Whether on your balcony, in your window box or backyard, plant what grows here.
As spring arrives in Southeastern North Carolina, our senses wake up to a kaleidoscope of colors, scents, tastes and textures in fields and greenhouses: We can see a blue spike of false indigo sitting next to feathery leaves floating from chamomile, or a silver mist hanging on leaves of white sage.
Native plant nurseries in the tri-county area offer landscapers and homeowners plants to increase biodiversity, build healthy soils and create gorgeous outdoor spaces. Grasses, trees, shrubs and plants add up to sustainable and beautiful gardens, complemented by herbs and other plants from local farmers markets and garden centers.
Last year, the environmental benefits of native plants were recognized in an executive order encouraging native plantings on state-owned properties. This year, state parks and historical sites will bloom with more native plants as coordinated by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
To make it easier for you, here are three local sources for native plants and culinary herbs:
- Green Drop Farms in Pender County
- Shelton Herb Farm in Brunswick
- Five Oaks / Blooms & Branches Garden Center in Wilmington.
“We believe we are borrowing the land from our future generations,” says Casey Glover, owner of Green Drop Farms. “We have the desire to leave it better than we found it. To do that we use sustainable and regenerative agriculture to focus on best practices for soil health, water quality, nutrient inputs, conservation of land and even wildlife habitat.”
Green Drop Farms lies off Highway 17 near Surf City, just a few miles north of the Hampstead Farmers Market. Glover and her farmer friends organized the market in 2023 at Ironclad Golf and Beer Garden. There she sells hand-crafted, small-batch medicinal and coastal native plants on Thursday evenings; she’s at the Wilmington Farmers Market at Tidal Creek on Saturdays. Her booth features rare blue flowering plants such as false indigo, phlox and showy swamp rose mallow. She also offers border shrubs including strawberry bush, southern arrowwood viburnum and buttonbush.
Find Casey at the Hampstead Farmers Market on Thursday afternoon and The Wilmington Farmers Market on Saturday Mornings.
Margaret Shelton at Shelton Herb Farm offers 14 varieties of mint for the perfect julep, along with native mountain mints and other culinary herbs. She grows numerous native plants including swamp milkweed, ferns, wild columbine, American beautyberry, black-eyed Susan, and blanket flower. Edible flowers, vegetable plants and native pollinator plants share the 7,000-square-foot sales yard with blueberry bushes and on-site-cultivated small citrus trees. Chefs and caterers stop by for their herbs as well as the flowers.
The production greenhouse is filled with the fragrance of citrus blossoms from plants grown by grafting lemon and orange trees onto Flying Dragon, a disease-resistant dwarf citrus rootstock. Additional greenhouses house seedlings and ferns among the 16 total structures on site.
Shelton and staff can be found cultivating and caring for the plants, while chickens roam free amid the growing fennel, dill, turmeric and snapdragons. Bella, the farm dog, greets visitors. As well as plants, the stand on the property offers fresh eggs.
Shelton Herb Farm retails year-round on Mondays through Fridays at 340 Goodman Rd. in Leland.
Five Oaks Nursery and Tree Farm grows trees, shrubs and plants on their 50-acre tree farm in Burgaw for homeowners and landscapers who seek hearty, healthy plants that will contribute to the biodiversity of our region. In recent years, customers are requesting more and more native plants, says Destinee Ramseur, who works at Blooms & Branches Garden Center in Wilmington, where Five Oaks also sells their plants.
Native trees available are oaks, elms, tulip poplars, river birch and redbud. Native bushes include dwarf palmetto, yaupon holly, wax myrtle, American beautyberry, hydrangeas and five kinds of azaleas. Popular flowers include coneflower, bee balm, rudbeckia, salvia and blanket flower.
Five Oaks Nursery and Tree Farm is at 2120 Old Winter Park Rd. in Wilmington.
Blooms & Branches Garden Center is at 5523 Oleander Ave. in Wilmington.
