Hello from Sunlight Gardens, your premier
mail order source for wildflowers, ferns, vines, perennials, and shrubs of eastern North America.

We grow hardy, robust plants that will beautify your gardens and support a diversity of wildlife. We can help you succeed in this by providing you with solid information, a great selection, and high quality plants. Our plants grow! And rest assured that all our plants are entirely nursery propagated and are grown with sustainability in mind.

Our web site is secure. You can order on-line or, if you prefer, you can print an order form or use the one in our price list, and send us your order via snail mail. Please fill out the catalog request form if you would like a paper copy. Read and enjoy!

February

The month of February is hard on gardeners because you want to plant, and you want to garden, but it is perhaps still too cold for many of us to put new plants out into the garden. So we study, think, and plan a little more. Then we succumb to our dreams and place orders for those new plants that we can’t live without. For those of you in the south, they can ship now. For northerners, place your orders but keep dreaming. Your time is still a ways off! However, it IS okay to plant dormant “tuberous” or non-fibrous rooted plants now IF you can dig a hole and IF your soil is not very wet. These plants normally are planted very deep and they will make new roots when the soil warms up. They would include trillium, jack in the pulpits, dutchman’s breeches, Virginia bluebells, spring beauty, turk’s cap lily, and wood sorrel. An added benefit is that they will wake up at the right time for YOUR climate, not ours.

This month’s featured plant is Jack-in-the-pulpit, and other early flowering plants. Jack-in-the -pulpit will start waking up in mid-spring. An emerging sprout, like a fat pencil, will gradually rise and unfurl to 2, 3-parted leaves and then reveal the flower, a green and maroon striped “pulpit” with a hood over the preacher, “Jack”. Jacks can range in height between 1 to 3 feet with a spread of about a third of that. The flowers are curious and showy and are a perfect choice for a shady garden with pretty good soil. If plants are successfully pollinated, a fistful of bright red berries will form and stay up all summer. Otherwise, Jack will go dormant by mid summer. Plant some with other spring bloomers that can be planted now, early, and while dormant, such as trillium, bloodroot, and shooting stars.