Bare Root Plants for Sale
Thank you for your interest and happy growing!
PLEASE READ: If you are local or regional to the Finger Lakes area (able to pick up in person), feel free to reach out to hello@edibleacres.org with a clear wish list of plants and we will work to arrange a pickup.
We update our inventory on March 1st for Spring bare root sales and September 1st for Fall bare root sales. If you are visiting this page and see everything as sold out, please make a note in your calendar to revisit at our next ‘opening’ and pick up some lovely plants!
Our Fall offerings tend to have higher numbers of trees, shrubs, cuttings and a medley of our abundant and fall appropriate herbaceous perennials. Spring offerings will generally have more herbaceous perennials, grasses, etc and a smaller number of trees and shrubs. We weight our inventory in large part based on seasonal appropriateness for establishment. We hope you understand and visit again if you don’t find what you are looking for this time.
If you are super eager to get plants now, we now have a Permaculture Nursery page that lists friends of ours with ethical and thoughtful growing practices. We strongly encourage you to check them out and get some awesome plants from them too!
TIP: Use the tags above to help filter our offerings by characteristic (ie. click on ‘fruit’ to find any fruit bearing plants we offer, etc.) As we add more and more it is a helpful way to find a plant to fit your goals…
Switchgrass
Switchgrass
Panicum Virgatum
Switchgrass is a plant that we are just beginning to really understand working with. Our good friends at Silver Run Forest Farm set us up with plugs a few years ago and they have expanded incredibly easily through divisions each spring. We are now excited to offer packs of ‘rootlets’ which are easily plantable and established and can be divided and expanded after only one or two years of growing!
This beautiful native perennial grass seems to grow best with warmer summers. Our best growing season so far has been 2022 which was marked with heat and dry weather. They seem to enjoy full sun but we’ve read they are comfortable with partial shade and various contexts (our kind of plant!)
Their extremely fibrous and adaptive roots go deep into most any soil, providing a great carbon sink and breaking up dense clay soils, their beautiful grassy tops can be harvested as renewable bedding for animals (we can’t wait to use it for our chicken friends!), the small seeds are a favorite of a wide range of wild animals as well. A great ally all the way around.
We have never tried growing this plant from seed but that is a common propagation method, so please be aware that they may spread and expand!
Size:
Switchgrass has been described as able to reach 8’ or taller, but our plantings have never exceeded roughly 4’ tall
Site Preference:
Seems to prefer full sun and can tolerate a very wide range of soil conditions
Hardiness:
zones 3-9
Your rootlet pack provides you with a number of small divisions ready to plant. Taken care of in year one, each rootlet can grow a number of grass stems in their first year and be a small patch in year two onward. A very fast and cost effective way to get these plants growing!
