Deerfield Plant ClubPlant Club Calendar
At North Shore Plant Club, we deliver plants every couple of weeks from April through October. Each order has a slightly different "cast" of nurseries, including some local favorites from whom we order nearly every time (so you'll almost always find over 1000 types of plants including all the standard stuff) in addition to a rotating cast of guest nurseries which offer other seasonally appropriate or unique plants. From week to week, we might have nurseries specializing in native plants, spring or fall annuals, groundcovers, trees, and more.
We save energy and money by only opening for a few days at a time. We figure out what plants are available, invite club members to choose (usually Thursday to Sunday) what they want, tally up the purchases, and make arrangements with the nurseries. The plants come the following week, we sort them out, get them to you, and we get the site going again for another round of plant goodness!
We created the calendar below to give club members a sense of what we are planning to order (and when!) this year. Things may change based on nursery availability, growing conditions, and our fickle nature. But hopefully this will help you think ahead about when those unusual plants you want might be available.
We look forward to helping you make your garden great!
Order 6/22/23 - 6/25/23 Perennials are in fashion this month – they’ll love the warm days and nights and you can nearly watch them grow before your eyes. It’s also a super time to plant grasses – these garden workhorses look good in any season, and if given a chance to take root now will deliver a wonderful show for a long, long time. Receive by June 30. |
Order 7/6/23 - 7/9/23 You can always choose from the hundreds of favorite perennials for your Midwest garden … but this week we’ll also feature some special, beyond the basics plants as well as some lesser used, but super cool, perennials. Take a look at the offerings and use this sale to try some new plants you may have never seen before, all at great prices. Receive by July 14. |
Order 7/20/23 - 7/23/23 Perennials – they’re in great shape right now – bigger due to special care at the nurseries – so you’ll love adding them to your garden at this point in the summer and can really relish the blooms they’ll deliver. Hydrangea are coming into their finest hours, with many more weeks of blooms to follow. Receive by July 28. |
Order 8/3/23 - 8/6/23 Are there some holes in your garden? A few things that you’d like to tweak? Add some amazing perennials now and enjoy them this year and for years to come. Receive by August 11. |
Order 8/17/23 - 8/20/23 Beat the rush at retail nurseries this fall and instead, choose all your favorite fall annuals now – then just relax and plant them when they arrive at the right time. Mums, cabbage, kale in fantastic sizes and colors are readily available when pre-ordered; but scarce if you wait to shop retail in late September. Receive in September. |
Order 8/24/23 - 8/27/23 Fall is a super time to plant perennials, enjoy them right now, AND give your 2024 spring garden a huge head start. Add a few now, and also reserve some of the wonderful fall annuals being offered by a few of our specialty nurseries. They’ll arrive right in time to refresh your containers, too! Receive by September 1. |
Order 9/7/23 - 9/10/23 Sort of a motherlode of gardening moments – pick from a great assortment of perennials, fall annuals like mums, cabbage and kale, and even pick a few trees from our special tree nursery order. We only offer trees twice a year, so this is it for the season, and the prices are terrific. Receive by September 15. |
Order 9/21/23 - 9/24/23 This is still a wonderful time to add perennials to your garden and the ground is soft and the evenings a bit cooler, so they’ll adapt quickly. We’ll also offer as many fall annuals as we can from our nursery partners. Receive by September 29. |
Order 9/28/23 - 10/1/23 Perennials are still available from our favorite nurseries, and we love planting them at this time of year since it gives the garden a great fresh look AND a head start on next year. Plus, the nurseries often offer even better pricing, so it’s a great time to grab more plants! Receive by October 6. |
What Is The Best Time To Buy Plants?
The best time to buy plants depends on a few things: the kinds of plants you're looking for, when they're most available from the nurseries, the weather, and when you have time to put them into the ground.
Replanting is stressful for plants, so it tends to be easier (on you and them) when the weather is not exceptionally hot and dry. Container-grown perennials can be successfully added at any time as long as you get them into the ground quickly and water them regularly until they are established, but September, October, May and June are the best months to plant most container-grown perennials. Those months also tend to be nice for working in the garden!
Kind of Plants |
When They're Most Available... |
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Annuals (or tender perennials grown as annuals) are used to fill in temporary gaps in the landscape early and late in the season and for fantastic color in the heat of the summer. Some annuals (like Pansies) are quite cold-tolerant and can be planted in April in Chicagoland. Others are tropical and tender, and shouldn't go in the ground until the weather is warmer. |
The best time to reserve a great selection of spring annuals is not when you'd think... It's actually while the nurseries are still growing them in greenhouses in mid to late winter. At that time, the plant club can pre-order over a thousand varieties! In May, when everyone is thinking about annuals, those plants have already moved to retail nurseries, so what we can get direct from wholesale nurseries is more limited. Similarly, there are more choices of mums and fall annuals in August.
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Perennials are longer-term investments that will make your yard look nice for years to come. |
As a group, perennials are at peak availability to the club between May and October. During those months, we'll be making orders from many perennial nurseries a couple of times a month, and there might be nearly 2000 types of perennials available in sizes ranging from big to small! You don't have to buy perennials while they're blooming (they'll get around to it soon enough), but since garden centers make more money selling plants with beautiful flowers, availability from the wholesale nurseries with whom we work peaks just before a plant's typical bloom period. |
