Useful Plants Nursery - plants for edible landscapes
Upcoming events
Every spring we load up the plants and take them to events around the region. This is a great time to see and purchase our plants without coming out to the nursery. We carry over 200 varieties of plants and can't bring them all, so if you would like us to bring something special for your garden let us know a few days ahead of time.
- April 26-27: Growin' in the Mountains, WNC Farmers Market, Asheville, NC
- May 3-5: Asheville Herb Festival, WNC Farmers Market, Asheville, NC
Useful Plants gift certificates!
Give the gift that keeps giving for years to come. With a UPN gift certificate, your recipient can choose the plants they want when they are ready to plant them.
- Gift certificates can be sent by email as a PDF file and/or through the regular mail in printed form.
- We keep a record of the gift certificates, so they can be used even if the paper is lost.
- Gift certificates never expire.
- Debbie makes each certificate individually, so we can easily put a photo of the plants of your choice, message, or pretty much anything that will make the gift more special.
NAFEX annual meeting coming to Asheville August 8-11
This year the North American Fruit Explorers are holding their annual meeting in Asheville. The meeting will be hosted by Bill Whipple and the Buncombe Fruit and Nut Club. The these is "Honoring our elders" and organized to pass the wealth of fruit knowledge from the elders to the youngers. For an article about the gathering, see this article by Bill Whipple.
Organic Growers School
Thank you to everyone who came to our presentation on Horticultural Strategies for the Home Orchard at the 2013 Organic Growers School! Here are links to PDF files for our slides and handout:
Link to Michael Phillip's Holistic Orchard Network website.
Plant Jam DVD!
Now you can have all of our instructional videos on a DVD! These are the same videos as on our website, but with the DVD you can watch them on a DVD player or on a computer that doesn't have high-speed Internet.
The DVD is only $10 plus $2 to cover sales tax and postage. Order yours here:
The DVD contains:
- Planting a shrub or fruit tree with Chuck Marsh and a Nanking cherry
- Planting a blueberry bush with Chuck Marsh and a blueberry plant
- Pruning young fruit trees with Chuck Marsh and a couple apple trees
- Pruning trees into bushes with Debbie Lienhart and some mulberry trees/shrubs
- Pruning young blueberry bushes with Troy Swift and a blueberry plant
- Pruning mature blueberries
- Pinch pruning with Chuck Marsh and a whole cast of plants
- Pruning muscadine grapes
- Taking care of blackberries with Chuck Marsh in Marjorie's blackberry patch
- A shorter version of taking care of blackberries with Chuck
- Taking care of blackberries (follow up)
- Tuck your figs in for the winter with Chuck Marsh and a couple fig trees
- Winter protection for small figs with Chuck Marsh and some smaller fig plants
- Untucking figs after winter - see which protection methods worked the best
Plant deliveries to Asheville
We deliver plants once a week, usually on Wednesdays.
Custom deliveries are available. The delivery charge is based on the distance from our nursery near Black Mountain, subject to minimum order size. Organize a group order and share the delivery charge! See our delivery section for details. Call (828) 669-6517 to schedule a delivery.
Subscribe to the Useful Plants newsletter!
Our newsletter is a great source of information about useful plants, their incorporation into landscapes, and what we are doing to make the world a more abundant place to inhabit. Thanks for reading!
-- Chuck Marsh, nurseryperson, permaculture designer, bioregional inhabitant