For people new to the plant world, it’s good to know that nurseries serve really different purposes.
A lot of nursery businesses are focused primarily on supplying landscapers and homeowners to plant the same set of ornamental plants seen almost everywhere.
While no plants are useless, these ornamental nurseries tend to be almost shockingly consistent in the lack of edible or medicinal qualities. In addition to that, they’re often copyrighted / patented varieties (…though I don’t think plants recognize intellectual property).
These nurseries, if they do have fruit trees, will often sell varieties that struggle in our area without frequent application of poison. When a client tells me they bought an apple tree from Home Depot, my heart drops a little, knowing they’re going to be in for a challenge to grow it in our region.
The good news is that we now have a good group of nurseries in the Southeast that are focused on the edible, medicinal, and support plants that Permaculture works with.
Since these can be a little harder to find, I’m sharing this list of nurseries in NC and VA that have the plants you’re likely to want for your food forest and Permaculture garden.
Are you a NC or VA nursery with Food Forest / Permaculture plants and would like to be listed here? Contact Us.
Bare Root vs Potted Plants
In this list, we distinguish between bare root and potted plants. Both have a place. Potted plants tend to be much more common and have a longer seasonal window of availability. I work with them regularly for those reasons and they do fine – yet, if I have access to bare root, that’s often what I prefer for trees and shrubs.
Bare root trees can only be dug up and shipped during the dormant season, which is usually November through March. Here’s Akiva Silver’s excellent writing about the advantages of bare roots. Don’t sweat it if you can’t get bare roots, as many successful food forests have come entirely from plants in pots.
Visiting a Nursery
Most of the nurseries listed below are not available for unscheduled visits. I’d recommend checking their website to know how to best work with them. It’s often best to contact the nursery in advance, as some require advance orders and website inventories are often not up-to-date.
Many nurseries that are closed to the public (and some that aren’t) will have open days each year, which can often have a celebratory vibe. Edible Landscaping has Paw Paw and Persimmon festivals that include discounts on their plants.
My Go-To Sources
Fruit Trees and Shrubs: I tend to get a lot of my food forest trees and shrubs from Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA. The delivery fee isn’t outrageous if you’re in NC and if you want to pick them up, the drive is a nice one! The support they offer for selecting trees is thorough and comes from decades of experience doing this in the Southeast. For a while, they were the only game in town.
… with that said, give the nurseries near you some love, too! I’ve listed some NC and VA nurseries below that bring their own expertise and locally adapted selections.
Bare Roots: I haven’t worked with Living Tree Soil Farm yet, but I’m intrigued by their bare root selection. For my own bare root projects, I’ve had great luck with Feralwood Nursery out of Cleveland County, NC.
Restoration / Native Plants in Bulk: Mellow Marsh Farm in Siler City, NC has consistently been my favorite source when I want a lot of native plants for restoration at an affordable price. They have bare roots available some of the year. Though they’re not focused on human food, many of the plants are edible and medicinal. See below about them – they’re a wholesale nursery, so they operate a little differently.
North Carolina Piedmont Nurseries
Bare Root Plants
- Living Soil Tree Farm – Cedar Grove, NC – focus on natives – lots of helpful Permaculture plants! I haven’t worked with them yet, but it seems like they’re coming from a good place and I’d recommend checking them out.
Plants in Pots
- Nurtured by Nature Growers – Triangle Farmers’ Markets and Morrisville, NC – local selection of dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees, as well as some helpful natives that feed the bees. They can be found at the farmers’ markets in March-November at Cary, Holly Springs, and Carrboro. They can also be visited at their Morrisville location by appointment. Check them out!
- Rabbit Ridge Berry Farm – Coats, NC – established nursery in eastern NC specializing in berry plants and fruit trees. They’ve got good hours and are open to the public. Includes a “Pick Your Own” berry farm. Give them a visit!
- Plant Delights Nursery – Raleigh, NC – not really for fruit trees so much as herbaceous perennials for the understory. Mostly ships online but there are 8 weekends a year where their rare plant gardens are open to everyone. Seems worth the visit! They have an unparalleled selection of rare and native plants. They could be a good local source to track down rare medicinals and other perennial plants and to add some wild variety to your permaculture gardens.
Bare Root and Potted
- Mellow Marsh Farm – Siler City, NC – $100 minimum, wholesale prices, native only, wetland specialty. No walk-ins without ordering in advance, so order online or by phone to pickup. This is my favorite source when I want a whole lot of native plants at a good price.
North Carolina Mountain Nurseries
Bare Root Plants
- Feralwood Nursery – Cleveland County, NC – A favorite for bare root and nut trees including Chestnuts. I really appreciate their mission as well.
- Mountain Gardens – Burnsville, NC – Legendary source of medicinal plants. They sell bare roots of many of the most valuable Southeast medicinal plants we can grow. Deep educational resource as well. They can ship plants on request.
Plants in Pots
- Useful Plants Nursery – Black Mountain, NC – I worked here briefly! Old school Permaculture nursery in Earthaven Ecovillage with, like the name says, Useful Plants. They deliver within 4 hours of their spot and are open to visits as well. If you can arrange it, get a tour of Earthaven, too!
North Carolina Coastal Nurseries
Not aware of any with food forest plants yet, but I’d bet there are some… let me know!
Virginia Mountain Nurseries
- Edible Landscaping – Afton, VA – this is my main source for fruit trees. They’ve been doing this for decades and offer great guidance with the purchase of their plants. Their sweet mountain nursery is worth a visit as well! They ship to NC no problem and picking up an order is an option as well.
- Silver Run Forest Farm – Shenandoah Valley, VA – Bare root nursery with a strong commitment to agroforestry in all its ecological and social dimensions. They do ship and you can contact them about a visit.
- Wood Thrush Native Nursery – Floyd, VA – Native plant nursery for Southwest Virginia. Deep selection of VA and NC natives. I’m particularly excited about their selection of local medicinals. They do have visiting hours.
Online Permaculture Nurseries and Plant Sources
- Strictly Medicinals – Williams, OR – Though these folks are West Coast, I can’t get away from picking up seeds and plants from them sometimes thanks to their deep selection and experienced growing advice. I’ve had amazing luck with their medicinal seeds and would also work with them for rhizomes and cuttings of plants that may be hard to propagate otherwise. True learning resource.
- Raintree Nursery – Morton, WA – big old nursery out in Washington with maybe the biggest selection of fruit tree varieties I’ve found. They do bare roots and plants in pots. Good to go to if you can’t find anything local.
The best online resource I’ve found so far for permaculture plants is a list maintained by Edible Acres of Trumansburg, NY.
First, I’d recommend checking out Edible Acres’s own permaculture plant nursery here. Edible Acres includes bare roots of favorite permaculture plants which is one of the most resilient and affordable ways to grow out perennial planting systems.
Then, check out Edible Acres’s amazing list of permaculture nurseries. It’s a treasure.
If none of those work, try Etsy. Really. I have found very interesting plants and seeds there!
And of course, if you want help with a food forest design or selecting and planting any of these plants, contact us 🙂