I posted this in the Garden Events, but also wanted to bring attention to it in our local forum. This is an annual sale held at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, February 11 from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm. You can pre-order online at www.theplantsale.org and then just go pick up your plants which I believe will be boxed up. The plants are small seedlings, mostly bundled in groups of 3 or 5, although some are sold individually. You can also volunteer to help bundle, sort, and pot plants. Volunteers working 4 hours or more are rewarded with native plants, some only available to the volunteers. Incorporating native plants into your landscape is beneficial to our insects, birds, and small mammals.

Thanks for posting that, Deb. My sister would be interested in that as she lives nearby and loves her garden.

It's a pretty bare bones event - folding tables with bunched seedlings. Tell her to bring a box or wheelbarrow if she goes. I may try to pre-order this year as we may or may not be in town on the day of sale (I can have my son pick up for me).

I went last year to pick up some plants my sister had ordered for her new yard. What great deals. Seriously bare bones event, and most plants are bare root in a bundle. But most are 5 plants for $8 and about 98% survived. I think I might get a bunch of bunchberry this year. They are 3 for $8 which is about 1/3 of usual price. Getting them so early is wise around here, if you wait till late spring they need way more water and babysitting. It looks like the most expensive plant they have this year is Trillium. Still just $10 each. Maybe I will get one of those too.
If you go just know they are tucked away in a side building, a bit hard to find but once you know where it is you can park close.

Thanks, guys!

I sent in my order! I had added 1 Trillium and was going to take it out before placing the order. I do that with mail order...the "original" order is $2,000 but by time it's actually placed, it's $50-$100. Anyway, I forgot to take it out of the cart. Oops!

My neighbor is into xeriscaping and clearing the underbrush. She likes the scorched earth look. She owns .5 acres and has now cleared an additional 2.5 acres into the commonly owned area. (I don't have a way to stop her.) She goes around her yard and this outlying area every few weeks with a huge backpack device of RoundUp, spraying the life out of everything.

It really bothers me, so I am using this plant sale to buy native plants to add a big native area to our .75 acres. I can't undo what she has done, but maybe I can make something that some little critters can live in/eat/whatever. I got Acer circinatum, Betula papyrifera, Prunus emarginata, Amelanchier alnifolia, Symphocarpus albus, Philadelphus lewisii, Vaccinium deliciosum (Cascade Huckleberry; I don't have experience with it and will keep you posted if desired), Mahonia aquifolium, Arbutus menziesii, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Iris tenax, Penstemon serrulatus (crossing fingers; I never have success with Penstemon), Echinacea purpurea, and Aquilegia formosa. Oh yes, and the Trillium ovatum.

69 plants for $128 including tax. A seriously good deal. They will be small but very healthy.

I am not convinced that the Echinacea is native but it's on their list.

The Mahonia is to make a prickly hedge between our place and this neighbor's. I got 7 of them, and I am thinking maybe I should get more.

I also bought a "pollinator packet" of seed to spread. It will go on the other side our yard and into another common area. I hope to fill in some bare ground and have it be far enough away from her yard that I can lure insects and birds and whatnot to an area without RoundUp. I know it's supposed to be safe, but I stopped believing what major corporations say a long time ago. Here's what's in the seed packet:
Pearly Everlasting, Puget Sound Gumweed, Pink Nodding Onion, Butterfly Milkweed, Blue Wildrye,
Barestem Biscuitroot, Big leaf Lupine, Oregon Sunshine, Roemer’s Fescue, Western White Yarrow, Camas, Douglas Aster, Shaggy Fleabane, Western Bleeding Heart, Tufted Hairgrass, Self Heal, Purple Coneflower, California Oatgrass, Alfalfa, Farewell to Spring, and Native Red Fescue.

Great! I will bring my shovel and we will get all this planted!
I agree they may be getting a bit creative by calling Echinacea purpurea a native-I just looked it up and here is a link with a range map:

http://plants.usda.gov/core/pr...

HA! Too funny! Echinacea's closest native state is Colorado. That's a hoot.
I won't call them on it, though, since it's really pretty.

I would love to have your help and do a planting frenzy once the plants are here! Thanks!

I'd be happy to join you ladies!

Oh that would be fun!

Deb, that'd be awesome fun! Thanks for the offer! I'll be in contact closer to the date of the sale with some idea of good dates for planting. Surely there will be nice day in there somewhere!
The soil here is awful. The topsoil was removed, leaving hard pan clay embedded with an unbelievable number of rocks. Also, we had to dig out a hill to make a back yard and get the drainage better, and the dirt that was removed became a mountain and was then spread out. This is where a lot of these plants will go. So, the dirt now at the surface used to be buried way down below and has no organic matter. I don't know the rock content of the dirt spread from the excavated hill. I might bring in a load of good dirt to put on top. The seeds will do well that way. I do worry, though, that the bigger things like shrubs and trees will keep their roots in the good soil and never branch out into the bad soil. Maybe it should be good soil for the seeds and perennials, and put the bigger plants into the bad soil???
Now that I have scared you off, just to let you know, if it turns out to be truly no fun to do this, we will stop and I will hire some local folks who are landscapers to help dig the holes. I really don't want to torture us!! But the good news is that these plants are so small that the holes we dig will also be super small. It's not like we are planting gallon pots (or balled and burlapped trees) from nursery plants.

I started a thread called "Starting from scratch" in the Landscape Design forum that shows the work we are doing, just in case anybody is interested.
I will go out later and take pics of where the "native area" will be.

I think it might not be so hard to dig the holes, after all this soil was stirred around by the bulldozers, so it may not be compacted into solidity. It might be easy.