We are pleased to present Blue Moon Farm’s plant list for the 2013 season. Check out our extensive list of perennials, including some exciting newcomers as well as old favorites. Blue Moon Farm offers a large selection of native plants, ornamental grasses, hostas, daylilies, David Austin roses and much more, in a wide variety of pot sizes, from two quart to 5 gallons.

Check out our complete list here, and start making plans for your season!

Perennials under winter cover

Winter is thoroughly upon us as I write this. With snow on the ground and overnight temperatures well below freezing, it’s hard to think about plants. As with everything else, this too shall pass, and before you know it snowdrops will be flowering followed by crocus, daffodils and tulips.

As the 2012 season came to a close, we busied ourselves with winter preparations which included overwintering all our potted perennials. We push them all together in large blocks, then cover them with thermal cloth and seal them with white poly plastic. This process protects them from high and low temperature spikes and keeps them dormant until early spring when we uncover them. With our roses and shrubs, we push them together in groups and cover them with wood chips. Preparation for next season also includes getting together all of our plant orders for 2013. Expect lots of new varieties of perennials as well as all of our usual diverse selection.

Roses protected with wood chips

This spring we will have a plant list available on-line which we will update regularly. We are very excited about this, as it’s been a couple of years since we’ve had a truly updated plant list. We look forward to seeing you this season, we are excited that it will be a great one. Please be sure to sign up for  our newsletter and “like” us on Facebook so you can keep up with deals, recent pictures, and other information.

In the meantime, think warm thoughts and spring flowers!

“The Rhody Native initiative supports the economy and the environment by supplying Rhode Islanders with locally sourced, locally grown native plants.”
–from The Rhode Island Natural History Survey

Blue Moon Farm is proud to carry Rhody Natives, and we also grow many of them from the seeds provided by this program.  We are proud to be a member of this select group of nurseries in the state! Here is a list of plants that were available for sale last season. Look for an expanded selection in 2013. Read more about the Rhody Native Program and The Rhode Island Natural History Survey here.

Vernonia (Ironweed)

Aster divaricatus (white wood aster)
Baccharis halimifolia (groundsel tree)
Baptesia tinctoria (wild indigo)
Chelone glabra (white turtlehead)
Eupatorium pupureum (joe pye weed)
Euthamia tenuifolia (grass-leaved goldenrod)
Pycnanthemum muticum (mountain mint)
Solidago nemoralis var. nemoralis (gray goldenrod)
Solidago odora (licorice goldenrod)
Solidago sempervirens (seaside goldenrod)
Spirea latifolia (meadowsweet)
Spirea tomentosa (steeplebush)
Vernonia noveboracensis (New York ironweed)

Opening late March/early April, conditions permitting. Watch this space or check our Facebook page for details.
Monday through Friday: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Sunday: closed (or by appointment)
Specializing in quality container-grown perennials, grasses, ferns, and native plants. Are you looking for unusual or underused plants to accent your collection? We have lots of these, plus reliable stock plants for tough sites that won’t require a lot of fuss after planting.
Stop by soon! Fulfill your plant ‘wish list’ at Blue Moon Farm.

Blue Moon Farm’s 2012 plant list is in the works. Many new native plants will be available along with the perennials you’ve grown to love and depend on over the years. Look forward to seeing our line of “Rhody Natives”–locally grown plants from locally sourced seeds! This year’s plant list will be online in a few short weeks. In the meantime, feel free to take a look at last year’s list.
Download the .pdf file by clicking here.

Our first shipment of plants will arrive the first week of March and they will be potted up and nurtured in the greenhouse until the weather warms to the point where we can put them outside. Successive shipments will follow–we look forward to many new varieties and all the old favorites. Feel free to stop by and say ‘hi’ while we’re in the greenhouse potting up. We’ll let you know when it looks like we’ll be up and running for the season, but it’s usually towards the end of March. It really is all up to Mother Nature!

Many people ask us what we do with all the plants over the winter. There are many ways to overwinter containerized perennials and Roses. With our perennials we use the “sandwich method “. We first push all the cutback plants pot to pot to minimize airspace. Once this is done we lay an insulating cloth over the whole block. The cloth is then covered with white plastic poly and tucked under. Then we weigh down all the edges with boards, pallets , and cinder blocks, sealing off the whole block from the air. This helps prevent temperature spikes (both hot and cold) which helps the plants survive. We’ve had great success with this method and will continue using it. Timing is everything, we have to wait for a hard freeze to put the plants in their dormant state, and then uncover before it gets too warm.

As for the roses, we push them pot to pot and pile wood chips over the top to cover the pot and the crown. This prevents the freezing and thawing, which can be deadly for containerized roses. And for the humans involved, we do enjoy a slower pace, but much work is done ordering plants and supplies, cleaning the greenhouse, hiring, and planning for the upcoming season. It’s amazing how quickly it all goes by.