flowers and other greens around them.
Groundcovers Solve All Your Problems
If you choose the right type of groundcover for your garden, it will grow and grow and not require a lot of maintenance. Not many other things in a garden can deliver such a big punch without major effort. But a good groundcover is even better than that! It won't complain if you put it in the shade (where many other plants won't thrive), and it will keep unwanted plants out of the way while giving you a beautiful living carpet where you would otherwise have bare ground.
There are lots of groundcovers to consider! The classics include:
Ajuga reptans (Bugleweed),
Alchemilla mollis (Lady's Mantle),
Pachysandra terminalis,
Vinca minor (the hardy perennial Periwinkle),
and Euonymus fortunei (Wintercreeper)...
But there are plenty of other perennials that will work as groundcovers in quantity. Some of our favorites are:
Sedum (Stonecrop),
Liriope (Lily-turf),
Lamium (Spotted Deadnettle),
Epimedium (Barrenwort),
Phlox subulata (Creeping Phlox),
Thymus serpyllum (Creeping Thyme),
and Galium odoratum (Sweet Woodruff).
Plus, Sedges and Grasses can make great groundcovers in certain situations.
Not to unduly toot our own horn, but the Plant Club is the best way to get groundcovers... Groundcovers aren't the stunning "flavor of the monent" items which draw people into retail nurseries, so nurseries
seldom keep enough quantity or varieties of groundcovers to finish a big project at any one time. The Plant Club has more groundcover varieties than just about anyone. You get plants which haven't been baking in the sun all summer long. And you can almost always save big bucks on a big groundcover project with us!
Mulch Makes You Look Like a Genius
It's always a good time to add mulch and soil to your garden beds.
Mulch is great for your plants. It adds nutrients to the soil, helps it retain moisture (so you don't have to water as often), prevents soil compaction, insulates the soil from hot or cold conditions and suppresses weed growth. It even looks good!
Book a delivery now and our partner, the Mulch Center, will deliver your order to you. Take advantage of our negotiated cubic yard and delivery rates for Club members. Shoot us a note at mulch@northshoreplantclub.com and we can help you place an order.
You just found a better way to get great plants!
Join the club (it's free), and let us help you get the plants you want -- fresh from the nursery -- without all the hassle and expense of retail!
Need Help?
If you need extra help, shoot us a note at help@northshoreplantclub.com and we'll work through situations by email or phone, or share the names of some great teammates who can efficiently and affordably help you plan a new area in your garden, or coach you on how to care for what you have -- a great option for a new homeowner who inherited a garden but isn't quite sure what to do with it, how to expand on it, or how to care for it!
North Shore Plant Club
