This pawpaw, Asimina triloba, is winter-hardy to Zone 5 and has fruits that ripen in fall and taste somewhat like a banana or cantaloupe custard. (Photo coutesy Wendell Smith)
The Knox-Lincoln Soil & Water Conservation District spring plant-sale catalog is now available. This year’s sale will be held at the Union Fairgrounds on the weekend before Mother’s Day, on Saturday, May 6, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and on Sunday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. As always, the sale includes a great selection of bare-root fruit trees and berries for the home orchard and garden; native trees, shrubs, and vines for conservation, wildlife, and landscape enhancement; and native, organic field-grown perennials and herbs in one-gallon pots for the pollinators. Plants are available for preorder through Friday, April 28, and for cash-and-carry on the days of the sale.
This year’s sale includes lots of old favorites and many new plants. For instance, the list offers 10 varieties of apples including traditional, disease-resistant, and dwarf trees, plus two new crabapples for fruit or pollination. New this year are Asian pears as well as seven European pear varieties – and five varieties of peach.
The big news in shrubs is that many of this year’s selections were organically and locally grown by Sharon Turner, of Washington. These plants will be at least a year older and bigger than the regular stock, and although there were not “born” here, they have been growing here for a season or two.
A new seed-mix offering is one called Northeast Showy Native Perennials and Grasses, for upland meadows Until there is a native-meadow seed mix made from Maine seed, this mix from Ernst Conservation Seeds in Pa. will be offered.
In the nonplant category, Bill and Chery Rudy’s Final-Lee Acres and Wandering Goat products will be available for preorder for the first time. Final-Lee Acres makes native-bee nesting blocks, bluebird houses, bat houses, and plant markers from repurposed lumber, and Wandering Goat offers handmade gardener’s goat-milk soap in a dizzying array of “flavors.” Hidden Valley Nature Center’s fantastic picnic tables and benches, all built from white pine sustainably harvested in Jefferson, will also be available.
Go to knox-lincoln.org/spring-plant-sale to download a catalog; call 596-2040 or email hildy@knox-lincoln.org to receive a catalog by USPS; or drop by the district office at 893 West St. in Rockport to pick one up.
