Using native plants is one of the best ways to support wildlife and ecosystem health. We hope that you will use this plant to add beauty and ecological value to a place that is meaningful in your life. We sell a limited variety of high-quality native plants on site at our check-in desks. Plants come in a 4.5-inch pot and cost $6 each. The plants will be available to visitors and students on any day the gardens are open, while supplies last.

These plants will be sold where tickets are, including at the front desk in the Main House and at the ticket tent in the guest parking lot. There will be limit of one tray per person. Guests may purchase plants without visiting the gardens or paying admission. Mt. Cuba Center Members will receive one plant when they purchase an Engage level membership. Three varieties of plants will be available in the spring and three more in the fall.

We are offering these plants in response to guest requests, and because our Master Plan-guided upgrades to our greenhouse complex have reduced our capacity to grow our giveaway plants of past years.

Your choices matter. We can steward the earth and effect positive change through the choices we make at home and in our communities, beginning with our yards, containers, and balconies. Congratulations on adding native plants to your landcape! Find out more about each plant and its growing conditions at the links below. Still have questions? Email info@mtcubacenter.org for more information about our plants and their care.

Coreopsis palustris ‘Summer Sunshine’ was a consistently impressive cultivar year after year in our Trial Garden. ‘Summer Sunshine’ is one of the few coreopsis that blooms in the fall – its golden flowers with dark cones last about six weeks during September and October. ‘Summer Sunshine’ not only has an amazing fall floral display, but the plant has a dense and sturdy habit as well as disease resistant foliage. Because it is such a late bloomer, ‘Summer Sunshine’ serves as an important late-season food source for pollinators. It should be noted that we trialed two versions of Coreopsis palustris, and ‘Summer Sunshine’ was a far superior clone in terms of habit and disease resistance.

‘Lady in Black’ is an elegant 3-4′ mound of purplish-black strappy leaves smothered in red-centered tiny white daisies in late summer and early fall. A strong, statuesque plant that will thrive in average soil in sun or part shade, but shows best foliage coloration in full sun. Thousands of flowers per plant – a butterfly’s dream.